Category: issues

Adam Gopnik: “A law is something that exacts an announced cost for being broken. A norm is something that is so much a part of the social landscape that you wouldn’t think, really, that anyone could break it.” Until, of course, people do.

“Nine out of 10 Cubans lack access to a mobile phone, and Internet connections are slow and subject to government censorship. State-run Internet cafes in the country charge $4.50 an hour for online access, a huge sum where the average monthly salary is about $20. Broadband Internet connections in Cuban homes are virtually unheard of.”

“The assault on ‘idolatrous’ images in England had begun in earnest a century earlier with the Protestant Reformation. One thing you didn’t see in Wolf Hall were the sledgehammer gangs unleashed by Thomas Cromwell during the dissolution of the monasteries. … It has been estimated that by the time this state iconoclasm ended, with Edward’s death in 1553, England had lost as much as 90 per cent of its Christian art.”

“While the prototype won’t be on sale anytime soon, the company thinks there’s a clear need for something like this, especially as facial recognition technology improves.”

Stephen Greenblatt: “If I went to the Iranian Shakespeare Congress, it would not be with the pretense that our situations were comparable or that our underlying values and beliefs were identical. Sharing an interest in Shakespeare counts for something, as a warm and encouraging phone call from the principal organizer amply demonstrated, but it does not magically erase all differences.”

“A large cloud of black smoke can be seen billowing across Clapham. The fire is believed to have started in the roof of the Grade II listed building, which houses a theatre. There are no reports of any injuries.”

“Whatever could Charlie Brown and Charlie Hebdo have to do with each other? What could link Charles Schulz, the very definition of a cartoonist who hated provocation, with a publication whose very mission was to offend? And what could the editors of Charlie Hebdo, known for being bête et méchant (stupid and mean), ever have seen in Peanuts?”

“The report compiled figures on jobs and pay from 2013 for a dozen creative industries that include not just arts and entertainment but also advertising, publishing and three manufacturing and product sales fields: fashion, furniture and toys. Thus defined, the report said, creative sector payrolls accounted for 406,900 jobs in L.A. and Orange counties in 2013 — 12.5% of the region’s economy as a whole.”

“The digital revolution, which has brought boundless access to information and entertainment choices, has somehow only enhanced the lowest common denominators—LOL cat videos and the Kardashians. Instead of educating themselves via the Internet, most people simply use it to validate what they already suspect, wish or believe to be true.”

Most museum directors are wary about criticising government, which funds them, but David Anderson, the director general of National Museum Wales (funded by the Welsh government) and the outgoing president of the Museums Association, says it is time to speak out.