“Following one of the most intense – and bizarre – lobbying battles in the history of modern Washington politics, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed strict new rules that give the body its greatest power over the cable industry since the Internet went mainstream.” Said the FCC chairman, “This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech.”
Category: issues
The New Net-Neutrality Policy, In Three Simple Phrases
“There are three major principles that Internet-service providers – like Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon – have to follow when sending data from their networks to your computer:”
Who Should Decide How Students Learn About America’s Past?
“This school year, the fury is over the new U.S. History Advanced Placement course – in particular, whether its perspective is overly cynical about the country’s past. The controversy raises significant questions about the role of revisionism in education: How should students learn about oppression and exploitation alongside the great achievements of their country? And who decides which events become part of the national narrative as more information comes to light?”
These Artists Promote Cultural Understanding (But Not If They Can’t Get Visas)
“In a time when cultural understanding is more critical than ever before, it’s become an uphill battle for artists from Islamic countries to obtain permission to travel to the United States.”
Non-Profits Versus For-Profits – The Lines Are Blurring
“All organizations – not just nonprofits – are now in the business of promoting “social good” in order to gain support… If your organization imagines one of its key differentiators to be its social responsibility, well, then your thinking may be at complete odds with the way the market perceives and evaluates all organizations (i.e. nonprofits and for-profits alike).”
Results: Arts Rank Low In Survey Of Essential Skills Students Need
“Despite decades of work citing and arguing the value and benefit of the Arts as a core subject important to the education of our children, despite substantial research on that importance, despite the flourishing of hundreds, if not thousands, of exemplary programs across the country, and despite all our efforts, the public seemingly STILL thinks of the arts (at least as important in education) as a frill, a luxury.”
The Arts Are Always Talking About Being Inclusive. And Yet Hypocrisy Is Rampant
“In the face of such bleak statistics, it’s time for us to ask why the industries with some of the loftiest ideals and the most vocal commitments to progressivism still far so far short of reasonable expectations.”
Oops. Hackers Buy Up First Batch Of “Burning Man” Tickets
“They figured out there was a problem when passes went on sale last week. Some 80,000 people tried to buy $390 tickets to the massive, free-for-all festival in a remote dry lake bed in the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada in late August. But only the first 20,000 people who clicked were guaranteed a pair of tickets.”
Why Can’t Art Just Be Art?
“Cultural institutions once saw it as their priority to cultivate, preserve and display the best of the arts. Their unique contribution was to cultivate culture in the public sphere, for anyone to enjoy, by developing public understanding of the arts and sciences that have shaped the world we live in today. Through providing access to their collections and archives, they offered inspiration to, and sometimes platforms for, writers, painters, dramatists, architects, and many more.
Now they are desperate to be seen as inclusive, non-elitist public spaces.”
How A Museum Can Help Make Science Accessible
Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York: “The public has a real thirst to understand the world around them. But what people don’t want to do is be intimidated or made to feel like it’s too much for them to understand. We are … removing any sense that it’s too hard, remote, for experts only. It isn’t. Science really is a great detective story.”