Category: issues

“Contractor Balfour Beatty Construction and the center’s managers have blamed each other, and now the parties have signed a settlement agreement to avoid legal claims that would likely top $25 million. The agreement settles the dispute by paying Balfour Beatty another $9.5 million.”

“The social network ‘asks that the DEA immediately confirm that it has ceased all activities on Facebook that involve the impersonation of others or that otherwise violate our terms and policies.'”

“Were a British national monument to suffer the same fate, I dread to think what the reaction would be. But again and again, I have been struck by the equanimity displayed by Athens. With the courtesy that one nation knows for another, the Greeks have trodden a path of conciliation over anger, placation over rancour, humour over hostility.”

“Vignettes can do more than illustrate and reassure. They convey what doctors see and hear, and those reports can set a research agenda.”

“Perhaps it is the civic responsibility of the millennial age, one that so eagerly devours electronically its personal content (and that of “friends”) to assure that arts reporting and arts criticism remain central to broad-based media consumption. That responsibility extends to upholding standards, even if they are defined in new terms, lest the biggest loss be the pursuit of truth and an understanding of what has come before and the continuum on which we ride.”

Disputing the “gloomy myths around the value of an arts degree,” the report finds overall job satisfaction for people who have graduated with an arts degree over the past five years is quite high, at 75 percent. That figure is down only slightly from that of older graduates, 82 percent of whom say they are satisfied with their current job.

Deborah Rutter: “I grew up loving Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, but I am compelled by work that is created today. We need to expand that. We need to take more risks. “I keep hearing Washington is more conservative. I’m going to push you on that.”

“Last Friday, Working Artists and the Greater Economy (aka W.A.G.E.) announced that they will be rolling out their new W.A.G.E. Certification program, which promises to be a ‘paradigm-shifting model for the remuneration of artistic labor’.” Hrag Vartanian finds out just what wage rates W.A.G.E. has in mind.

Scott Timberg: “In many cities and neighborhoods, Amazon has destroyed the bookstores (and other locally owned shops), so it’s often the only option. Think of what the rapid spread of cellphones have done to payphone booths: There now is no alternative. In other words, exactly what anti-trust legislation was established for.”

Reihan Salam: “No, I’m not saying that it’s OK for Standard Oil to come along and gouge its customers because we don’t want to discourage future robber barons. I’m saying that having the government step in and squash Amazon before it actually uses its (supposed) pricing power to screw consumers will likely yield less innovative entrepreneurship. The only people who will win in this scenario are the mostly wealthy people who own shares in lazily managed companies.”