“The report notes that 7.8 percent of California’s gross state product is directly attributable to the creative industries, with an impact of more than $270 billion annually. The creative economy employs some 1.4 million people, either directly or indirectly.”
Category: issues
How Artists Are Changing The Debate On Pollution In China
Increasingly, “artists are finding their muse in the ecological mire. With photos, paintings, conceptual pieces and performances, they’re piercing through the din of data, seizing the attention and imagination of both the authorities and the public.”
Current U.S. Copyright Law Doesn’t Just Stifle Creativity, It’s Unconstitutional
“Ensuring that copyright was temporary was expressly written into the Constitution … While the Founders’ copyright was for 14 years, today’s copyright lasts over 100 years. Thus the instrument the founders created to ‘promote the progress of the sciences’ is actually being used to impede the progress of the sciences” and culture.
Where Are Stressed-Out South Koreans Going To Regroup? Prison Cells
“In the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Hongcheon, 58 miles northeast of Seoul, Kwon Yong-seok runs ‘Prison Inside Me,’ a stress-reduction center with a penal theme. A meditation building, auditorium and management center sit on a 2-acre piece of land” – along with twenty-eight 60-square-foot prison cells.
Is Snark On Its Way Out?
“From music to movies and late-night TV, earnestness seems to be everywhere in pop culture right now.”
Crowdsourced Corporate Philanthropy Is Dead.
“What does it mean? Well, to me, it’s a depressing reminder of the tension that exists between corporate philanthropy and corporate goals.”
The Roots Of Censorship
Colm Tóibín: “In every society where there is an urge to censor, there is always already in place some rawness, some grievance, a fear of the outside world, a hunger for images that are comforting and comfortable, images that cover the national or social or religious wound, or attempt to heal it. And there is a deep and often visceral resistance to images that expose the wound or throw salt on it. This is what makes the battle against censorship in religious societies or developing societies so difficult to manage.”
Vladimir Putin’s Four Dirty Words
David Remnick looks at ‘the four pillars’ of Russian profanity – хуй, пизда, ебать, and бляд – and the many, many works that might run afoul of Russia’s new legislation outlawing those words in all public performances.
Putin Bans Naughty Words In All Performances In Russia
“The law will come into effect on July 1, and afterwards swearing in films, plays and concerts will incur penalties of up to 2,500 rubles ($70) for individuals and up to 50,000 rubles for companies and organizations.”
James Baldwin Reappears Just As The Country Desperately Needs Him
“More than once this week I’ve caught myself reading yet another news story about Donald Sterling or Cliven Bundy, wondering what it means for me, a black gay man, to exist in America at the same time as men like them.”