Category: issues

“We squeezed our stories into small spaces, limited their scope, assumed we were much more important than we really were and had far more readers than we did, didn’t experiment enough with the style, form, tone and intellectual depth of our stories. And when the Internet Revolution hit, we had no idea how to make ourselves relevant because we’d never worried about that in the past–and we should have.”

“So, what are the job prospects of some the world’s most gifted and motivated young college grads?”

“While the Calgary Stampede is promising its show will go on next week ‘come hell or high water,’ … Calgary Arts Development [has] launched an effort to determine the impact of the flooding on arts organizations and independent artists, so that ‘appropriate relief’ can be provided. Groups are still assessing the damage.”

“A disgruntled 71 year-old Japanese man is suing his country’s public broadcaster NHK over what he claims is its excessive use of Japanized versions of foreign words – known as loan words – which he says have rendered its programs unintelligible.”

“Germany’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn has launched a campaign to roll back the use of English, issuing staff a booklet of 2,200 German phrases that should be used instead of the corresponding Anglicisms.”

“We identify a problem (e.g., declining audiences) and we develop seemingly rational theories about how to address the problem (content with more transformational potential, more engaging efforts et. al.), but often without spending enough time or pouring adequate resources in the harder part of identifying the cause of the problem (i.e., why are the audiences declining).”

So what is it about fairy tales that keep us coming back for more?

“Foreign artists seeking US visas stand to benefit from an amendement included in the immigration bill expected to pass the Senate on Thursday.”

“These and other deep and seemingly intractable problems are either completely ignored or barely glanced at as the authors of the report alternate between grand, un-cashable claims and pie-in-the sky proposals that have no traction because there is barely a suggestion of a road map that might lead to their realization.”

“What makes your thoughts your thoughts? One answer is that you have what philosophers sometimes call “privileged access” to them. This means at least two things.”