Category: issues

“Ever since an audience member at the BSO punched out another audience member who asked him to be quiet, I’m terrified to suggest that one reprimand theater offenders.”

“A court in Moscow has designated four videos made by the feminist punk protest group Pussy Riot as extremist. The Zamoskvorechye District Court in the Russian capital ruled that access to all websites hosting the videos must be limited.”

“The People’s Daily, a news site operated by the Communist Party of China, confused satire with reality this week, picking up on a story from The Onion declaring North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the ‘sexiest man alive’.” Do they not get such jokes? Actually, thanks to the Internet, “Chinese political satire is enjoying something of a golden age.”

“Accusations that this Government neither likes nor supports the arts are disingenuous in the extreme.”

“The approval bias of social networks illustrates the relationship between our behavior and the internet: social networks are constructed in such a way as to complement our existing desires (even if these desires haven’t been quite as visible offline).”

“A government report examining how to increase philanthropy in regional cultural organisations recommends that arts chief executives should lead the fundraising effort rather than delegating this task to other employees. … Philanthropy Beyond London says that executives, as well as artistic directors, should become fundraising ambassadors for their organisations.” (Just like in the US.)

Yes, mostly – though the practice does persist in a very few places, and folks in some countries don’t understand the taboo. A Slate explainer.

“The universality of the internet will merge global humanity into one giant grid of mass surveillance and mass control”.

“Woodruff Arts Center officials scrambled to explain Tuesday how an employee defrauded the city’s largest cultural organization to the tune of $1.438 million over the last five years by submitting invoices for unrendered services.”

“Made shortly after Cyrus of Persia captured Babylon in 539BC, the Cyrus cylinder records how the ruler allowed deported peoples to return to their homelands and ushered in an era of religious tolerance in his new, multiethnic empire.”