“Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday called for three members of the punk band Pussy Riot to be freed … The outward appearance of the women, who perform in bright-colored miniskirts and balaclavas, and the ‘hysteria’ accompanying them made him sick, Medvedev said with disdain. But he said keeping them in prison any longer would be ‘unproductive’.”
Category: issues
Is College A Bad Investment?
“For an increasing number of kids, the extra time and money spent pursuing a college diploma will leave them worse off than they were before they set foot on campus.”
Has “Liberal Arts” Education Been A Failure?
“As currently practiced, however, it is becoming more and more difficult to defend the liberal arts. Their content has been drastically changed, their significance is in doubt, and defending them in the condition in which they linger on scarcely seems worth the struggle.”
Just How Successful Was London’s Cultural Olympiad?
“Organisers revealed this week that 19.5 million people had taken part in the London 2012 Festival events by 31 August, with a final week of attendance figures yet to come in.”
Study: Arts Education For Pre-Schoolers Helps
The arts-rich curriculum produced more “positive emotions such as interest, happiness and pride, and greater growth in emotion regulation across the school year.”
Rome Removes Lovers’ Locks From Bridge
Thousands of ‘love padlocks’ fixed to an ancient Roman bridge by passionate couples have been sliced off with bolt cutters and dumped in a warehouse in a bid to save the bridge from damage.
Arts Council England Launches Fund To Pay Arts Interns
The plan “will aim to subsidise up to 6,500 new apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships and paid internships across the arts and cultural sector for unemployed people aged 16 to 24.”
Finland Plans To Cut Theatre And Opera Funding In Favor Of Art And Sports
Minister of Culture and Sport Paavo Arhinmäki has announced plans to redirect a portion of the national lottery proceeds that fund the Finnish National Opera and National Theatre (currently the largest recipients) to art museums and to sports clubs for children and youth.
Ai Wei Wei And The New Political Dissent
“Do the arts offer special access to political truth? History would say no.” But consider Ai Wei Wei. “His art has shown how a state without dissent is the greatest threat of all.”
Disabusing The Idea Of Curating
“I’m beginning to squirm when I hear a lot of people talk about curating because it seems to suggest that organizing your sock drawer — or choosing what hats, shoes or lipsticks to arrange in a store window — calls out the same creative imagination as cataloging and collecting the 1,000-plus works of Johann Sebastian Bach, or preparing and protecting the contents of King Tutankhamen’s tomb to display for the ages.”