Category: issues

“Trestle tables are strewn with everything from well-thumbed copies of Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize winner, to a pristine biography of Sigmund Freud. Children sit on the grass listening to storytellers. William Orbit plays from a portable sound system. An upright coffin with the words ‘RIP Barnet Libraries’ on the side leans against the tent. Here, on a patch of green in an entirely unassuming part of north London, the ‘People’s Library’ is in full swing.”

“Unfortunate as it may be, our fast food outlets have had worldwide influence. Name one country that doesn’t have a McDonald’s (and I’ll be the first to move there!). It makes one wonder: When it comes to UNESCO World Heritage distinctions, where does one draw the line?”

Said Anton Ego, the animated film’s restaurant reviewer, “[We] thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. … [But] the discovery and defense of the new [is what’s important] … The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”

“As art is becoming more and more of an asset class, UBS is looking to increase our profile in these kinds of special fields of interest,” said Jürg Zeltner, the chief executive of UBS Wealth Management. “More and more we are refocusing our strategy to reach emerging markets, and this project seemed like a perfect fit.”

Historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala: “The ethos of western culture until the 18th century was dominated by the idea that sex is essentially a sinful act, that it is potentially a very dangerous thing to allow, and that it only has a place within marriage. … There were all these things that happened in and around the 18th century – the age of the Enlightenment – that are both extraordinary in themselves and collectively add up to a sexual revolution.”

“Letting someone re-sing an aria is rare at the Met; there have been only three encores in the past 18 years, because the company has had a policy forbidding them. But there’s a reason most places don’t have policies against this sort of literal “showstopper”: Audiences love them.”

“Censorship might be legitimate when a writer incites violence or war, but Gunter Grass’s poem does neither. His transgression is to write something that many people find offensive and (given his history, as a conscript in the Waffen-SS) deeply insensitive. However, this is no reason for censorship: freedom of expression is meaningless without the right to offend.”

“There has been growing concern that the site, where volcanic ash smothered a Roman city in AD79, has been neglected. A number of structures have fully or partially collapsed, including the “House of Gladiators” which fell down 18 months ago.”

There are plenty of reasons. But it mostly boils down to: It’s just plain rude.

“Sarajevo on Friday marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian war. Exhibitions, concerts and performances are being held, but nothing can match the impact of hundreds of rows of red in the same square where it all started on April 6, 1992.”