Category: issues

“After a decade, the country is left with a legacy of secret and unilateral executive-branch actions, a surveillance infrastructure whose scope and inner workings remain secret with little oversight, a compliant judiciary system that obsequiously bows to claims of secrecy by the executive branch, and a populace that has no idea how its government uses its power or who is watching out for abuses.”

“It is worth pondering the fact that the potency of the ruins of the World Trade Center Towers lay not simply in their destruction, but in the symbolism reflected in their design.”

Geoff Dyer’s book about WWI memorials, recently printed for the first time in the U.S., can inform how we think about 9/11. “Those who speak about a war in terms of horror and waste during and immediately after the event often find themselves in conflict with those who feel that any criticism is an insult to those who served and died.”

“I step toward the topic of trauma intermittently; then, I step away. And even as resilient survivors and professionals know that not every survivor of trauma develops prolonged problems, and that not everything we commonly call “stress” is, in fact, trauma, to pretend that natural disasters, mass violence, accidents and other traumatic experiences, such as sexual assault, don’t take a toll on coping is, at least, unkind and – at worst – perilous.”

A European Union official who asked not to be named said on Friday: “Although some countries are opposed, it seems likely an extension of copyright protection to 70 from 50 years will be agreed.”

Sculptor Anish Kapoor and architect Arata Isozaki are “designing a mobile concert hall to bring music and arts to the region of Japan hit by March’s earthquake and tsunami. The hall, seating up to 700 spectators, will be a ‘pneumatic structure’ so that it can be inflated quickly with air.”

“Among specific fields, education saw the highest rate of growth at a rate of 1.9 percent from 2007 to 2010, followed by professional services and arts, each at 1.8 percent. Health-related jobs grew by 1.6 percent, and social services by 1.5 percent. Civic groups saw a 0.5-percent drop in jobs during that three-year period, according to the report.”

What’s the current research on the benefits of arts education in schools?

The Edinburgh International Festival has closed with box office income down 3% from last year, in the face of a slightly smaller programme on an Asian-influenced theme which organisers acknowledged was “challenging”.

“The battle is bitter and widening; increasingly, it engulfs large middle-class groups, with differing economic interests, who fight about access to education and a creator’s right to get paid. A battle that used to be waged by record labels against 12-year-olds now pits writers, artists and publishers against university professors and librarians.”