Category: issues

“So it’s come to this: A recently renovated arts center in Cedar Rapids is selling the naming rights to its shiny new toilets. For just $1,000, donors can name one of six urinals or 15 commodes in Legion Arts’ 110-year-old social hall, which recently underwent a $7 million renovation prompted by the floods of 2008.”

An initial survey of the Smithsonian buildings, “showed some cracks in beams and perhaps in some of the foundations,” Smithsonian director Wayne Clough said. In the Castle, which was built in 1857, Clough said there was plaster all over his office.

Many of these events “have, at best, been a showcase of great work without much other content and, at worst, been mutual commiserating or back-scratching. I know the big conversations happen, around the country, daily. Arts organisations are innovating, taking risks, finding new methods and partners for collaboration. So why doesn’t this creative, intelligent, forward-thinking attitude translate into organising good conferences?”

“90 percent of people in their studies don’t know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page!”

“Inspired by a bestselling romantic novel, young lovers are rushing to attach padlocks to the city’s historic Rialto bridge, risking damage to the stonework and requiring policemen with bolt cutters to remove them.”

” ‘Guaranteed’ income from an endowment makes everyone feel safer. But the truth is most organizations that create an endowment simply, and rather quickly, increase the size of their budgets by the amount of income the endowment is meant to generate annually.”

“To build an event the size of the Olympics takes a hell of a lot of people in black T-Shirts. They are very, very skilled people and London is going to need a lot of them. At the moment, they are all here, but they will be in London next year.”

“Science simply means finding out about stuff, but in that process science is the greatest driver of culture.”

“A points-based visa system, introduced in 2008, was accompanied by tougher immigration criteria for temporary workers, which has resulted in artists, photographers and musicians being deported or refused visas.”

Seth Godin says it’s no surprise control and repression have moved to technology, and even more to the spread of ideas. “Is disconnecting a cell phone or a social network any different from trashing a printing press?”