Category: issues

The composer “doesn’t apologize for the initial image choice” – a darkened, yellowed photo of the twin towers, the North Tower burning as the second plane barrels toward the South Tower – “he simply notes that it didn’t have quite the effect he intended.”

“City officials hired private investigators to investigate Steven Libman, president and chief executive of The Center for the Performing Arts before his abrupt departure last month,” only two months into a five-year contract extension.

“Tea party queen and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is convinced that America is sinking into tyranny. Why?” She blames, ultimately, the Renaissance for having set in motion the abandonment of the medieval, God-centered worldview. Christopher Knight has at her.

“This week marks the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, a date the city is commemorating in extremes. Creative entrepreneurs and senior government officials are addressing the Wall and its consequences in very different ways, with kitsch and serious remembrances often featured side-by-side.”

“The advocacy groups find themselves competing for financing against the very cultural organizations they were created to support, which in turn can no longer afford the dues required by some of the groups that advocate for them.”

“The power of the Kickstarter platform was illustrated earlier this year with the success of the effort to construct a RoboCop statue in Detroit — a project that raised more than $67,000 from 2,700 backers. What started as a joke — fueled by a dismissive tweet from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing — quickly became a reality when the project gained traction on the social Web as people passed around the link, tongues planted firmly in cheek.”

The L.A.-based art collective Urban Rangers lead art walks in the city to help Angelenos see their natural world (audio).

“The allegations could have come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Three art dealers and a collector have been accused of running an antiquities smuggling ring that illegally shipped Egyptian treasures, including Egyptian sarcophagi, funerary boats and limestone figures over 2,000 years old, to the United States.”

“We all love a good conspiracy theory – right up to the moment when someone kills in its name – and this is the reason why satire is sometimes potentially dangerous.”

Watch out for “the digital dark ages,” say preservationists — but look to gamers for ideas about curating and conserving our data.