Category: issues

Dilbert creator Scott Adams: “[The technique is] called ‘the bad version.’ When you feel that a plot solution exists, but you can’t yet imagine it, you describe instead a bad version that has no purpose other than stimulating the other writers to imagine a better version.” Adams suggests some “bad version” ideas for convincing the wealthy to pay higher taxes.

“It is virtually impossible to understand America without understanding the long ongoing battle between cultural commissars who have always attempted to define artistic standards and ordinary Americans who take umbrage at those commissars and their standards. This is hardly a recent occurrence occasioned by the internet and other democratising elements.”

“A new bid to clamp down on “parasitical” ticket touts which has been launched in parliament could see Britain copying Queensland in Australia by banning people from selling on tickets at hugely inflated prices.”

“Creative industries — from advertising to dance companies to book publishing — generate $4.5 billion per year in economic activity for Texas.”

American absolutism means that their cultural handle on sex veers from ignorant to hypocritical, but rarely settles at normal or compassionate.

“Well, of course the internet has something to do with it, but the decline in critical authority began a long time before the net was imagined, let alone built. What we’re looking at – at least in a British context – is the cumulative result of social and demographic changes that go back to the 1950s.”

“The proposed cuts in arts funding echo those of the 1990s. In one battle in 1995, Republicans, who then controlled both houses of Congress, pursued measures to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. It survived — but saw 39 percent of its budget slashed. The NEA still hasn’t recovered to even funding levels from the 1980s, if inflation is taken into account.”

“After The Stage raised questions with ACE about the appropriateness of an NDPB entering into such a partnership with a commercial media group – and one that is currently being investigated by its parent ministry – ACE quickly removed the news piece from its website.”

“The discussion paper Arts and Creative Industries argues there is no longer a division between the subsidised, popular and commercial arts, and government policy should be shaped accordingly.”

Although businesses are still committed to working with the arts, “they are not hardwired to do so and for many this is still considered a discretionary and unsustainable spend, particularly in hard times”.