Category: issues

“In November, Switzerland voted to ban the construction of new minarets, the towerlike structures that adorn mosques. A week or so later, in an apparent act of defiance, a new minaret unexpectedly sprang up here.”

“The new 13 per cent harmonized sales tax, scheduled to start July 1, will mean the end of an exemption through which performing arts companies with fewer than 3,200 seats have avoided charging audiences 8 per cent provincial sales tax (PST). …[I]t’s a cost many companies operating on tight budgets can’t afford to absorb.”

“The global recession hasn’t crippled the entertainment industry, as some feared, but it has hastened its embrace of the do-it-yourself movement. From neighborhood theater troupes to bookstore readings, amateur performers are taking their place onstage. It’s less a new development than a return to an old way of life.”

“Why should ‘harmful’ art be absolutely free from government restriction under the Constitution? There are two basic reasons.”

“When we increase prices, typically at budget time, we hope that a small increase will not be noticeable and we need the added revenue to break even. However, we have been doing this for so long that tickets prices are now too high for many people to afford regularly. … No wonder so many people have stopped going to performances.”

“The Canadian government says it will not act upon a request by the Jordanian government that it seize the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls, now on their last day of display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.”

“I know this author will be criticized for this article, but based on my decades of college teaching experience she is exactly right,” wrote one. “What she leaves out is that we are dealing with a generation of students that have been left behind by No Child Left Behind, supervised by ‘Helicopter Parents.’ Students now feel entitled to high grades despite little work and want their hands held on every assignment, while they are unable to think for themselves.”

“Hardly anyone has showed any solidarity with the threatened Danish cartoonists — to the contrary.”

“Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the City Halls and Old Fruitmarket are to be taken over by Culture and Sport Glasgow – an arms-length Glasgow City Council-owned organization – in a bid to prevent their closure. Meanwhile, it is understood that staff members at the venues are being offered voluntary redundancy as the venues look to cut costs.”

“There is a striking theme. All of them are adaptations – of a novel, of a musical or a theme park ride.”