Category: issues

Three years ago, on Chicago’s North Shore, an old movie theatre was in danger of being turned into a furniture store. “To prevent that from happening, and to try to bring some cutting-edge culture to the picturesque suburb, a few North Shore dreamers pooled their resources and dramatically reinvented the place” as a cultural center. It’s working.

“A recent poll of 665 nonprofits found that 51% had seen a drop in fundraising this year, while 27% said they were on par with last year. … In some cases, the losses are coming from a decline in the amount of money being given by each donor, not by a lack of donors.”

“[N]ow that [Rocco] Landesman is firmly in the job,” serving as NEA chairman, “has the hard-charging Midwesterner toned down his rhetoric? Hardly. … He says he’s ‘vexed’ by the notion that discussions about quality are considered code for elitism or worse. ‘I don’t get it,’ he argues. ‘Quality is what we’re in business to encourage.'”

“Like Asterix, the cartoon Gaul who resists the Romans with his pluck – and a magic potion – French publishers and news providers are cooking up original ways to fight the perceived threat of cultural domination by U.S. technology giants like Google and Amazon.”

The director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program says the exhibit will help visitors to “to put humans in their place.” The 15,000-square-foot, $20.7 million space will open next March 17, the museum’s centennial day. (Unless, we suppose, creationist politicians intervene.)

“A Bay Area pilot project pairs ex-corporate bosses with local nonprofit organizations that could use their expertise. The program is about to be expanded nationwide with funding from the Serve America Act to promote volunteerism.”

“Pledge drive is last-nerve-frayingly exasperating–but it’s also sheer genius. One recent weekend, I fast-forwarded through the actual programming and listened only to the sales patter…. What I found was a band of ace pitchmen who know their audience better than we know ourselves.”

“The largest theater … will recall the tented outdoor spaces of early amphitheaters, with upper walls the blue of the sky. … [The smallest auditorium] has been designed in a horseshoe shape with a thrust stage. The balconies will be warm aluminum with bits of embedded back-lit glass that will cause them to sparkle.”

“In July, the [city] council endorsed a new management model for the center, breaking its operations into three components [under separate managing entities]: the theater, the conference center and the museum. … After months of negotiations, the foundation rejected the idea.”

“A nine-inch chunk of ancient clay bearing what is often described as the world’s first charter of human rights is putting further pressure on Iran’s fraught relations with Britain. Iran has accused the British Museum of breaking a promise to lend it the so-called Cyrus Cylinder.”