Category: issues

Officials in celebrity-intensive areas of Los Angeles are looking at ways that they can legally control the activities of paparazzi, who have been blamed for invading the privacy of and even causing physical harm to celebs. One city councilman called the talks “a response to their lack of responsible behavior.”

“However well-intentioned ACE’s Investment Strategy process may have been, both its design and its implementation had flaws which exposed ACE’s reputation to damage.”

Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.

“The Archibald Bush Foundation announced it will not accept new grant proposals for the rest of the year while it refocuses on three broad areas: community problem-solving, supporting the self-determination of American Indians and increasing educational achievement… The foundation said it plans to continue funding in the arts through at least the middle of the next decade.”

Between the advertainment theatre and the vicious infighting amongst participants, the Edinburgh Fringe seems to be losing some of its original spirit. “Should we worry? Will a multi-national’s logo on an awning – which already exist on venues such as, well, the Smirnoff Underbelly – undermine the spirit of the Fringe? Or will it pay that spirit’s way in the big bad world?”

“It’s no surprise pop singers, artists and storytellers chronicle economic downturns. Happy feet only carry you so far even in boom years–trouble is interesting, goes an old fiction-writing saw… Various artists through the years, right up to recent days, have left a record of hard times, through various decades.”

“Having some standards seems more and more important in a time when the traditional arts have lost a bit of their prestige, some of their audience, and all of their monopoly on perceived quality. As silly as the chaste, Victorian tones of the literary and high culture worlds could be in their heyday, we need a certain amount of seriousness in our lives.”

“PONCHO, long a pillar of arts funding in Seattle, has just announced another change in leadership and focus,” and is clearly struggling in a down economic climate to maintain its role. So is it time to reevaluate our privately funded model for arts and culture?

“The Cultural Equity Group defines its members by the race and ethnicity of their leaders, staff, board members and service to ‘communities of color,’ among other criteria. The group also wants money to study financing patterns and to measure the impact of their organizations.

Everyone can offer a response to an artwork; real criticism requires knowledge, experience, time, literary skill and insight. I see no signs that criticism is under threat in the UK, and if ever it were I would be the first to the battle line. For now, though, I am very happy to be breaking down boundaries, stepping on toes, genre-bending and throwing everything up in the air – all in a blog.