Category: today’s top story

“Overall, Nielsen reported that time spent watching online video rose 45% from a year ago, although the number of viewers increased only 3.1%. Viewers streamed 28% more video and spent 45% more time watching video online.”

In the U.S., “the average Christian household owns nine Bibles and purchases at least one new Bible every year.” Author Timothy Beal suggests that “buying Bibles and Bible-related publications and products substitutes for more meaningful encounters with the foundational text of Western Civilization.”

As the House prepares for debate today on the budget, Republicans are trying to cut off public funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, which run such iconic programs as “Sesame Street” and “Morning Edition.”

“Proceeds from the sale would go into a trust, from which interest would fund scholarships, according to the bill. The bill allows for UI to have the painting on loan for three months at a time at least once every four years.”

“Student matinees, training programs for teachers and administrators, efforts to bring cultural events into inner cities and rural communities – all will be severely curtailed. … [L]ess-glamorous projects, and those that require coordination or cooperation between organizations, will be fewer in number and lower in quality.”

“Gov. Sam Brownback signed an executive order Monday abolishing the Kansas Arts Commission and replacing it with a private, nonprofit organization. The move will save the cash-strapped state nearly $600,000 a year,” out of a $500 million budget deficit.

A Paris court has issued an order “to stop building work on [Gehry’s] ‘Cloud’, a stunning, €100 million glass-covered complex in western Paris. The ethereal, multifaceted building was due to house a cultural centre owned by France’s richest man, Bernard Arnaud, along with his extensive contemporary art collection and that of his company LVMH.”

Simon Schama: “It’s no accident that, as I write, the front line of the street battles is at the perimeter of the National Museum … Partly that’s because when civil authority dissolves, the temptation to plunder is usually irresistible; and partly because all revolutions have at least an iconoclastic streak in them. … At stake, too, is what you might call the psychology of patriotic honour – an intense matter in any revolution.”

“Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti will undergo surgery Monday to repair what the CSO is now characterizing as “multiple facial and jaw fractures” sustained from a fall from the podium Thursday.”

“Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti is hospitalized but in no immediate danger … after he fainted during a rehearsal with the orchestra early Thursday afternoon.”