Erring On The Side Of No Progress?

The ‘precautionary principle’ is the idea that “scientists, medical researchers, technologists and just about everybody else these days should err on the side of caution lest they cause harm to human health or the environment.” But one of Britain’s leading medical experts says the principle inhibits knowledge. “He wonders whether, if the precautionary principle had been about for the past 200 years rather than the past 20, breakthroughs such as blood transfusions would ever have been made.”

Canadian Artists: Where’s Our Culture Policy?

Canadian artists are increasingly perturbed that the country’s political parties aren’t articulating any serious positions on culture in the current national election. “A constellation of Canadian stars came out Wednesday to warn that the country faces cultural integration with the United States and that the nation’s political leaders are not being clear enough during the current election campaign on where they stand on the issues.”

Understanding Ulysses (Sort Of)

The Ulysses anniversary brings up some conflicted feelings about the James book, often considered the greatest book ever written. “There are still those in Dublin who neither like nor understand James Joyce. And there are others who are offended by the way a city which once rejected Joyce now uses him and his work to attract tourist dollars.”

Happy Bloomsday, But Not In Ireland

It’s June 16, Bloomsday, and that means that James Joyce fanatics all over the world will be holding public readings from Ulysses and enjoying a drop of Irish whiskey in memory of the novel’s protagonist. But in Ireland, where the novel is set and where Joyce grew up, old wounds have yet to fully heal, and while the country has moved on from the days when it denounced its native son as anti-Catholic, pornographic, and “spiritually offensive,” but the Joyce family has never quite gotten over Ireland’s direct snub of one of the great authors of the 20th century.

Library Gets A Chunk Of Broadway History

“The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has received a gift of thousands of pages of scripts, songs and other pieces of stage memorabilia from two of Broadway’s best-known musical teams: Kander and Ebb, and Bock and Harnick. The donation, ranging from scraps of pure inspiration to less successful discards, gives a glimpse of the sometimes delightful, sometimes devilish backstage grind that went into making classic musicals like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof.

Adelman Turns Down Foreign Affairs

When Kenneth Maxwell resigned as book editor at Foreign Affairs in mid-May, accusations flew that his departure was the direct result of a strong-arm move by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had objected to Maxwell’s review of a book about the rise of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Now, Maxwell’s chosen successor, Princeton professor Jeremy Adelman, has announced that he will not accept the post, having been disgusted with the treatment of Maxwell by the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs.