Yearly Archives: 2021
Why We Need To Get Comfortable With Ambiguity
If freedom-minded people are to rid ourselves of “the habits of paranoia, despair, and policing” that Maggie Nelson believes to be menacing the left...
Facebook Isn’t A Platform, It’s A Country
Facebook is not merely a website, or a platform, or a publisher, or a social network, or an online directory, or a corporation, or...
Melting Glaciers In Mongolia Reveal And Imperil Ancient Artifacts
Frozen heritage is melting from mountain ice in every hemisphere. As it does so, small groups of archaeologists are scrambling to cobble together the funding...
Alums Of University Of Utah School Of Dance Recount Mistreatment, Seek Changes
"(Two recent almunae) gathered 13 written testimonials from students and faculty members about what they see as the harmful culture at the U's ballet...
What Graffiti From Venetian Quarantine Facilities Of The 1400’s Tell Us
In their free time, some of the porters wrote on the large walls of the tezon grande, a room over 105 yards long that was...
Inmates Who Produced A Podcast In San Quentin Now Get Paid To Do It...
Ear Hustle is produced by the folks at San Quentin Radio, working with San Francisco public radio station KALW. Here, co-host and co-producer Rahsaan...
Why Is This Noted Antiquities Scholar Being Accused Of Theft Of Artifacts?
It is an understatement to say that the dispute over Dirk Obbink and the papyrus has shaken a scholarly world where ancient texts are...
Wole Soyinka On Publishing His First Novel In 48 Years
"It is meant to indict us also, the governed, as a people who have jettisoned the humane values that that same society impressed on...
Some Worrying Trends In Fundraising For Public Radio
Since FY16, median new donor counts have fallen 8%. During that time, median sustaining donors have dropped nearly 18%. - Current
An Afghan Artist Recounts Her Desperate, Failed Attempt To Escape The Taliban
"The Taliban are being pressured on many issues like women's rights and journalists' safety, but there are no discussions about the rights and safety...
Eric Schmidt: How Artificial Intelligence Will Interact With Us
We need to think now of what happens when artificial intelligence is co-resident with us in the world. It lives with us; it watches...
Even At Age 78, Mike Leigh Is As Exacting About Interviews As He Is...
"You just couldn't work the way he does – his scripts are improvised, not written, resting on collaboration, trust, instinct, bravery – without weighing...
Why Does Classical Music Humor Keep Getting More And More Lame?
Time was, Dudley Moore could dash off a witty parody of a Beethoven sonata or Britten folk song arrangement. These days, NPR Classical and...
16th-Century Documents Stolen From Mexico’s National Archives Have Been Recovered
The rescue of these manuscripts "comes amid a strong effort by the Mexican government to stop the international trafficking of national heritage objects, with...
This Year’s Tony Awards Show Was In A Difficult And Delicate Position
Helen Shaw: "Looking back while looking forward was the impossible job of this year's (ceremony). Instead of razzle-dazzling us, the host Audra McDonald (and,...
The Late-Period Pietà Michelangelo Intended For His Own Tomb Has Been Restored
What's more, conservators and scholars involved say that the restoration has put to rest the big myth surrounding the sculpture: that Michelangelo went at...
London’s Barbican Centre Is Hemorrhaging Staff: Report
Current and former employees are using terms like "mass exodus", "freefall", and "climate of fear" to describe the situation at the central London venue....
Pittsburgh Symphony Keeps Manfred Honeck For Six More Years
The 63-year-old Austrian conductor has extended his contract as the orchestra's music director through the 2027-28 season, which will be his 20th at the...
How A Hit Song Behaves Like A Viral Infection
"When a disease breaks into a population you tend to see a sharp increase in infection cases and eventually it will peak at some...
What, Exactly Is “Distinctly British” TV?
Former media minister John Whittingdale had some ideas when he recently announced government plans to require UK public service broadcasters to produce “distinctly British”...
What Happened To Books? Well…
"They became tedious redoubts for the pious certainties of a besieged, over-educated and underemployed intellectual class dissatisfied with – and powerless to change – the mindless,...
Science as A Value-Free Enterprise
It is central to science, and its claims to objectivity, that values do not override facts. An important feature of this view of science...
Behind Yale’s Failed Singapore Venture
Singapore has followed its dismissal of Yale's liberal education by introducing a Foreign Interference Act that, "under the guise of defending national sovereignty, will enable...
Yusef Cat Stevens Is Back. What Do We Think About That?
For devotees of Stevens’s classic material, it can feel as though he’s making amends for having walked away from his music all those years...
Blockbuster Hollywood Talent Deal: CAA To Buy ICM
Creative Artists Agency is acquiring its rival ICM Partners in a blockbuster deal that will consolidate the ranks of major Hollywood agencies as the representation industry...