Of course, the Pledge isn't what got the teacher's bulletin board torn down by a co-worker. No - it was the people saying the Pledge, controversial people like, er, Colin Powell and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Vice
"Slingshot Rat, a stencil painting, appeared on a concrete block at an abandoned Israeli army position in Bethlehem next to a section of the wall in 2007." It was then graffitied, and finally cut out by ... someone. - The Guardian (UK) (AP)
"Writers represent the part of our culture that engages with humanity through ideas, whose passion is expressed through sentences and paragraphs and pages. It’s a realm we should not just preserve but defend." - The Atlantic
Sempé, who died on Thursday at 89, had a whimsical style. "His ink cartoons were often set in a mythical mid-century Paris or millennial New York, but their appeal was universal." - Slate
An Indigenous crew member "remains cautiously optimistic about the future of Indigenous inclusion in the film industry," and actor Michelle Thrush says that "well-thought-out practices on production sets are replacing her previous experience of crying alone in her trailer." - CBC
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra "coalesced quickly around a mission to stage, as the Met news release put it, 'artistic defense' of its homeland. Its debut concerts across Western Europe and Britain have been met with rave reviews and long ovations." - Washington Post
"I started playing word games as a way to stop reading the news first thing in the morning. Death counts, infection rates, mass shootings, disasters on our overheating planet, and what could I do about it all? I’ve protested, voted, and written." - Nieman Lab
Heche, an Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor, was declared brain dead six days after a fiery one-car crash in L.A. The Daily Beast said that the actor "deserved so much better from Hollywood," and The Guardian said she was basically too smart for Hollywood. - Los Angeles Times
Students have formed banned book clubs like the one at Vandegrift High School, organized with statewide groups, and even overturned bans, like the students at Central York High School did. The students are also connecting with each other. NextCity
The supposed whiteness of ancient statuary is intertwined with larger ideas of Whiteness in European culture, and the sense that colorizing the statues somehow cheapens them could well be rooted in racialized thinking. - Washington Post
There’s a certain romance in the bygone days when shows would play Boston, Philadelphia and New Haven before turning up in the Big Apple, and despite their relative proximity to New York, critics tended to leave them alone. Coverage was the purview of the local press and trade publications such as Variety. - The Stage
For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position. Here’s some of the research that explains why it’s natural to resist changing your mind – and how you can get better at making these shifts. - The Guardian
