Monday, May 31, 2010

“Cultural capital at risk over cuts - Metro International” plus 3 more

“Cultural capital at risk over cuts - Metro International” plus 3 more

Cultural capital at risk over cuts - Metro International

Posted: 31 May 2010 07:27 PM PDT

Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Managing Director Mary Fulham of the off-Broadway La Mama Experimental Theater Club is one of many concerned about proposed state and city budget cuts to the arts.  Managing Director Mary Fulham of the off-Broadway La Mama Experimental Theater Club is one of many concerned about proposed state and city budget cuts to the arts.
 
Fire, meet art

Arts groups fight back.

The New York Multi-Arts Centers Consortium is organizing its own "strike" of sorts, posting "Closed" signs on cultural centers to warn visitors that sites could be closed if proposed cuts go through.

NYS ARTS wants groups to demonstrate what a 40 percent cut would look like, suggesting they take down 40 percent of their art, leave 40 percent of publications blank, etc.

The arts community is bracing for a wave of closures if proposed state and city funding cuts are approved.

Gov. David Paterson has proposed slashing NY State Council on the Arts grants by nearly 40 percent to $25.2 million — less than it received in 1975, noted Norma Munn, chairwoman of the NYC Arts Coalition.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg's budget calls for a 31 percent cut to the arts.

The outlook for arts groups is "grim," Munn said. "Some will limp a while and then close, especially the smaller ones or the midsize," she added.

GenArt, a 16-year-old organization that showcased emerging filmmakers, and the 3-year-old New York Asian Symphony Orchestra already shuttered.

"The mainstream tourist institutions are going to be okay, but the groups that serve neighborhoods will get nailed," said Kathy Giaimo, administrative director of the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Queens.

Her theater provides work for actors, who, she said, often can't find work until Hispanic Heritage month. "We're Hispanic Heritage Month all year long."

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

PREVIEW: Cultural thaw? Voice of Cuban Revolution to ... - Earthtimes

Posted: 31 May 2010 06:23 PM PDT

Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Posted : Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:23:22 GMT
By : Vicente Poveda
Category :
News Alerts by Email ( click here )
  Havana - Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, regarded by many left-wingers around the world as the musical voice of Fidel Castro's Cuba, is set to perform in the United States.

The tour, set to feature two concerts in New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall and five other performances across the United States in June, is Rodriguez's first trip to the US in 30 years. The demand was so great that a second concert was added for Carnegie Hall at the last minute.

For many years, US tours for artists who reside in Cuba were reduced to near zero, as were Cuban tours for US artists.

Since US President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, however, there has been a slow thaw in cultural exchange between the United States and Cuba. Rodriguez obtained in early May his US visa, which he had been denied several times before, the last time in May 2009.

Rodriguez is the leader of the Nueva Trova movement, which is politically committed to the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers. He is to perform in New York's Carnegie Hall on June 4 and June 10, in Oakland, California, on June 12, in Los Angeles on June 17, in Washington on June 19, in Chicago on June 21 and in Orlando, Florida, on June 23.

Despite the decades of tension between the Cuban regime he cherishes and the authorities of the giant across the Miami straits, Rodriguez, 63, is looking forward to returning to the United States.

"I hope I have time to return to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, which holds the Spirit of St Louis, the plane in which (Charles) Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. It was incredibly small, and with a single engine. One cannot imagine how such a precarious machine can fly over such vastness," Rodriguez recalled in his blog.

"Some instruments of human feats look like toys. Might they be just that?" he wondered.

Rodriguez noted that the first Carnegie Hall concert was sold out many days in advance, so a second was added.

The online edition of Spanish newspaper El Mundo said Rodriguez opted out of performing in Miami so as to avoid controversy with anti-Castro Cuban exiles whose stronghold is in the Florida metropolis. His tour organiser said Miami was purposely circumvented.

"There are many Cubans and Latin Americans in Florida who want to see Silvio in concert. I always wanted to do it in Miami, but it would be very controversial and we have to avoid any kind of situation that people can interpret as provocation," tour organizer Hugo Cancio told elmundo.es.

Before embarking on his tour, the singer slammed Arizona's controversial new immigration law in Havana.

"As any sensitive person in this world, I am against the Arizona law and against any law that discriminates against people - and treats them as if they were beasts - who go to the United States with the wish to work," he told Cuban media before heading to Puerto Rico.

On Sunday, Rodriguez played in San Juan, en route to the United States.

While Obama has loosened rules on cultural travel, he continues to support the economic embargo against Cuba until such a day as Cuba undergoes democratic change and honours human rights.

Copyright DPA







Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The Cultural Roots of Crime - RealClearPolitics

Posted: 31 May 2010 08:17 PM PDT

Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

This is a good news, bad news column. The good news is that crime is again down across the nation -- in big cities, small cities, flourishing cities and cities that are not for the timid. Surprisingly, this has happened in the teeth of the Great Recession, meaning that those disposed to attribute criminality to poverty -- my view at one time -- have some strenuous rethinking to do. It could be, as conservatives have insisted all along, that crime is committed by criminals. For liberals, this is bad news indeed.

The figures are rather startling. From 2008 to 2009, violent crime was down 5.5 percent overall and almost 7 percent in big cities. Some of those cities are as linked with crime as gin is with tonic or John McCain with political opportunism. In Detroit, for instance, with the auto industry shedding workers, violent crime was down 2.4 percent. In Washington, D.C., murder was down 23.1 percent, rape 19.4 percent, and property crime 6 percent. Stats for political corruption are not available.

Probably the most surprising numbers come from Phoenix, which thought of itself as sinking in a sea of supposedly immoral and rapacious immigrants, all of them illegal and all waiting for nightfall and the chance for a nifty burglary or home invasion. If so, the crime reporting system has virtually collapsed. To the surprise no doubt of local TV news anchors, violent crime was down almost 17 percent. Back at 11.

What's going on? A number of things, say the experts. As is always the case, the police credited the police for magnificent police work, while others cited the decline in crack cocaine usage. Those answers, though, are only partially satisfying because, believe you me, if and when crime begins its almost inevitable ascent, the very same police authorities will blame economic or social conditions beyond their control -- not to mention the inevitable manpower shortage.

Whatever the reasons, it now seems fairly clear that something akin to culture and not economics is the root cause of crime. By and large everyday people do not go into a life of crime because they have been laid off or their home is worth less than their mortgage. They do something else, but whatever it is, it does not generally entail packing heat. Once this becomes an accepted truth, criminals will lose what status they still retain as victims.

This is not as outlandish as it may seem. I recall that after the Watts riots of 1965 (34 dead), someone determined that the mobs looted only those stores owned by the miserly and the mean. In other words, the storeowners had it coming and the rioters, which is to say the criminals, were just getting some justice, often in the form of a TV set.

So two years later, in the immediate aftermath of the Newark riots (26 dead), I conducted a one-man, totally unscientific survey of looted stores. I detected no pattern. Generous owners were trashed. Good guys suffered. The mob was not administering justice. It was getting stuff for free.

The Watts survey tended to support liberal dogma that criminals were like everyone else, only more desperate. Probably the ultimate example of this was cited to me years ago by a woman who had her necklace yanked from her while walking in Manhattan. When I commiserated with her, she said of the crook -- I am not making this up -- "he probably needed it more than I did." This is liberal guilt at its apogee.

A good deal of social policy was predicated on such an outlook. It made victims of criminals and criminals of victims (all wealth comes from theft, etc.) -- and in so doing, insulted the law-abiding poor who somehow lacked the wit to appreciate their historic plight. This ideology was mocked by Stephen Sondheim in his lyrics for the "West Side Story" song "Gee, Officer Krupke": "Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, you gotta understand, it's just our bringin' up-ke that gets us out of hand. Our mothers all are junkies, our fathers all are drunks. Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!" In other words, all the gang members were the unavoidable products of their environment.

Common sense tells you that the environment has to play a role and the truly desperate will sometimes break the law -- like Victor Hugo's impoverished Jean Valjean, who stole bread for his sister's children. But the latest crime statistics strongly suggest that bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.

 

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Asian Festival features cultural activities - Lantern

Posted: 31 May 2010 07:49 PM PDT

Message from Five Filters: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Paper umbrellas were out in full force this Memorial Day weekend. But they weren't just adorning poolside cocktails; they were shading guests at the Columbus Asian Festival.
Thousands gathered at Franklin Park Conservatory on Saturday and Sunday for the 16th annual Columbus Asian Festival.


Stuffed Pokemon characters lined the top of one booth while a table of mannequin heads sported hats shaped liked video game characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Tails. Fans of rival Nintendo character Mario had the chance to snag the famous plumber's signature red hat.


Bonzai trees, henna tattoos and belly-dancing skirts added to the Asian fare.


Four stages offered workshops, performances and demonstrations. With temperatures in the mid-80s and partly cloudy skies, shaded seating was at a premium.


Only a few stray chairs remained around the main Amphitheater Stage's cement seating area. Most guests sacrificed a good view in favor of shaded seats in the grass beyond the stage.


The Martial Arts Stage offered demonstrations that included Kung-Fu, Tai Chi, Taekwondo and Aikido. Children from Xcel Martial Arts showed off their skills to a soundtrack that ranged from rock 'n' roll to hip-hop.


Along the outskirts of Franklin Park, guests could watch a Takraw tournament.


Takraw, nicknamed "kick volleyball," allows players to use only their feet, knees, chest and head to send the "rattan ball" speeding over the net. The Takraw athletes displayed flexibility that rivaled that of a Radio City Rockette.


Mixed in with tents from the restaurants Flavors of India and Taste of Bali were stands offering "Maui Wowi" smoothies, chicken on a stick and butter pecan ice cream.


Inside the Adventure Center were booths offering workshops, presentations and demonstrations. The booth from Thailand showed guests "The Utilization of Banana Leaves" and a booth from India was dedicated to the history and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi.


Japan's booth gave kids and adults alike the chance to make Kirigami paper animals.

Kirigami, the Japanese art of paper cutting, is prominently displayed every holiday season in the U.S. as paper snowflakes line the walls of most kindergarten classrooms.


The sound of drums rang throughout the park accompanied by a Chinese Dragon Dance that made its way through the crowded sidewalks.


The festival's goal is to promote Asian culture by showcasing Asian fine arts as well as provide educational programs, resources and services, according to the festival's website.
 

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)