"The United Nations' cultural agency decided Wednesday to add the historic center of Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odesa to its list of endangered World Heritage sites, recognizing 'the outstanding universal value of the site and the duty of all humanity to protect it.'" - AP
"Ardern (who kept the culture ministry herself) had a lot going on as Prime Minister — the Christchurch Mosque attacks, the eruption of White Island/Whakaari, COVID — so her other roles would rightly take a back seat. That said, Ardern hasn't been hugely active in her arts portfolio." - The Big Idea (New Zealand)
And half-assed reforms aren't going to fix it. "It’s not an economic crisis. It’s a crisis of faith. The question is not just whether our institutions pay faculty fairly, but whether any wage is worth the subservience and sacrifice that modern higher ed requires." - Chronicle of Higher Education
"Over a dozen interviews with former Ticketmaster executives, managers, economists, lawmakers, antitrust experts, fans and industry insiders, many agreed that Ticketmaster is enormous and largely unaccountable to fans. But, they said, it is also a mostly effective business with few peers capable of operating at its scale." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
Some, though not all, museums in the UK have started moving away from the term "mummy" to describe deliberately preserved human remains from ancient Egypt and elsewhere. The idea is that "mummified remains" or "mummified person" removes the pop-culture association with old horror movies. - CNN
There’s little evidence that many of these initiatives work. And the specific type of diversity training that is currently in vogue — mandatory trainings that blame dominant groups for D.E.I. problems — may well have a net-negative effect on the outcomes managers claim to care about. - The New York Times
At the end of the day, fandoms are grey areas: on the one hand, they can be a place where you can really belong and feel included but, on the other, they can also take over your life. - The Walrus
"Hundreds of people who were stuck for hours at the foot of the 15th Century Inca citadel have now been rescued. ... Rail services to Machu Picchu were suspended on Thursday after some train tracks were damaged, allegedly by protesters." - BBC
"Wikipedia’s editors are no longer simply citing dated sources; instead, they are hashing out how someone would want to be understood. But even though these deliberations touch on some of the most controversial issues around ... they are shockingly civil and thoughtful." - The Atlantic
"We are not tied together by a single religion, race, or ethnicity. Instead, America is organized around a set of ideas that needs to be articulated again and again to survive." And that's not happening, not at all. - The Atlantic
Maybe. But, says one intellectual property lawyer, "Copyright law is the right to stop people making copies, right? ... It’s not the right to stop people imitating your style." - Fast Company
"Panahi, 62, who has won a number of awards at European film festivals, was arrested on 11 July last year and sent to jail to serve a six-year sentence" - which was overturned by Iran's supreme court in October. - The Guardian (AFP)
When China shut down manufacturing and shipping ports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many artists felt it before American cities followed suit. Subsequent labor shortages, stranded shipping containers, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have further impacted commodity trade. - Hyperallergic
There were 40 Afghan female students before the Taliban’s takeover back in mid-August 2021. Now there are 382 girls at Rumi Academy amid increasing Taliban restrictions on girls and women. They range in age from 13 to 25. - Toronto Star
