No matter the time of year, the energy of Comic-Con thrives in Southern California’s comic book stores — spaces deeply entwined within its culture. - Los Angeles Times
The amount of paperwork required by the USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Service), says Nicki Harper, Los Angeles Opera’s director of artistic operations, plus all the other requirements to obtain an artist’s visa can take on Kafkaesque proportions. - San Francisco Classical Voice
With the privatization and commercialization of higher education, universities are run like businesses, in which a degree becomes a product, students become customers, and the world’s most populous country becomes the biggest overseas market. - The Atlantic
Telling parents you don’t want their kids to have the best possible public schools is never good politics. A full century ago, the most effective school-ban campaign in American history set the pattern: noise, fury, rancor, and fear, but not much change in what schools actually teach. - The Atlantic
This was not some scheme dreamed up by Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or even the Cato Institute: this particular intellectual endeavor goes all the way back to the New Deal and FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech. (The Pilgrims, in this view, were proto-socialists mugged by reality.) - Slate
"ITsART … was rolled out across 26 European countries on Tuesday, with plans to expand into the U.S. and China next year. … Prices range from €2.90 ($3.25) for a movie to €9.90 ($11.10) for an exclusive live opera." - Variety
A museum in Benin offers free bus rides to students and recruits popular musicians to help with publicity. MACAAL in Marrakech invited taxi drivers for a Friday couscous lunch, and they started telling family, friends and customers. Those are just a couple of examples. - Hyperallergic
"Wading through the streaming menus felt akin to babysitting hundreds of small children, all of them clawing at me, desperate for my attention. … Of course, that sentiment was wholly irrational and entirely wrong." Anne Helen Petersen explains why. - The Guardian
Those without the vision to produce art as means toward an end, rather than the end itself, have placated the wealthy donors who are also the users of the product. - Alan Harrison
The Catherine Project’s commitment, borne out beautifully by our seminars thus far, is that great books are supremely egalitarian: They move and challenge us all alike. Indeed, what proves great books great is that they’ve stood the test of time. - Hedgehog Review
And it harms their mental health - a lot. But "families are trapped. ... Many parents say that they don’t want their children on Instagram, but they allow them to lie about their age and open accounts because, well, that’s what everyone else has done." - The Atlantic
This is important to Greece: "The missing Parthenon frieze in its original state is a reminder of the country’s humiliation by the Turks, and by a British aristocrat." And guess what? Britain can just scan the marbles and 3D print some replacements. - The Guardian (UK)
"(Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Coalition) government has rejected a call by the Greens and Labor to provide Australia's live performance sector with an insurance guarantee to guard against future cancellations and border closures due to COVID." - The Guardian
For quite some time, there’s been an esoteric debate running in intellectual property circles as to whether copyright infringement is best characterized as thievery. - The Hollywood Reporter
"(A study) revealed the industry suffered a 60% decline in output because of restrictions. It said about 55% of jobs — 450,000 people — were furloughed in the sector, second only to hospitality, and well above the national average of 16%." - BBC
