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Tennessee Teacher Fired For Teaching Ta-Nehisi Coates Essay

Matt Hawn assigned his high schoolers in Blountville, in the state's northeast corner, Coates's "The First White President," which argues that Donald Trump was elected because of white grievance. He says he wanted the class to assess the essay critically; the school board wasn't having it. - The Atlantic

DC’s Arts Council Shifts $5.3 Million From Large To Small Institutions

"The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities has dramatically reshaped the way it supports Washington's arts community by directing significant increases to the city's small and midsize arts organizations and making steep cuts to almost two dozen major institutions." - The Washington Post

Fears Of Calamity For Culture In Afghanistan As Taliban Take Control

When it controlled the country before 2001, the hardline Islamist group was infamous for banning music, TV, film, and most visual art — not to mention the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. The Taliban say they've moderated since then, but many are doubtful — and scared. - The Week

Will Streaming Theatre Still Be Viable Once Stages Reopen?

“In the last few months, the requests for either virtual or digital performances from streaming have really dropped off dramatically. They’re still happening, but it’s maybe 10 percent of the requests that we get.” - The New York Times

In 2014 A Town Painted Over A Banksy. This Time It Placed Guards To Protect A New One

Criticism was fierce last time, so they don't want to take any chances. - BBC

Our AI Is Increasingly Built On Homogenized Data. That Could Be A Real Problem

Foundational models have some very real downsides. They create “a single point of failure, so any defects, any biases which these models have, any security vulnerabilities . . . are just blindly inherited by all the downstream tasks." - Fast Company

London’s Public Art Mound Is A Disaster. But…

It might seem confusing why local councils would choose to fund tourist projects like the Mound when they are getting rid of permanent spaces that serve local communities in the long rather than short term. - The Conversation

Why We Get Caught Up In Cults

“It doesn’t take someone broken or disturbed to crave that structure . . . we’re wired to. And what we often overlook is that the material with which that scaffolding is built, the very material that fabricates our reality, is language.” - The Baffler

The History And Art Of The TV Opening Sequence

"No matter the form or style, (they're) a key part of the viewing ritual. … They serve as the buffer zone between our world and that of the series, guiding us — as Rod Serling said — into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination." - Quartz

Why Millions Are Quitting Their “Great” Jobs

These people are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether. - The New Yorker

A Classical Recording Engineer Explains What Exactly He Does

"What you think of as a good photograph of you might not actually be the truth in how it presents you – that can also be the case with sound. … It's about presenting the (music) in somebody's home in as convincing a manner as possible." - Gramophone

How Leonard Bernstein Became A Cultural Icon

This may now seem, to younger generations, a corny, indulgent, and completely irrelevant form of grandstanding. But when you go back and watch Leonard Bernstein do it in the galvanizing documentary “Bernstein’s Wall,” it’s still cathartic. - Variety

Posthumous Art: The Ethics Of Releasing Works By Dead Creators

"They may be unfinished, never meant for wide release, or completed by someone else. That work is then attributed to the deceased, but should it be? Philosophers Sondra Bacharach and Deborah Tollefsen explore that question, and the answer is a resounding: it's complicated." - JSTOR Daily

The Great Cultures Of Africa During Europe’s Dark Ages

Suffice it to say that while Europe was experiencing its Dark Ages – a period of intellectual, cultural, and economic regression from about the 6th to 13th centuries – Africa was experiencing great civilization. - Amentii

The Obamas Have A Budding Media Empire. What Are They Hoping To Achieve With It?

Higher Ground, the former First Couple's production company, is no mere vanity enterprise: in just three years, it has released three children's series, a feature film, an Oscar-winning documentary, books, and podcasts by each Obama. And that's just what's already been completed. - Fast Company

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