Stories

Alabama Governor Dismisses Five Members Of The State’s Public TV Board

The move to dismiss the members came days after a survey conducted by the board showed support for Alabama Public Television continuing its relationship with the Public Broadcasting Service. Last October, two conservative members of the board brought the idea of disaffiliating from PBS. Barnett accused PBS of being “anathema” to President Donald Trump. - Alabama Reflector

The Dazzling Physical Afterlife Of The Ancient Pharaohs

Of all the priorities that governed ancient-Egyptian life, perhaps the hardest for us to fathom is the expenditure on the afterlife, not merely as a place of immaterial spiritual reward, but as a world of material goods.  - The Atlantic

The People Who Resist New Technology

Call them legacy users, or upgrade holdouts. They’ve clung to iPhones with home buttons, Bush-era computers, and headphones older than some tech CEOs, even when doing so impedes their ability to complete everyday tasks like emailing or navigation. - The Atlantic

Referrals From Google To Media Websites Have Plummeted, But Overall Page Views Have Held Fairly Steady. How Come?

“Direct traffic is taking a larger share, internal recirculation is up and private sharing through texts, DMs and apps like WhatsApp has surged. Meanwhile, publishers’ most loyal readers are generating more pageviews than they did two years ago. The catch: Publishers are attracting fewer new readers.” - A Media Operator

City Of New York Doubles Its Grants To Individual Artists

“Rising from $5,000 to up to $10,000, the increase … represents the first change in this funding stream in some 20 years. The funding comes from the Department of Cultural Affairs and is distributed to each borough’s arts councils, which act as regrant partners and dole out grants to individual artists annually.” - ARTnews

Robert Rauschenberg’s New York Loft/Studio Is For Sale. Should It Be Saved?

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation clearly doesn’t think so: not only has it listed the Soho building he bought in 1966, it has already sold the house on Florida’s Captiva Island where he spent his final decades. (A resort developer bought that property for $45 million.) - The New York Times

Plans Revealed For $250 Million Arts District In Historically Black Neighborhood In Chicago

The Bronzeville Legacy Collective says it has already raised $75 million toward its goal: a campus with museums dedicated to the gospel music, blues legend Muddy Waters, and Emmett Till; a center for Black dance; a theater with a resident company; a recreational trail; and an arts and culture center. - WBEZ (Chicago)

Whitney Museum And Staffers Agree On Contract Just Hours Before Strike Deadline

“Under the new contract, every Whitney employee will receive a wage increase of at least 14.75% over four years. Workers with the lowest salaries will receive larger raises, ranging from 5% to 23% in the first year.” The settlement came in time to avoid disruption of the museum’s major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. - ARTnews

San Antonio’s Newest Orchestra Makes A Crowd-Pleasing Debut

Harmonium of Texas — made up largely of musicians from the long-defunct San Antonio Symphony and the now-probably-defunct San Antonio Philharmonic, and co-founded by former SA Phil music director Jeffrey Kahane — gave its first performance on Friday, three days after what’s left of the Philharmonic sued Harmonium. - San Antonio Express-News (Yahoo!)

Jeffrey Archer — Bestselling Novelist, Tory Politician, Convicted Felon — Is Dead At 86

“Possessed of huge drive, vast wealth and immense personal charm, Archer bounced back from disaster and, more than once, rebuilt a shattered life. But for all his talents, he will be remembered as a man affected by a defective moral compass, whose public humiliation was entirely self-inflicted.” - BBC (MSN)

Oracle Gives $10M To Help Save The Nashville Symphony

The gift will allow the symphony to resume the season, which runs through June 2027, and to retain staff, Mark Tillinger, Nashville Symphony’s president and chief executive, said in a news release on Sunday. - The New York Times

Why More Adults Are Playing With Kids Toys

“People just stay very playful for a longer period of time. And it’s cross-brand. You know, it might be Teddy bears. It might be Lego bricks. It might be Transformers. It might be Barbie dolls.”  - The New Yorker

Will We Still Need Punctuation When Machines Are Writing?

What are those commas doing there, anyway? By modern usage, they should mark off a non-restrictive clause, but they don’t. Nor are they marking items in a series or natural pauses in speech.  - The New Yorker

Musical Instruments Are Getting More Expensive

The consequences have reverberated across the country. Higher instrument prices are a particular threat to lower-income districts where enrollment and budgets are shrinking. - The New York Times

The NFL Is Trying To Woo New Fans With Its Own Romance Writing

That is ... not going well (though romance readers are still gaga for M/M, W/W, and M/W hockey tales from more traditional channels). Fans "see the stories as cheap pandering that fails to engage with female and LGBTQ hockey fans’ concerns about homophobia and toxic masculinity in the sport." - Wired

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