Category: issues

On Tuesday US VP-candidate Joe Lieberman, “a culture warrior considered one of the moral voices of the Senate, promised supporters that the Democratic Gore/Lieberman ticket would help parents ‘raise PG kids in an X-rated society.’ He praised Vice President Gore’s wife, Tipper, for having had the courage to speak out against certain music lyrics, a move for which she was widely blasted in the 1980s.” – Washington Post 08/09/00

• A TV CRITIC: “Lieberman, like a lot of us who actually watch the TV we rip, wants content changes. But when the government threatens to get involved in that sort of thing, it smacks of demagoguery. No matter. TV critic Lieberman is always good for an opinion.” – Chicago Sun-Times 08/09/00
  
  
• THE LIEBERMAN FACTOR: US VP-candidate Joe Lieberman has been tough on the entertainment industry. How tough?  “He told Daily Variety last year that shows like ‘Friends’ should be relegated to late night because of their raciness. – Variety 08/08/00

Europe’s big cultural festivals are big business. “Salzburg, the most prestigious, sold its soul a long while back. Nowhere on the tourist itinerary of Europe are you more likely to find over-priced hotels and mediocre restaurants. The old town has become little more than a shopping mall for the exceedingly wealthy. How could Mozart’s birthplace have come to this?” All the more to sympathize with Gerard Mortier’s struggle for artistic integrity. – Financial Times 08/09/00

“Think of Edinburgh today: boomtown, glittering northern capital, as beautiful a city centre as any in Europe; full of history, packed year round with visitors, draped with pavement cafés, bright with flags. Then glance back at Edinburgh as it was 53 years ago, when the Festival was founded: a lost capital almost crushed by the pressure of two world wars – the austerity, the rationing, the sheer exhaustion – into a kind of dour British provincialism from which it seemed unlikely ever to recover.” – The Scotsman 08/08/00

• EDINBURGH OPENS FOR BUSINESS: “Everything from theatres to circuses, orchestras to book-readings, stand-up comedy to experimental dance is featured on the programme, making the festival the largest celebration of the arts anywhere in the world – it is listed as such in The Guinness Book of Records.” – CNN 08/08/00

Hollywood is pondering the possibility of Joe Lieberman becoming vice-president of the US. “Lieberman is widely regarded as ‘the moral conscience’ of the Senate and has continually blasted TV, movies and the recording industry for featuring too much sex and violence.” – New York Post 08/08/00

European thinkers are curious about American intellectual thought, and seem to seek it out to engage with it.The reverse is not so often true. “In failing to read our European contemporaries in their own languages (especially when they write about their own philosophical classics), don’t we deprive ourselves of important cognitive sources?” – Chronicle of Higher Education 08/07/00

A proposed “cultural tax” in Detroit would pump $36 million annually to arts and culture. “It is being pushed by Detroit Renaissance, a group of business executives trying to enhance the area, and a coalition of cultural institutions. They contend that the money is needed to keep Metro Detroit’s cultural landmarks vibrant by stabilizing funding and providing support for the arts if the economy slows.” A poll shows 58 percent of those surveyed said they would approve it. – Detroit News 08/07/00

Pittsburgh’s undergoing a building boom of cultural facilities. “But despite our new wealth, it sometimes seems as if we’ve invested in our venues but not in ourselves. A blue-collar work ethic is a good thing, but 25-cent manners meant for the neighborhood tavern don’t fly in a $25 million theater designed to radiate culture. Anyone who’s recently been to a film, play, dance performance or music concert has seen a recital of the Pittsburgh Inconsiderate Symphony.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette