BETTER LIVING THROUGH BOWLING

“Bob Putnam, a government professor at Harvard University, writes about bowling in the way Rachel Carson wrote about spring in “Silent Spring” or Ralph Nader wrote about cars in “Unsafe at Any Speed.” For Putnam, the dwindling percentage of Americans who bowl in a league is the perfect metaphor for the sharp decline of civic involvement. – Washington Post

FOLLOW THE LEADER

As North and South Korean relations continue to thaw, will artists in the two countries actually begin to enjoy artistic freedom for cross-cultural collaborations? The outlook is good, given that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is surprisingly committed to the performing arts and film. “The 58-year-old leader possesses particular interest and expertise in movies and stresses their importance in public more often than other fields. Film is recognized as one of the highest forms of art in North Korea as it is believed to encompass all other areas of arts following the leader’s conviction.” Korea Herald (Part III of IV)

CLOSE, BUT NO…

After a preliminary victory for arts supporters, Republicans in Congress used an 11th-hour maneuver Thursday to block a spending bill that would have added $15 million to the National Endowment for the Arts budget – the first NEA increase approved by the House since 1992. GOP leaders defeated the bill by crafting an amendment that diverted the additional money to Indian health services. – New Jersey Online  

THE POLITICS OF PLUNDER

A new book wades into the politics of collecting indigenous artifacts. “Using the recent controversy over “Kennewick Man”–the 9,500-year-old skeleton from the Columbia River that some anthropologists have incautiously described as “Caucasoid”–as allegory for 200 years of scientific aggression against indigenous identity, he argues that contemporary Indian intransigence about history has been largely shaped by the hubris and ghoulish exploits of the great men of science whose statues adorn our museums.” – New York Observer

OPENING THE CULTURAL FLOODGATE

Now that the leaders of North Korea and South Korean are talking to each other, there is a whole spectrum of possibility for cross-border cultural exchange. Korea Herald (Part I of IV)

  • ART AS COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA: Even though the cultural climate in North Korea has become less politicized in the last few years, “arts and culture are subordinated to political and economic aims and considered to be a tool for facilitating a Communist revolution.” Now, state-run broadcasters become a bit more lax: they have allowed television programs with once-prohibited scenes of men and women holding hands in a public park.  Korea Herald (Part II of IV)

A PLACE OF THEIR OWN

Like anywhere, New York has a shortage of rehearsal space. So the raves are pouring in for a new $29.6 million rehearsal center on 42nd Street that hasn’t even opened yet. “It’s the first building built specifically for a range of art forms, and for both nonprofit and commercial uses.” – New York Times

RADIO RIGHTS

New Zealand’s Maori tribes are trying to stop an upcoming government auction of the radio spectrum. “The Maori argued that ownership of the spectrum was their right as granted under the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. The Treaty, signed in 1840 by Maori and the British government, promises to protect taonga, the Maori term for resources considered valuable by New Zealand’s indigenous people. At the time of the Treaty signing, such resources included land, forests and fisheries. Maori believe the concept of taonga also extends to radio spectrum.” – Wired