“Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade … But another contrary trend has educators and policy makers abuzz: a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese.”
Tag: 01.21.10
People Watch TV News For Validation, Not Information: Study
“A new study suggests that viewers worldwide turn to particular broadcasters to affirm – rather than inform – their opinions. It’s a notion familiar to those dismayed by the paths blazed by cable news networks FOX and MSNBC – although the study finds one (perhaps unlikely) network may actually foster greater intellectual openness.”
Starving Artists In Freezing Garrets Are Not A Thing Of The Past
Yes, there are still artists who choose to live in spaces without heat. Folks like the six recent college grads with a makeshift stage in their Baltimore factory space. The young novelist in Pittsburgh who runs a (cold) writers’ colony in two old clapboard houses. The well-established 56-year-old sculptor who’s spent 30 years in an unheated Lower East Side loft. The science writer with a one-room house in Western New York with a wood stove and no running water.
The Unbearable Lightness Of Gilbert And Sullivan
“If you don’t like patter songs or find ¬Basingstoke inherently funny, Gilbert and Sullivan – a kind of late-Victorian Monty Python – probably isn’t for you. Second-rate productions can, undeniably, be ¬tedious. Speech and music have to be seamless; timing is vital; the mechanism is as precise – and as likely to malfunction if done hamfistedly – as Rossini.”
The Age Of The TV Anti-Hero
Tony Soprano. Nurse Jackie. The cops in The Wire. “The heroes of today are radically different from those of two or three decades ago. They have evolved to represent a radically changed world.” During WWII and the Cold War, there “was an almost archetypically monstrous enemy, we were unequivocally the good guys. But now we’re fighting wars … where it’s far less clear who the enemy is, indeed whether there is an enemy at all, or even that we are the good guys.”
Judging A Publisher By Its Covers, Observers Cry Racism
Though the heroine of “Magic Under Glass” “is described in the book as black-haired and brown-skinned … the cover chosen by Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books shows a white, brown-haired girl.” Last year, the same publisher put “a white girl on the cover of Justine Larbalestier’s novel Liar, about a black girl.”
Athol Fugard On Why He Lives In San Diego
“I’ve become a bit reclusive. Five years ago, when I took the decision to stop acting or directing, I found this situation ideal. Nobody in San Diego is too much interested in literature. They’re interested in the length of your surfboard.”
Amazon Tries To Lure Authors With 70% Royalty Rate
The company said “that it would give authors a 70% cut of the sale of e-books sold for its Kindle readers, net of digital delivery costs — essentially offering writers a way to bypass traditional book publishers. In a direct swipe at print publishers, the company asserted that authors would make more money if they published digitally with Amazon.”
Free-TV Site Hulu May Charge For Access
After spending “months studying how to strike a balance between what people expect to watch free online and what they would be willing to pay for,” Hulu “is weighing plans to charge users to watch episodes of ’30 Rock,’ ‘Modern Family’ and ‘House.'”
YouTube Gets Into The Movie-Rental Biz
“Google Inc.’s YouTube announced Wednesday that it will make movies from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance film festivals available for online rental. It’s the first time that YouTube, which historically has offered its video free, will charge users.”