“We decided that Monopoly was hostile to a free market because it restricted the number of houses or hotels one could buy. We voted that a player could buy as many hotels as a property could physically bear and rents would be raised proportionally.” And so the unfettered free market ran wild on Atlantic Avenue and Park Place …
Tag: 02.20.11
Lost Daphne du Maurier Story Found After 70 Years
“‘The Doll,’ billed as ‘a dark story of obsession and jealousy’, is the peculiar tale of a man who becomes infatuated with a woman he meets at a party. He visits her home only to discover the real object of her affection: a life-size, mechanical male doll.”
Abu Dhabi’s Hopes for Its Giant Arts District
“Saadiyat [Island] is more than a tourist initiative. … The cultural district project aims to redefine and reposition Abu Dhabi’s place in the world, and it will also force us to think in a new way about the Middle East. Can a region that has become a watchword, in Western circles, for intransigent problems and violence once more become an energizing cultural force?”
Could the Next Big Memory Aid Be a Cattle Prod?
“It’s a universal moment of dread. Someone with a familiar face approaches and panic ensues; you can’t remember his or her name. New research suggests that this embarrassing incapacity may be helped by a shock – of electricity, that is.”
Will Marginalia Die In The E-Book World?
“Like many readers, Mark Twain was engaging in marginalia, writing comments alongside passages and sometimes giving an author a piece of his mind. It is a rich literary pastime, sometimes regarded as a tool of literary archaeology, but it has an uncertain fate in a digitalized world.”
Remembering Music Critic Ken Winters
“As a professional talker, on radio, Winters was one of a kind, and prized as such during the prime of his CBC radio career. He savoured consonants and especially vowels the way some people savour wine.”
Surprise – Who Will Be Hurt By Public Broadcasting Cuts
“The victim from this cut will be all of the red-state rural stations,” said Phil Smith, general manager of KIXE. “I told Congressman Herger, ‘You’re going to be wiping out all of your friends with this.’ “
The Vienna Philharmonic – It Plays Great, But…
“What we can’t do, though, is pretend that the VPO is an orchestra just like any other. It’s not. It’s the living embodiment of an exclusionary philosophy that should, at the very least, give any thoughtful person pause.”
Are We Nearing The End Of Free TV?
“In the second fiscal quarter of 2010, cable subscriptions in the United States fell for the first time in history. In the next quarter (the most recent reported), they fell again.
You might think that broadcasters would be encouraged by this, but the major networks also have huge interests in cable channels, which generally are more profitable to them, thanks to the upfront fees cable companies pay.”
Hollywood’s Copyright Grab
“Such an overreaching concept of intellectual property obstructs the exchange of ideas, the referencing and reworking of earlier works that stimulate invention. For Hollywood to thwart this by appropriating our common cultural legacy is as ethically dubious as plagiarism — innovation, perhaps, but not actual progress. Like 3-D.”