What’s Wrong With The AAMD’s Deaccessioning Policy

“The AAMD code of ethics provides that sales proceeds may not be used ‘for purposes other than acquisitions of works of art for the collection.’ As seen in the National Academy case, the consequences of violating the guidelines can be grave. … The rule is usually justified on the ground that works in museum collections are held ‘in trust’ for the public and therefore cannot be sold. The problem with this argument is that museums sell work all the time.

A Kindle-ish Device Made Just For Magazines

Silicon Valley company Plastic Logic “is building what they hope will be a Kindle killer – the first mobile digital reader made specifically for newspapers and magazines.” The plastic device, with a flexible screen roughly 8½x11 inches, is designed to fit “those full-page, color pictures, ‘charticles’ and information graphics, not to mention leggy models splayed across two-page spreads.”

The Concept Of ‘Passive Drinking’

Today we accept the idea of damage from “passive smoking” – breathing the smoke of other peoples’ cigarettes. Now some public health advocates are applying that idea to the harm that problem drinking causes for bystanders – “vandalising property, urinating and vomiting in the street, attacking people including members of our own family, and causing death and injury by driving under the influence.”

France’s Equivalent Of The Scarlet Letter Becomes A Political Football

La Princesse de Clèves is a 17th-century novel “that most French people are force-fed at school and are happy never to read again.” President Nicolas Sarkozy has made a habit of mocking the book, and now his “personal vendetta – cloaked in anti-elitist demagoguery – has managed to turn The Princess of Cleves into an unlikely symbol of political resistance.”

Another Gramophone List: The World’s Most Inspiring Orchestras

Following up on last fall’s much-argued-over roster of the planet’s 20 best symphonic ensembles, the magazine’s editors have made a list which “specifically focus[es] on the inspiring social role that orchestras can play.” The ten bands honored include, of course, Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Dudamel’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, but also the Berlin and New York Philharmonics, the Buskaid Ensemble and the YouTube Symphony.