Telecom giant Comcast, under fire for attempting to assert more control over consumers’ access to the Internet, is proposing a P2P Bill of Rights “to clarify what choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P applications.” Many aren’t buying the company’s apparent benevolence, though…
Tag: 04.16.08
They Might As Well Just Start Drinking Budweiser
It may not get much play in America, but the annual Eurovision song contest is a big deal overseas. National pride is at stake as much as musical notoriety. So you can just imagine the reaction when France this year submitted a song to the contest featuring (gasp!) English lyrics.
Fugitive Art Dealer Back In Court
“A former art dealer from Rhode Island who recently escaped from federal prison is heading back to a Providence courtroom… [Rocco DeSimone] was sentenced in 2005 after being convicted of evading almost $423,000 in taxes when he sold paintings by Henri Matisse and impressionists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.”
A Push For Literary Gender Equality In Canada
Why aren’t there more women involved in helping to decide the winners of Canada’s literary prizes? “Nine of the 15 three-member juries assembled over the course of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for fiction have been male-dominated… Of the past 14 juries for the Governor-General’s Award for English-language fiction, nine have had a 2:1 male/female ratio.”
Vancouver Museum Facing Overhaul
“The Vancouver Museum, tucked away in a corner of Kitsilano, far from the action of downtown… is to some people invisible and to others badly in need of an overhaul – and the people who run the place know it. Tonight, they will present a plan for the reinvention of the museum and get the ball rolling for a possible move to another site.”
The Untouchables
Composers Tan Dun and Philip Glass each had big premieres last week, and David Patrick Stearns detects a similarity in their career paths. “These composers seem oddly immune to failure. They have acknowledged downturns, but not ones that stick.” Basically, few seem to care whether either of them has actually written a good piece anymore.
RBC Gets On Board With TIFF In A Big Way
The Royal Bank of Canada will contribute CAN$11m to the Toronto International Film Festival over a ten-year period. “Certainly the deal is a breakthrough, but the cineastes still have a long way to go before they can declare victory. Even with this mega gift, TIFF’s $196 million campaign (which includes operating costs and an endowment fund) is at least $40 million short of its target.”
SAG Talks Begin In Hollywood
“The Screen Actors Guild and Hollywood producers started talks Tuesday on a new contract that the wary entertainment industry hopes can be achieved without a strike… Top SAG officials have indicated they’re intent on negotiating a contract that betters the deals reached by the writers and directors guilds.”
What Would Jesus Listen To?
“Imagine a bizarro world where all the 25-year-olds want Mozart and all the 60-year-olds want adult-contemporary,” and you’ll have an inkling of what the American Catholic church is going through right now, musically speaking. “Although everyone says rock Mass is long dead, there are parishioners still complaining about it.”
Animator Ollie Johnson, 95
“The animator Ollie Johnston, the last of the Disney “nine old men,” as the studio’s core group of senior animators was called, died on Monday in Sequim, Wash… He was especially proud of his work on “Bambi” and its classic scenes, including the heartbreaking death of Bambi’s mother at the hands of a hunter.”