US state governments with budget problems have been proposing cuts in education. But the public outcry is strong. “Since January, hundreds to thousands have protested in Arkansas and California, Maryland and New Jersey, Texas and at least 15 other states. The crowds in Frankfort and in Oklahoma City topped 20,000. New Yorkers hope a May 3 event will draw 30,000 in support of public schools. “The scale of the protests is as large and as extensive as we’ve seen since the ’82-’83 recession. And now, schools are more reliant on the states. So when the states cut back, the impact on local school districts is more severe than anything we’ve ever seen.”
Tag: 04.22.03
The Oldest Writers
Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the oldest examples of human writing. “Carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells, the pictograms were found buried with human remains in 24 graves unearthed at Jiahu in Henan province, western China. They predate the earliest recorded writings from Mesopotamia by more than 2,000 years.”
Florida Arts Supporters Protest Funding Cuts
Staffers from arts organizations and their supporters from all over Florida, left their offices Tuesday to go to the state legislature and appeal against proposed arts funding cuts. “At a time when thousands of Floridians face losing vital medical treatment to budget cuts, arts officials know they face an uphill battle. But a major part of their argument for legislators is that the arts are vital to propping up the state’s sagging economy. The arts are tourism, the arts are economic development. Every dollar that the state invests in the arts generates $41. It’s an investment, not a handout.”
Art Of Movement
“Exploring the human body in time-based media, artists from many fields have created works of dance and technology, among them visual artists Kiel, Nam June Paik, Dan Graham, Myron Kruger, Gary Hill, Bill Viola, and Camille Utterback; architects such as Diller + Scofidio; and the Wooster Group theater collective. At the symposium, researchers converged at a choreographic intersection—an obsession with the body in space and time. Several artists described how dance has become their creative fuse, driving interactive explorations.”
Dancing To Final Cut Pro
Can technology help dance? A lab in New York – Dance Theatre Workshop – is working with choreographers to digure out what technology can offer top the creation of movement. “With video and the computer, I don’t have to interrupt the dancers’ creative flow. I can do the editing work on my own. . . . Of course, once the dance is [back] in the dancers’ bodies, it takes on new shapes, phrasings, and floor patterns.”
Against All Odds – Saving Music Education
“Last month all music teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District were handed pink slips, an action that gives the district the right not to renew their contracts next fall. The decisions are in the hands of school site committees, one for each school, made up of the principal, staff, parents. The view of individuals knowledgeable in the matter is that, faced with stringent budget limitations, many, perhaps most of those committees will cut music entirely at their schools. One music teacher began doing something about it long before the current budget crisis…”
Guards Needed For Iraq’s Museum
Is Baghdad’s National Museum secured? “Expressing frustration that Iraq’s National Museum, archives and library in Baghdad were not secured against looters and organized art thieves, the director of Berlin’s Near East museum collection, Beata Salje, said Iraqi guards could be hired for as little as $3 a day. ‘Immediate help is necessary,’ Salje said at a news conference with other German experts. ‘It is important that the money is given as quickly as possible to our Iraqi colleagues so they can organize this’.”
Rumsfeld: Looting Exaggerated?
Last week, trying to deflect reports of looting of the Iraq National Museum, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared: “The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over and over and over. And it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase. And you see it 20 times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?”
Facing The Blues – Saddam’s Picture-Makers Out Of Work
Iraq’s official portraitists are out of work. “In a good year, 20 portraits of Saddam Hussein could earn an artist £1,200 – a small fortune in a country crippled by two decades of war and economic sanctions. But now that the best-paying customer in town is fresh out of commissions, his absence is leading to a plummeting market in presidential iconography; what is a Saddam portraitist to do?”
Their Favorite Classical Music
What music do 250,000 listeners of Classic FM radio in the UK most like? According to a new poll, it helps if the music has been featured in an ad or movie. “Pieces of music made famous by advertisements made up most of the contemporary music featured on the list. The work in first place for the third year running, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto in C minor, also has a connection to films.” Rocketing high on this list was a newcomer – the score to the movie “Lord of the Rings.”