Everyone in America knows that the U.S. is currently fighting a war in Iraq, and that American soldiers are dying there on a regular basis. So why the big brouhaha over whether photos showing the flag-draped coffins of the dead are published stateside? Because, says Joanne Ostrow, images of war have always been the most powerful method of swaying public opinion in times of war. “The debate hasn’t changed since Matthew Brady’s 1862 battlefield photos of the Civil War. Printed as etchings in newspapers, they shocked the nation.” The coffin photos, however respectful, have the same capacity to bring the horror of war home in a starkly visible way, at a time when political leadership would prefer that Americans keep a pragmatic outlook.
Tag: 04.29.04
Take That Concert Home With You
Like that concert you just heard? Now you can take a recording of it home with you after the concert. “On May 21, new digital kiosks offering the tiny drives will be installed at Maxwell’s, a small indie-rock club in Hoboken, N.J. At $10 a pop for the recording, and $20 for the reusable, keychain drive, let the downloading begin. This is a tool that allows fans to take home and share some of the best independent music from small live venues around the country.”
Boston Museum Gets Site Approval For Expansion
“The projected expansion of [Boston’s] Museum of Fine Arts moved forward this week when the Boston Redevelopment Authority unanimously approved the museum’s site plan during a key hearing. The approval gives the museum permission to start work on a plan that will nearly double its size, as well as reestablish entrances on the south… The museum is a year away from breaking ground on the first phase of the expansion, which is expected to be completed by 2009. It will add galleries, new courtyards and — its most architecturally significant feature — a crystal spine running through and over the existing building. A planned $425 million capital campaign will pay for the project.”
Edwards Savoring His Martyr Role
Ever since National Public Radio announced that it was replacing Bob Edwards as host of “Morning Edition,” listeners have been howling. NPR is standing by its decision to take the program “in a new direction,” but senior managers are admitting that they could not have bungled the situation more completely. For Edwards’s part, he seems to be enjoying the attention, and is making no effort to alleviate the discomfort of his NPR bosses. From the listener who set up a “Save Bob Edwards” website to the defendant at the Tyco fraud trial who began badgering the NPR reporter covering him, the NPR faithful are creating a groundswell, and Edwards is loving every minute of it.
Is Variable Ticket Pricing Good For Business?
A limited study of Broadway ticket pricing practices, under which two people sitting in the same section of a given theater may have paid wildly different prices depending on when and where they bought their tickets, suggests that, contrary to some industry concerns, variable pricing doesn’t seem to make consumers unhappy. “[C]onsumers were largely unaffected by price discrimination relative to uniform pricing, while producers experienced a 5 percent increase in profits… [O]n average, it looks like it didn’t make much difference to consumers whether there was price discrimination or not.”
RIAA Sues 477 More
The Recording Industry Association of America has sued another 477 alleged illegal file-swappers, who the industry claims are undermining commerce and causing a prolonged slump in music sales. The new round of lawsuits brings the total number of sued swappers to 2,454.
San Diego Museum Names New Director
“Derrick R. Cartwright, director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, has been named the executive director of the San Diego Museum of Art.”
The Confusions Of Multiculturalism
“We live in a multicultural society now, right? Well, I think we deserve a lot better from it. On the other hand, maybe Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, is right when he says we should abandon multiculturalism completely. Encourage everyone, immigrants and asylum seekers included, to embrace English culture and history as their own. Perhaps that will help to remove stereotypes for ever. But that brings up a new set of problems. What form of English culture do we all adopt? In fact, what is English culture? I do not know what that is.”
Rattle Attacked By German Critic
Is Simon Rattle’s honeymoon as director of the Berlin Philharmonic over? He’s been attacked by a leading critic. “The article, entitled “Simon von Rattle” compared the conductor to the dictatorial Herbert von Karajan, the Berlin Phil’s last director but one, and described Sir Simon’s music-making with the orchestra as “uninspiring”, “insubstantial” and “transparent”.”
Last Days Of Scottish Opera?
“The odds are that the new production of La Bohème, which opens tonight at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, will be the last time that Scottish Opera performs as a full-scale, year-round national organisation. The crisis has a long, bitter history. Nobody has ever doubted that Scottish Opera has been pitifully under-funded for the job it is required to do, but all attempts to rationalise its operations have foundered.”