PBS and NPR are cratering, and unless a new model of funding emerges, public broadcasting as we know it will die. No more Barney. No more American Experience. No more sensible, well-reasoned, soft-spoken discussions headed by Jim Lehrer. The regional and local flavor that member stations represent more so than local broadcast affiliates of the private networks will evaporate. Reality television and its spawn will not. The FCC can prevent that from happening by negotiating a better deal for the public with the global media giants.”
Tag: 06.13.03
Goodbye, Atticus
Actor Gregory Peck, best remembered as Atticus Finch in the celebrated film adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, has died of natural causes at his California home. “Possessed of a soul-stirring voice called ‘one of the world’s great musical instruments’ by violinist Isaac Stern, and a face chiseled from the same bedrock as Abe Lincoln’s, Mr. Peck towered over the American cultural landscape for six decades. He consistently played men who saw wrong and did right.” Peck was 87.
The Iraq Museum Lie – How Did It Happen?
First reports from Iraq said the National Museum had been looted of 170,000 artifacts. That was wildly off the mark. It was untrue. “What happened? The source of the lie, Donny George, director general of research and study of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities, now says (Washington Post, June 9) that he originally told the media that “there were 170,000 pieces in the entire museum collection. Not 170,000 pieces stolen. No, no, no. That would be every single object we have! Of course, George saw the story of the stolen 170,000 museum pieces go around the world and said nothing – indeed, two weeks later, he was in London calling the looting “the crime of the century.’ Why?”
Joyce In Bloom
“There are many puzzles attached to James Joyce’s Ulysses, not the least of which is its reputation of being unreadable. It might be the greatest novel in the English language, so it goes, but who can read it? For those who can, there is no puzzle: Joyce’s account of one day in the life of his antihero, Leopold Bloom, is as spellbinding as the entire history of Odysseus’s journeys during the Trojan wars in Homer’s Odyssey, on which it is loosely modelled.”
Ashes To Art (Hi, Uncle Charlie)
Miss that special someone? Now you can keep them around, even after they’re dead. A Seattle artist is “making urns from human ashes, following a formula Josiah Spode invented in 1797, producing fine English china glaze by adding calcinated cow bone to the company’s clay mixture. Friends and relatives of various deceased gave him the ashes he’s using in his human urn sculptures. Each comes in an edition of two, one piece for the commissioning parties and one for him.”
Thieves Hit Rothschild Collection
“On Tuesday night, in what is believed to have been the latest in a long line of highly organised ‘stolen to order’ art heists, a gang of thieves escaped with a haul of precious items worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from Waddesdon Manor, home of the world-famous Rothschild Collection. Thames Valley police confirmed that a gang of five men, disguised in boiler suits and balaclavas, broke into the National Trust-owned stately home near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and made off with more than 100 gold boxes and a number of other valuable pieces including several works of art.”
Reforming Saddam’s Literary Reputation
Saddam wasn’t just a dictator, of course, he was a best-selling author whose books were greeted with rapturous reviews. Of course now that he’s out of power, the critics have reformed their judgment of Saddam’s literary efforts. “Ali Abdel-Amir, a writer, has pronounced his former leader?s novels ‘shallow’. The female characters are ‘always unfaithful and were either Kurds or Iranians’, he said.”
Art Returned To Iraq Museum In Trunk Of A Car
The Iraq Museum has had one of its most valuable artworks returned. “The sacred Vase of Warka, a centrepiece of the Iraqi National Museum collection and feared to have been lost for ever after being looted, was returned yesterday. Three unidentified men brought it to the museum in the boot of a car.”
Aussie TV/Filmmakers Wary Of US/Aus Free Trade Deal
The US/Australia free trade deal was made primarily for agriculture. But Australia’s film and TV industry is upset because it fears American products will overwhelm the home-grown industry. “The Australian film and television industry is small by world standards and protected by a raft of local media content rules. Some 55% of commercial television primetime viewing must be Australian made. At upwards of $250,000 an hour for quality drama, that’s no small investment. In contrast, top rating US shows can be bought in for as little as a tenth of the cost of the homegrown version.”
Print Your Own Tickets
Buy your tickets online and print them out on your own printer. It’s happening in Australia. “The Lion King will be the first major theatre production in Australia to use direct printing from the internet to make tickets available to patrons. Taking the pain out of queueing at the box office and dramas over lost or mislaid tickets, customers will be emailed a file with their ticket and other information on the show, with a $3 saving on the booking fee.”