Tag: 06.17.06

Teaching In A Plagiaristic Culture

Student plagiarism has become a huge problem for teachers. “Teachers who still assign long papers — 10 pages or more with footnotes and bibliographies — often require students to attach companion essays that describe every step of their research and writing. Even then, teachers scour the Internet for suspicious turns of phrase. And some schools are paying thousands of dollars a year for software that scans work for plagiarism. Those programs reveal that about 30% of papers are plagiarized, either totally or in part.”

D.C. Follies

“Frank Lloyd Wright came tantalizingly close to redefining the Washington skyline. The master architect was commissioned to design a $15 million complex at the corner of Florida and Connecticut avenues. Two drawings from 1940 — which appear in an exhibition opening today at the National Building Museum — show how the neighborhood above Dupont Circle could have become a stunning landmark equal to New York’s Rockefeller Center.” So what happened? Wright’s self-importance apparently rubbed the Washington bureaucracy the wrong way, and what could have been a major urban initiative died at the hands of the local zoning code. All of which explains how Wright came to build a major skyscraper in the middle of an Oklahoma prairie.

Spoleto’s Pull

Charleston, South Carolina may not be one of the first cities you think of when listing the world’s classical music centers. But “during late May and early June, the cultural life of smallish Charleston is virtually synonymous with Spoleto Festival USA,” a major music festival that takes over the entire city and has long since been embraced by the entire populace.

Of Art And Nation

When a major cultural site is looted, as happened with Iraq’s National Museum in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003, a curious mix of artistic concern and nationalist passion dictates what happens next. And whether the backdrop is the wartorn Middle East, tribal Africa, or the supposedly “civilized” West, “the elegant lingo of art curators [falls] by the wayside in a high-stakes tit-for-tat.”

When Diversity Becomes Divisive

Issues of diversity and assimilation are nothing new in France, but religious and ethnic tensions have been running particularly high of late, and a new museum celebrating “tribal arts and culture” is sparking new battles in an old debate. “Some critics say the decision to show indigenous art in isolation could create or reinforce a ‘them and us’ mentality.”

Barenboim’s Last Chicago Hurrah

This weekend, Daniel Barenboim conducts his final concerts as music director of the Chicago Symphony. “Barenboim has had his differences with CSO players, and some of them are doubtless happy to see him go. But Thursday night’s Mahler offered a glimpse of conductor and virtuoso orchestra clearly willing to go for broke.”

Running Scared

How seriously are U.S. broadcasters taking the government’s threat of a major crackdown on foul language and obscenity? Very seriously. Even high-minded PBS, which is feeling particularly vulnerable after several years of right-wing attacks from within, is overhauling its internal regulations on language and content. “The FCC has said it takes context into account when it reviews indecency complaints… But some broadcasters say recent FCC rulings have been arbitrary and confounding.”

Let’s Make A Deal

In an effort to resolve amicably a dispute over looted antiquities, Italian authorities have offered a deal to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. “If accepted, the deal would be similar to that struck earlier this year by the Italians with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Met agreed in February to return six objects –including the famous, 2,500-year-old Euphronios krater. In return, the Met will receive objects ‘of equivalent beauty and importance’ for as long as four years, the longest Italian law will allow. In addition, the Italians will permit the Met to conduct archeological digs in Italy, and to take out loans of works discovered.”