When Hardened Warriors Stitched Quilts

“Soldiers and sailors have been stitching masterpieces of the sewing crafts for hundreds of years. It was a longstanding tradition that during lulls in fighting, while prisoners of war or over extended hospital visits, they would hand-stitch quilts, wool work seascapes and embroider their own uniforms.” And some of the pieces they made are quite elaborate.

Want To Stay Psychologically Healthy? Don’t Fight The Dark Stuff

“In a cultural age that’s decidedly pro-positivity, the pressure to suppress or camouflage negative feelings is real. However, psychological studies have shown that acceptance of those negative emotions is the more reliable route to regaining and maintaining peace of mind. … Acceptance of one’s dark emotions is now backed by a body of evidence connecting the habit to better emotional resilience, and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

Is Canada’s Access Copyright Law Depriving Artists Of Compensation For Their Work?

“The amounts Access Copyright collects have dropped by 80 per cent since 2013 as the universities have used the new law to craft their own definitions of what they can copy for free. Society might be considered to have already paid the tenured scholars whose titles might be registered with Access Copyright, but for independent non-fiction writers who were making their careers producing Canadian material for the educational market or short-story writers whose titles had been placed on course curriculum, the 80-per-cent reduction constitutes large losses. As these writers and their publishers are squeezed, they will stop producing new books.”

How Video Games Have Evolved Into A Significant Role In Scientific Research

“At first glance, today’s video gamers and scientists might appear to be worlds apart. But starting with Tennis for Two, video games have quietly and consistently been within the purview of academic study. Each generation of gamers has seen new titles created at various research institutions in order to explore programming, human-computer interaction, and algorithms. Lesser-known chapters of history reveal these two worlds are not as far apart as you might think.”

Egypt’s President Is Using The Arts To Push His Agenda (Just Like His Most Famous Predecessor)

Gen. Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who overthrew King Farouk and established the Republic of Egypt, “often used art as a means to convey political messages and decisions to citizens, raise their morale and entrench their sense of belonging to the state.” (Among his collaborators: Umm Kulthum, then and now the Arab world’s most revered singer.) The country’s current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is using a similar approach.

The LA Philharmonic Is Once Again Training Youth Orchestras To Work Hard And Kick Ass

But is this enough, in a time of political upheaval (consider Venezuela, for instance, home of El Sistema)? “The mold is definitely breaking, but it is anyone’s guess how 100 young musicians playing for maybe 1,000 listeners can change the world. Isn’t it enough that they have changed their lives, and that they can go on to change others’ lives? And that the audience, which consisted mostly of their mentors and artistic movers and shakers, can use the knowledge of this success to change many more lives?”

A Dying Venice Turns On Tourists

“Around 2,000 people leave each year. If we go on this way, in a few years’ time Venice will only be populated by tourists. This would be a social, anthropological and historical disaster.” Whether irritated by selfie sticks, noisy wheelie suitcases or people snacking on one of the 391 bridges, Venetians’ contempt towards the 28 million visitors who flood the city each year has reached alarming levels.