“By a 5-2 margin, the Randolph County Board of Education voted Monday night, at its regular meeting held at Eastern Randolph High School, to remove all copies of the book from school libraries.”
Tag: 09.16.13
We’re Making Our Children Study The Arts For The Wrong Reasons
“I have been asking my fellow middle-class urbanite parents that question. About dance, they say things like, “Ballet teaches them poise,” or, “Ballet helps them be graceful.” And about violin or piano they say, “It will give them a lifelong skill,” or, “They’ll always enjoy listening to music more.” It does not take a rocket scientist, or a Juilliard-trained cellist, to see the flaws in these assertions.”
Too Bad: Brain Study Says Political Ideology Clouds Rational Thinking Skills
“Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem. The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are.”
Is A Cambodian Antiquities Smuggling Scandal About To Erupt?
“The return to Cambodia of two tenth-century Khmer sandstone sculptures, which had been displayed for nearly 20 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, … is now shining a spotlight on the degree of damage to Koh Ker and raises questions about a number of masterpiece sculptures in public and private collections.”
Why Do Poets Keep Saying Poetry Is Useless?
“The use of poetry is to value those things that are unpragmatic and unmundane. Poetry is valuable precisely because it’s not historical/political/economic–because it isn’t part of the world of cause and effect.”
How Worrying About Their Next Job Undermines Actors’ Performances
“They would have one eye on the director, to make sure they don’t offend them, one eye on the writer, to make sure they seduce and tantalise them so they maybe might want to write something for them, and one eye on the artistic director to let them know they are not a difficult person to have around the theatre.”
How The Perception Of Scarcity Changes The Way You Think
“The feeling of scarcity differs across various kinds of experiences and that people can feel “poor” with respect to money, time, or relationships with others. But their striking claim, based on careful empirical research, is that across all of those categories, the feeling of scarcity has quite similar effects. It puts people in a kind of cognitive tunnel, limiting what they are able to see.”
Saudi Arabia Nominates Female Director’s Film For Oscar
“It was a film that seemed guaranteed to enrage its homeland: the first feature from a Saudi Arabian woman director, which painted the Kingdom as an oppressive society in which women are second class citizens and girls are forbidden to laugh in public. And yet Wadjda, the critically acclaimed drama from Haifaa Al Mansour, has been selected as Saudi Arabia’s official nomination for the best foreign film Oscar.”
Salt Lake’s Ballet West Begins Work On New $31M HQ
Monday saw a ceremonial groundbreaking on a new building for administration, rehearsal, and classes called the Quinney Dance Center. The project also includes renovation work on the adjacent Capitol Theater, the company’s home performance space.
Is This The Most Depressing Psychological Study Ever?
“Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, media literacy or reason can provide the tools and information that people need in order to make good decisions. … We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe.”