Disney Blacklists L.A. Times, So Journalists Start Boycott Of Disney

“The studio last week banned the LA Times from access to its screenings and talent, citing “biased and inaccurate” coverage, only to trigger a boycott on Monday by several media outlets in solidarity with the LA Times. … The company behind the so-called ‘happiest place on earth’, Disneyland, now finds itself accused of bullying and press censorship.”

Director Who Resigned From Amsterdam Museum Insists She Did Nothing Wrong

“When Beatrix Ruf abruptly stepped down as artistic director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam three weeks ago under a cloud of suspicion, the art world reacted with shock and disappointment. … In her first interview since resigning, Ms. Ruf told The New York Times by email that the private consulting work at the center of the accusations against her had been approved by the museum’s board, and that claims of a conflict of interest were baseless.”

Why Teach The Humanities?

“To put books into English, the vulgar tongue, the language of the masses, was once radical. Teaching literature written in English is a recent innovation, historically speaking, and was long regarded in the more renowned institutions as a lowering of standards. It is still the case in some countries that the work of living writers is excluded from the curriculum, perhaps a sign of lingering prejudice against the vernacular, against what people say and think now, in the always disparaged present. In America this scruple is gone and forgotten. Writers not yet dead, in many cases only emerging, are read and pondered, usually under a rubric of some kind that makes them representative of gender or ethnicity or region, therefore instances of some perspective or trend often of greater interest to the professor than to any of the writers.”