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Apr 07, 2013 The Slow Death of the American Author

QUOTE: The value of copyrights is being quickly depreciated, a crisis that hits hardest not best-selling authors like me, who have benefited from most of the recent changes in bookselling, but new and so-called midlist writers....Many people would say such changes are simply in the nature of markets, and see no problem if authors are left to write purely for the love of the game. But what sort of society would that be?

 New York Times
Dec 28, 2012 Creativity Springs From Careful Copying (Part 2)

QUOTE: Record companies, book publishers, movie studios and other media corporations are caught up in efforts to equate all copying of their works with theft. In fact, if we genuinely want to promote creativity, we must encourage copying. The idea that people copy because they lack creativity is powerfully harmful, and it runs counter to the history of copyright.

 Bloomberg News
May 29, 2011 Out of Fear, Colleges Lock Books and Images Away From Scholars

QUOTE: A common problem bedevils those different university collections. Wide online access is curtailed, in part because they contain "orphan works," whose copyright owners can't be found. And the institutions that hold the collections—a consortium of major research libraries and the University of California campuses at San Diego and Los Angeles—must deal with legal uncertainty in deciding how to share the works. A university that goes too far could end up facing a copyright-infringement lawsuit.

 Baltimore Chronicle
Dec 02, 2010 My take: Where's the outrage over Noah's Ark park?

QUOTE: I write not to raise First Amendment questions about elected officials transforming themselves into self-appointed curators, but to ask whether these officials are really concerned (as they claim) about the use of taxpayer funds to weigh on matters of the spirit....Are you equally outraged over millions in tax breaks to a group promoting fundamentalism?

 CNN (Cable News Network)
May 25, 2010 Sacred and Secular Mix in Turkey’s Museums

QUOTE: The museum is nothing less than an attempt to shape a modern mythology in which Turkish history becomes part of a single coherent tradition culminating in the modern secular state. This effort to shape a tradition accounting for the triumph of the Turk may also be the reason for the way the 1915 massacres of Armenians are treated here.

 New York Times
May 04, 2010 Who Draws the Borders of Culture?

QUOTE: The British Museum is Europe’s Western front in the global war over cultural patrimony, on account of the marbles. The pamphlets give the museum’s version for why they should stay in Britain, as they have for two centuries....patrimony claims too often serve merely nationalist ends these days, no less often than they do decent ones, never mind that the archaeological and legal arguments by the Greeks, while elaborately reasoned and passionately felt, don’t finally trump the British ones.

 New York Times
Apr 08, 2010 Copyright and wrong: Why the rules on copyright need to return to their roots

QUOTE: The notion that lengthening copyright increases creativity is questionable, however. Authors and artists do not generally consult the statute books before deciding whether or not to pick up pen or paintbrush.

 Economist
Jun 15, 2008 Summer Camps Revive India's Ancient Sanskrit: Effort Is Part of Bitter Debate Over the Role of Hindu Language in a Diverse Society

QUOTE: Their endeavors are viewed with suspicion by many scholars here as part of an increasingly acrimonious debate over the role of Sanskrit in schools and society. The scholars warn against exploiting Indians' reverence for Sanskrit to promote the supremacy of Hindu thought in a country that, while predominantly Hindu, is also home to a large Muslim population and other religious minorities.

 Washington Post
Oct 20, 2007 Critical Letter to Limbaugh Fetches $2 Million

QUOTE: The letter was bought by the Eugene B. Casey Foundation, a $294 million foundation in Gaithersburg, Md., that has given money to a wide variety of organizations, including the Washington Opera and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. In a statement, the foundation said its purchase of the letter was intended to demonstrate its belief in freedom of speech and “to support Rush Limbaugh, his views and his continuing education of us.”

 New York Times
Oct 20, 2007 Strict Visa Regulations Discourage Visiting Artists: Post-9/11 Process Adds Costs and Red Tape

QUOTE: To perform in this country, foreign artists of all stripes -- punk rockers, ballet dancers, folk musicians, acrobats -- are funneled through a one-size-fits-all "nonimmigrant" visa process whose costs and complications have become prohibitive, according to booking agents, managers and presenters, such as the Kennedy Center, who program and market the performers.

 Washington Post
Feb 09, 2007 Research-Result Battle Now Pits PR 'Pit Bull' Against Barbie Blenders

QUOTE: At issue is a movement spearheaded by patient advocates and others who say they should not have to buy subscriptions to expensive scientific journals to read the results of research they paid for with their taxes. These "public access" advocates want government rules to require that the results of federally funded research be posted on the Internet within six or 12 months after they are published.

 Washington Post
Jun 27, 2006 'Teardowns' have critics torn up

QUOTE: Preservationists have long been opposed to knocking down older houses to put up big modern ones in their place. Now that the pace of "teardowns" has intensified, they're declaring an all-out war.

 USA TODAY
May 14, 2006 Entire Town Is Listed as Endangered

QUOTE: Forty-seven old houses have been demolished in little more than a decade...a lone protester held up a hand-lettered sign: "Kenilworth is a community, not a museum."

 Washington Post
Apr 26, 2006 Stolen from US history: its artifacts: Looters are taking mementos and other valuable relics at the rate of $500 million a year.

QUOTE: , US officials say the brazen looting of ancient native-American artifacts, Civil War mementos, and other valuable relics is reaching epidemic proportions. In any given year, cultural thieves make off with $500 million in relics...

 Christian Science Monitor
Apr 18, 2006 End Smithsonian-Showtime Deal, Filmmakers and Historians Ask

QUOTE: More than 200 filmmakers and historians asked the Smithsonian Institution yesterday to abandon its production deal with Showtime Networks and reconsider a recently imposed policy that limits access to Smithsonian archives and experts.

 Washington Post
Apr 13, 2006 How the Gospel of Judas Emerged

QUOTE: the National Geographic Society announced to great fanfare last week that it had gained access to a 1,700-year-old document known as the Gospel of Judas...the emerging details are raising concerns among some archaeologists and other scholars at a time of growing scrutiny of the dealers who sell antiquities and of the museums and collectors who buy them.

 New York Times
Mar 12, 2006 The E.U.'s Reshaping of Romania: Romania Tries to Shed Its Traditional Past for Entry Into E.U.

QUOTE: Like eight other East European nations that entered in 2004, Romania is busy erasing the legacy of half a century of communism and trying to build institutions that bear the stamp of approval of E.U. headquarters in Brussels. It is struggling to embrace Western-style market economics and multiparty politics and trying to control corruption. But some aspects of life here, such as discrimination against the country's large Roma, or Gypsy, population, remain stubbornly resistant to the E.U.'s pressure for change.

 Washington Post
Dec 15, 2005 Ethiopians Ponder Disrupting Their Present to Reclaim Past

QUOTE: Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest and least developed nations, is believed to contain some of civilization's oldest archaeological troves under its rocky soil....debate among educated Ethiopians, who wondered whether that money would have been better spent on building factories to give Ethiopians jobs and training.

 Washington Post
Dec 08, 2005 The Rembrandt Code

QUOTE: ...25 works attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn that are now under intense scrutiny. Some of these paintings have dubious origins; experts believe that others, like Flora, are bona fide Rembrandts....Using hi-res digital cameras and software that he wrote himself, Rockmore aims to examine the brushstrokes from Flora and 24 other works to reveal Rembrandt's unique mathematical fingerprint.

 Wired
Oct 21, 2005 U.N. Body Endorses Cultural Protection: U.S. Objections Are Turned Aside

QUOTE: The measure passed at a time of growing fear in many countries that the world's increasing economic interdependence, known as globalization, is bringing a surge of foreign products across their borders that could wipe out local cultural heritage.

 Washington Post
Jul 20, 2005 Baltimore Makes Musical History By Choosing Female Conductor

QUOTE: Marin Alsop was confirmed as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra ... despite widespread opposition from the orchestra's musicians. The decision will make her the first female conductor in history to assume the artistic leadership of a full-time, full-size, world-quality orchestra.

 Washington Post
Jun 03, 2005 A Culture Vanishes in Kalahari Dust: Bushmen Elders Resist Relocation in Botswana

QUOTE: The forced removal of the Bushmen was the culmination of what the Botswana government said was years of effort to bring development to southern Africa's most traditional people. The Bushmen have resisted at every turn, defying hunting restrictions, refusing to abandon their villages and battling the government in a court challenge...

 Washington Post
Mar 29, 2005 Antiquities Sleuth Has a Fraud Mandate

QUOTE: What complicates the search for authenticity is that some of the forgeries are also antiques.

 Washington Post
Feb 16, 2005 Are Bullies After Our Culture?

QUOTE: Should the Girl Scouts have to fork over a fee to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers every time its young members want to sing "Happy Birthday" to one another?

 Wired
Jan 16, 2005 Scorers of New SAT Get Ready for Essays

QUOTE: The team uses a technique known as "holistic scoring," a euphemism for reading an essay very quickly (a minute or so per paper) and making a snap judgment.

 Washington Post
Nov 07, 2004 A Tug of War: At the American History Museum, Battle Lines Are Being Drawn Over The 'Price of Freedom' Exhibition

QUOTE: One major battleground has been whether the nation's most important history museums could raise difficult questions...Another has been the seemingly unrelated issue of how much control private donors should exercise over these public museums. The two battlegrounds converge in "The Price of Freedom."

 Washington Post
Sep 20, 2004 Saving the Artistic Orphans

QUOTE: ...older books, films and music -- are often out of print and considered no longer commercially viable, but are still locked up under copyright. Locating copyright owners is a formidable challenge because Congress no longer requires that owners register or renew their copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office.

 Wired
Sep 19, 2004 A Particular Kind of Truth: As the Culture Wars Rage, a Rare Victory Over Routes of Knowledge

QUOTE: The National Endowment for the Humanities has evolved into a kind of remedial history organization, championing the presumably safe ideal of basic cultural literacy. Conservative Christianity, which led the fight in numerous culture war battles (against offensive art, especially), has shaped the ascendant political language of our time.

 Washington Post
Apr 10, 2004 Wrath Over a Hindu God: U.S. Scholars' Writings Draw Threats From Faithful

QUOTE: ...academics writing about Hinduism have encountered similar hostility, from tossed eggs to assaults to threats of extradition and prosecution in India.

 Washington Post
Jan 22, 2004 Kicking Up the Dust of History; China Makes Novel Claim to Ancient Kingdom, and Both Koreas Balk

QUOTE: Chinese academics taking part in a government-run project recently shocked scholars from both South and North Korea by releasing documents that claim Goguryeo as an ethnic kingdom of ancient China.

 Washington Post
Jan 09, 2004 Zoo Admits Mistakes in Animal Care

QUOTE: The National Zoo has filed a formal response that disputes the claims of a former staff pathologist who said he uncovered a pattern of poor animal care, but the zoo acknowledges making numerous mistakes in treatment and record-keeping.

Washington Post
May 27, 2003 Iraqi Officials Say Looting of Ancient Sites Continues Despite Pleas to U.S. Troops for Help

QUOTE: "Two weeks ago, I went to talk to American officials who were collecting weapons as part of an effort to disarm people," recounted Jacob Youssef Hussein, a guard at one of many archaeological sites in the nearby desert. "I asked him to help us secure these sites. He said that was our problem, not his problem."

 New York Times
May 21, 2003 Lincoln: Open up audit of Barnes

QUOTE: The Barnes petition, in seeking to keep the audit secret, had said that Glanton "explicitly threatened" the accounting firm and the law firm that prepared the report "with suit if allegations investigated in connection with the report were made public."

 Philadelphia Inquirer
May 01, 2003 Austria fights ruling that it can be sued for Nazi-looted art: The Austrian Gallery tries to keep disputed Klimt painting

QUOTE: Mrs. Altmann is also seeking to invalidate transfers of the paintings to the AG which she says were required by Austria after the war in order to allow the export of other family artworks from the country. But Austria denies that it acquired the six Klimt paintings this way.

 Art Newspaper
Apr 12, 2003 Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure

QUOTE: "A country's identity, its value and civilization resides in its history … If a country's civilization is looted, as ours has been here, its history ends. Please tell this to President Bush. Please remind him that he promised to liberate the Iraqi people, but that this is not a liberation, this is a humiliation."

 New York Times
Apr 09, 2003 Preventing Performances

QUOTE: “These are the artists, ambassadors of goodwill, peacemakers … It's a financial win for the city: buses, hotel, the local economy. We all suffer when peacemakers are punished and feared wrongly."

 Village Voice
Aug 27, 2002 The New Battle of Chancellorsville

QUOTE: Here, where thousands fell in one of the greatest battles ever fought on American soil, a new confrontation is shaping up over the fate of the battlefield....At stake is a portion of the battlefield where a developer wants to build a 788-acre ''new community'' complete with stores, restaurants, 2,350 homes and 2.4 million square feet of office space.

 New York Times
May 20, 2001 Ancient History Imperiled in Peru: Scavengers, Development, Tourism Damage Mysterious Nazca Lines

QUOTE: The damage to the [the enigmatic Nazca] Lines underscores Peru's desperate struggle to preserve its national patrimony. Archaeologists say they are watching helplessly as the quest for scholarship and conservation in a country viewed as the cradle of New World civilization is losing out to commercial interests, bleak poverty and the growing popularity of heritage sites as tourist attractions.

 Washington Post
May 16, 2001 San Antonio Revoked Arts Grant Illegally, Judge Rules

QUOTE: A federal judge in San Antonio ruled today that elected officials in that city acted unconstitutionally in 1997 when they cut off public financing of a controversial arts group that among other things had sponsored a gay and lesbian film festival.

 New York Times