"For anyone who doubts that we are entering a new era, let's flash back just a few years. "Saving Private Ryan," with its "CSI"-style disembowelments and expletives undeleted, was nationally broadcast by ABC on Veteran's Day in both 2001 and 2002 without incident, and despite the protests of family-values groups. What has changed between then and now? A government with the zeal to control both information and culture has received what it calls a mandate. Media owners who once might have thought that complaints by the American Family Association about a movie like "Saving Private Ryan" would go nowhere are keenly aware that the administration wants to reward its base. Merely the threat that the F.C.C. might punish a TV station or a network is all that's needed to push them onto the slippery slope of self-censorship before anyone in Washington even bothers to act. This is McCarthyism, "moral values" style."(Bono's New Casualty: 'Private Ryan'. In the new era, merely the threat that the F.C.C. might punish a TV station or a network is all that's needed to push them onto the slippery slope of self-censorship. By By FRANK RICH. [NYT > Arts])

A Torn Land of Torn Hearts Lost in a Mist of Deception. Michael Frayn's glorious study of the mutations of politics and the men who practice them fully translates its high aspirations to the stage, with sharp style and thrilling clarity. By By BEN BRANTLEY. [NYT > Arts]

God Bless America

Here they go again,
The Yanks in their armoured parade
Chanting their ballads of joy
As they gallop across the big world
Praising America's God.

The gutters are clogged with the dead
The ones who couldn't join in
The others refusing to sing
The ones who are losing their voice
The ones who've forgotten the tune. The riders have whips which cut.
Your head rolls onto the sand
Your head is a pool in the dirt
Your head is a stain in the dust
Your eyes have gone out and your nose
Sniffs only the pong of the dead
And all the dead air is alive
With the smell of America's God.

Harold Pinter January 2003

(via wood s lot | found at abreact)

"'A common report from anecdotal writing over many generations of educators is that it is the teacher who usually learns the most during the process of gathering content materials, designing, teaching and evaluating student performance. In this project we address this issue by developing an innovative instructional design in which collaborative groups of students working at distance create, share and assess learning content (in the form of learning objects) with their peers through online learning portals(Distance-Educator.com | WHY DO TEACHERS GET TO LEARN THE MOST? A CASE STUDY OF A COURSE BASED ON STUDENT CREATION OF LEARNING OBJECTS resgistration required)

"One of the speakers at the Free Culture Fest, Wayne State University law professor Jessica Litman, said the Free Culture movement is a terrific idea. Historically, copyright law has been crafted by lobbyists for powerful copyright owners who represent the software, music and movie industries, she said."(Wired News|Students Fight Copyright Hoarders)

:: note :: . . . deep connection between these two ideas . . . actually don't know much about the the case study part but certainly can verify why teachers learn the most . . .

:: note :: . . . to celebrate the 750th birthday of Marco Polo . . . "Tell me, my son, about your travels . . ."

"'The Shanghai government is pushing for culture at the moment. In their eyes, there are good economic and touristic reasons for culture to be a part of the city ... at the same time, if they get their hands on this place, they will fuck it up with framing shops and Starbucks. There's a complete lack of imagination.'"(Guardian Unlimited |Is Chinese art kicking butt ... or kissing it?)

:: note :: . . . the plight of our commercial driven culture . . . lack of imagination . . .

"Known for dark themes, mythological literary devices and, at times, controversial poetry, Gluck said her writing process is often the result of contemplating a phrase's meaning."

" 'I usually start with a piece of a sentence or pair of lines, and a poem arises out of an attempt to locate the context of why the phrase has resonance in my head,' Gluck said."

"Gluck said "Averno" is the small crater lake in southern Italy which, according to Roman mythology, is the entrance to hell."

" 'It's a book about one's relation to earth," Gluck said. "That combined sense of awe and the sense of self as hostage to Earth and time.' "(yaledaileyneews.com | Gluck waxes poetic on work | via Literary Saloon)

:: note :: . . . an actor contemplates an action's meaning - to locate the imaginative sense of the act and its resonance in the body . . . then generate an energy field within the space . . .

Ulriche: . . . get out of the way to let things happen . . . opening and closing the levels of tension . . . find and keep the pulse in the energy of rhythm . . . terrorist theater exposed . . . inner blocks & imprinted types . . .

"Take the Chinese word mianzi, for example. Having no other word to use, we call this "face," and it represents, very roughly, the inner dignity that is possessed by every human, which all others dealing with its possessor are duty bound to uphold, and neither to threaten nor to challenge. Shout an insult at a Chinese shopkeeper and you make him lose face, you threaten his mianzi, and you commit the most cardinal of sins. Buy your Chinese colleague the most expensive cognac imaginable and you give him face, and you will in consequence be blessed for all eternity."(Words Without Borders | Simon Winchester |In Other Words: A Foreword)

"art path on karlsplatz Artists challenge passers-by to participate in actions requiring a maximum of five minutes of their time."(Kunsthalle Vienna | instructions for actions)

"The same lesson can be learned thirty years later. Stuff Happens would not even be produced today if not for the Theatres Act, which abolished censorship in British theatre. The year that act was passed? 1968. The same year of the Tet Offensive that turned the tide of the Vietnam War. The same year the Catholic minority in Ireland armed themselves The same year as the Prague Spring and when workers took center stage in Paris. When students demonstrated in Poland, Mexico City, the United States, and Britain too. This struggle threatened the order of life that was built on war, racism, inequality and censorship. To say the Theatres Act had nothing to do with the amazing power being wielded by oppressed people in Britain is simply to rewrite history. In the States too, radical theatre had become a staple for the left, with plays not just from Brecht and other classics, but new plays by the likes of Myrna Lamb and Amiri Baraka."(counterpunch | Taking Theatre Back Are The States Ready for Stuff Happens? By ALEXANDER BILLET)

""We were aware as a jury that we were encouraging an artist who is re-enchanting a disenchanted world," Sobey Award juror Stéphane Aquin told CBC News."(CBC News |Montreal artist wins Sobey Art Award )