On another note: The Elgin Marbles.

Unionization of Kickstarter by Helsinki on 2020-02-18 16:41:50 UTC Reply

Kickstarter, the crowdfunding website which has enabled so many lovely projects to be born, has voted to form a union with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (46y-37n) This is groundbreaking, because Kickstarter is the first (or one of the first) major tech companies to form a union. This sets a precedent for everyone else in the tech industry who is currently attempting to form unions, such as workers within Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others. Many major companies hire union-busters, people specializing in breaking up and breaking down unions, and causing disorder from within a union. Anti-union propaganda is common in many work environments in the forms of posters, pamphlets, and other media, and can be seriously harmful to people and their morale.

This is a huge first step in the industry, and hopefully, we'll see more in the future.

Helsinki

source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8pp5/kickstarter-employees-win-historic-union-election

[solidarity intensifies] by Tomash on 2020-02-18 19:03:43 UTC Reply

This is great news and I hope to see the industry as a whole getting more and more organized, as it needs to be.

On that note, I'd like to pass someone's hat around by Tomash on 2020-02-19 06:51:58 UTC Reply

Grad students at the University of California, Santa Cruz (which is southeast of San Francisco) are currently on a wildcat strike to get a cost of living adjustment because the UCSC area is pretty darn unaffordable on a grad student salary (and from what I've seen of Bay Area rent and typical grad student salaries, that feels extremely plausible).

The university (whose administration is headed by a former Department of Homeland Security secretary) has decided to respond to demands for livable wages by sending riot cops to beat and arrest strikers (at considerable expense) and to threaten mass firings and deportations.

This is obviously all sorts of not OK, and so I'm passing the link to the strike fund in the event I'm not the only one on here with some spare cash lying around.

More information on this situation is at https://payusmoreucsc.com/

On another note: The Elgin Marbles. by Helsinki on 2020-02-19 18:39:15 UTC Reply

This is completely unrelated, by the way.

As part of Britain creating a trade deal with the EU, Greece has inserted a clause stating that the Elgin Marbles, or the Parthenon Marbles should be returned to them.

Why is this important, again? The year is 1801. Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, fears for the destruction of artwork. He reached out a few years before to the British government with regards to taking casts and drawings of old art, and the government was entirely uninterested, according to Tommy. Tommy decides to do it himself. He hires some men, who go to the Parthenon, and other structures in Greece, and begins removing and shipping priceless artwork and history back. About 11 years later, his work of removing the art is completed, and Tommy intends to use it to decorate his private home. Due to divorce debts (questionable, but considering he's spent £70,000 on appropriating marble from the Parthenon, not unlikely!), Tommy is forced to sell the set, eventually to the British government for £35000.

Now, appropriation is all well and right, apparently, even when Greece itself asks for them back. Greece has requested the return repeatedly for at least two centuries now, and the original document stating that Lord Elgin was allowed to take the pieces was never produced, the translated copy is highly suspect and not documented in records, and the translation states something along the lines of "you may take some of the derelict pieces", not any. What a mess. But, entirely on par with museums appropriating cultural artwork and refusing to return them to the people.

Bringing it back, if this remains in the trade clause (and it's highly likely that it will), then Greece will get their priceless marbles returned to them. Good for you, Greece. :)

~Helsinki

For a moment, I thought that you guys were talking about toy marbles by SomeRandomPersonAccount on 2020-02-23 03:59:06 UTC Edited Reply

Yes, I’m talking about these marbles.

(https://www.canstockphoto.com/toys-marbles-17933966.html

But then when statues were mentioned, I realised that these are just marble statues.

So I can’t make a joke about the Earl of Elgin marbles. : (

~SomeRandomPersonAccount managed to put in a stock photo, hopefully it works.

Edit: The Image doesn’t work. : ( Here’s the link to the marbles image anyway: https://www.canstockphoto.com/toys-marbles-17933966.html
I'm torn over this. by Huinesoron on 2020-02-20 17:38:31 UTC Reply

On the one hand, giving stolen property back to its owners is always a good thing. On the other hand, the 2014 Gathering would have been much less photogenic without them.

Joking aside, I've always felt kind of bad for the British Museum over the possibility of returning the Elgin Marbles. I don't know exactly how much of the stuff in their Greek gallery falls into that category, but I bet it's a lot, and I think they built the gallery specifically to display them.

Still, we've clung onto them long enough; I'm sure Greece can come up with a wonderful way to display them, much closer to their ancient home.

Just as long as they take Lord Voldemort, too.

You can never be rid of me!

hS

Benin bronzes. Punitive Expedition. Give them back too. (nm) by Scapegrace on 2020-02-21 02:00:23 UTC Reply

Yeah, we've pilfered a lot of stuff. by Huinesoron on 2020-02-21 17:58:29 UTC Reply

In some cases - I'm thinking of the Rosetta stone here - there's a legitimate case to be made that its historical and cultural significance is British, not Egyptian. The Rosetta stone wasn't particularly important to ancient Egyptian; it's the science done in (largely) Europe that's given it significance.

But the Parthenon? It was sacred to the ancient Greeks, and is a part of modern Greece's history of art and culture. There was once an argument to be made that the Elgin marbles needed protection - first from the elements, later from various wars that cut through Greece - but at this point, Greece is perfectly capable of creating a museum to hold them, riots damaging museums seem equally likely here as there. It's time to send them back.

hS