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POST Can culture really save us?

Tom Leonard Lighthouses, libraries and climate change The 5th IPCC report Decentralising Art Land

Contents Britain's love affair with cultural

regeneration. and culture cuts

Edinburgh's most interesting street.

Ideas, climate change

Notes fom The IPCC tells a familiar story Where are all the female hackers?

open web

In the Euro danger zone Taking the National Library to the Plane Truth, Water of Life, Dave Eggers Tom Leonard

Editorial

Contributors

Can culture really save us?

Culture is often seen as the answer to our post industrial woes. But does the reality match the hype?

"The effect is that the greatest rewards of a cultural boom are unequally distributed, or ironically extracted from the region altogether."

Walk of Life: Art vs advertising on Edinburgh's most interesting street

There's a stark contrast between community art and commerical advertising on Edinburgh's Leith Walk

"The existence of both the painted murals and the advertising screen tell us a great deal about the values of our society."

The lighthouse and the library A group of concerned novelists, a Scottish coastal town and the fate of the global climate are all part of the race to imagine a better future

"We have an obligation to make things beautiful; not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation."

Creative Industry

Comfortable in its own skin, Scotland's post-national culture is invading its institutions

"It's hard not to see this new cultural direction and the related public discussion around the meaning of culture and the arts as part and parcel of a period of soul-seeking."

Hit the north: Scotland's best Culture spaces Film, design, theatre, literature, tech and the people that make them are increasingly finding new homes in unlikely places. Here are five of the best.

Small Isles, big ideas

Instead of taking culture to the country, how about making it there in the first place?

Reading the IPC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change re the most interesting developments, an

CC: what's new

eleased its 5th report in the Autumn. We summarise d find the picture is worse than feared

The Digital world and the gender binary

Encourage women to be hackers, not female hackers

"Younger-generation hackers overwhelmingly preferred not to be defined by gender. Instead, this group predominantly chose to adopt neuter identities online."

"I want to see a world where my female peers believe they have just as much potential to be tech geeks, coders and makers as their brothers."

scotland's feudal shame

Why Scotland is the least modern country in the developed world

"50% of the land is owned by just 432 individuals, 16 of whom own a staggering 10%"

"Such an old idea could prove the making of modern Scotland, but rather than being anachronistic it is the current model that is out of place in the 21st century."

Europe's choice cuts From Dublin to Greece, 2014's euro vision is a race to the bottom

"If Europe persists with this perilous path, what will remain of its proud postwar legacy?"

THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY

Opening up the national library is the first step to the knowledge nation

"I’m often called upon to justify how the two positions fit together; 'But don’t actual researchers hate Wikipedia?'"

Reviews:

Plane Truth

Rosie Bridger makes the case for an end to Government subsidies for an environmentally destructive industry

Reviews:

Bad news for refugees

The pioneering Glasgow Media Group turn their attention to immigration

Q&A: Professor Greg Philo Director of the Glasgow Media Group

Reviews:

Water of life

A thought provoking recording project using a universal medium

Reviews:

The Circle

Dave Eggers returns with a chilling and provocative look at the future of the internet

Interview:

"culture is not an object, it's a process of which the human is part" Since the release of his 'Six Glasgow Poems' in 1969, Tom Leonard has been one of Scotland's most forthright cultural voices. He talks to Post about education, value and the commodification of 'culture'

"What I say is that everyone has intrinsic constant value which exists unchanged before and after any art or that which would officially be called culture is poured into them."

"If money is the core determinant of value, then those who possess it own all the values and own the right to determine what value is."

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