Culture

THE GRADUATION ceremonies at the Peabody Institute last week were a celebration of cultural interdependence. For example, bachelor of music degrees in piano were awarded to the following; Ya-Ting Chang, Chiaki Hayashi, Deborah Lee, Wei-Chun Bernadette Lo, Carmen Ka Man Mak, Raymond Lu-Ming Ou, Sohee Rhee, Carolina Sarmiento, Megumi Watanabe and Kevin Mark Winkler.Note that of the 10 graduates in piano, eight had Asian names. Six of these were from Korea, China and Japan, two from California and Connecticut.

THE PRATT library was the scene of a lively discussion last week on the topic of culture in Baltimore. The talk was thoughtful and good-humored, and the audience that sat in the Edgar Allan Poe room of the library's main branch downtown was attentive. Still, the panelists, who included this reporter, never quite got around to agreeing on exactly what Baltimore's culture is -- or whom it's for.The panelists included three arts writers, a museum administrator and a library official. Moderated by Mark Steiner of WJHU, the event was sponsored by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Libraries for the Future, a nonprofit library advocacy group.

OAKLAND MILLS High School sophomore Shawn Magnuson did something unusual on his last summer vacation. He spent two weeks in France without any of his family members. But Shawn was not alone. He was living with his new French family as part of the Columbia Association's Sister Cities Program. The program sends about 40 Howard County high school students to France and Spain each year. They stay with the family of a local student of the same age group. After returning to Howard County, the students invite their counterparts into their homes for another two weeks.

Address: www.popfactor.com / tmftml / What's the point?: Back in September, after years of entertaining bored office workers with ironic comments on pop culture, a blog called The Minor Fall, The Major Lift called it quits. And in the middle of a presidential campaign, no less! The blogging world was in mourning for what felt like hours. But earlier this month, TMFTML returned, and in fine form. How can you not like a site that regularly makes fun of the New York Times and Matt Drudge ("whose oeuvre consists in the main of running unflattering pictures of Hillary Clinton and 'breaking' real reporters' stories before they see print")

A recent letter in The American Scholar magazine crisply expressed a point that the academic left has not yet grasped. Written by a former U.S. Foreign Service officer of German descent, the letter relates how in 1941 in a Berlin air raid shelter as British bombs pounded all around, a German cousin asked him, "You do feel yourself to be a German, don't you?" A rush of adrenalin prompted the writer to retort: "Yes, Wilhelm, my blood is German. But my citizenship is American and my heart is American and my culture is English."

RAPID CITY, S.D. -- We all know the story of a complaint voiced about how bad the youth of today have become and then discovering the remark was made 2,000 years ago. Lends credence to the statement, ''The more things change, the more they stay the same.''Perhaps some cultures are strong enough to overcome the recklessness of their youth, but when a culture is surrounded by a dominant society with many different values, how long can it withstand the corruption to which it is subjected?I don't mean corruption in the literal sense, but corruption because it flies in the face of traditions that are centuries old, traditions that preceded the invasion of a new culture on this continent by thousands of years.

LONDON -- In one of his plays, Berthold Brecht has a joke about an unpopular government that decided to dissolve the people and to elect another. This ambition is no longer a laughing matter, but a sinister and visible reality.The real criticism of the global manipulators of news and knowledge is not so much that the people have been misinformed, as that they have been encouraged everywhere to identify their own interests with those who govern, rule or otherwise control them. This may appear at first sight to be an impossible mission.

Seven-year-old Andre Turnish liked the celebration of Kwanzaa, an African-American festival of the first fruits, because of the new vocabulary he learned."

As the drums sounded, the procession of American Indian men marched into the arena and began dancing. Women followed in delicate, dignified steps, hands on their hips.Then the drumbeat quickened, and the dancers spun, their multicolored regalia fluttering with the movement. Each dancer represented a tribe or state.But the second day of the Baltimore American Indian Center's three-day Powwow was more than a show yesterday at the 5th Regiment Armory, it was a cultural reunion, organizers said.

Renwick Ifill didn't watch television growing up in Guyana. Instead he immersed himself in the South American country's rich culture, listened to his grandfather's folk tales, joined art clubs and went to art fairs.He saw none of that cultural appreciation in the United States."When I came over here, I realized a lot of African-Americans didn't understand the principles of art and how it pertains to our culture," said Mr. Ifill, 24.Four years ago, he and his father, Patrick Ifill, 54, opened a gallery in their Annapolis home to show African-American and African art.More than 60 pieces from their collection are on display this month at the Nimitz Library on the Naval Academy campus.