Abstract

The Shape of Things

This article focuses on various political developments in the world. The recapture of Kharkov represents a setback to the Russians which Moscow makes no attempt to minimize. It brings the German armies in the Ukraine back approximately to the line they occupied in the spring of last year, from which they launched their summer offensive. And it postpones indefinitely hopes of a Soviet advance to the Dnieper River, which would have enabled the Russians to regain the riches of the Ukraine. There is no question that records and radio have created far more jobs even for musicians, than they have destroyed. Yet James C. Petrillo, a musician, claims that thousands of members of the American Federation of Musicians are unemployed because of "canned" music, and he has demanded, as a condition of his lifting the present ban on recording, that these unemployed members be provided for by means of a fund to be created by payment to the union of a fixed fee for each reproduction of records, transcriptions, mechanical devices, and library service of which the master record was made by members of the American Federation of Musicians.