Snubbing Laura

U.S. News- Washington Whispers ^ | 02/16/04 | Paul Bedard

[Pokey78]

First lady Laura Bush is about to get the cold shoulder on Capitol Hill. House Republican insiders say the GOP leadership is leaning toward rejecting the surge in spending for the controversial National Endowment for the Arts that Mrs. Bush recently announced. Conservatives hate the agency, known for funding some weird and sexual projects, and just won't listen to Mrs. Bush's arguments that the NEA has changed.

[TomServo]

GOP leadership is leaning toward rejecting the surge in spending for the controversial National Endowment for the Arts

Kill it! Just kill it for cryin' out loud.

Want Shakespeare? Fine - go to the library. Want to see the works of Robert Mappelthorpe? Fine - go to any bathhouse. Want to see fine art? Super - go to a museum. Don't live near a museum? Tough.

Want to see alternative art? Take a dump on a canvas and voila!, your own alternative art.

Just kill the beast. Nobody should be compelled to pay for someone else to see/hear somebody else's definition of art.

[TomServo]

And one more thing - I'm partial to Monet. But I'm not going to demand someone else pay for me to see it.

[nopardons]

You're waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind the times. The new projects were supposed to be Shakespearean plays and classical music and for real, representative art ( OLD MASTERS ), brought to poor regional schools, whose kids would otherwise NEVER be exposed to that stuff.

[NRA2BFree]

Want to see alternative art? Take a dump on a canvas and voila!, your own alternative art.

You definitely have a way with words. LOL!

[kenth]

The schools have budgets for teaching literature and for introducing children to art and history. Good parenting and a good teacher would make a much bigger difference than throwing money at the NEA.

You increase the budget, it stays increased. At some time we will likely have a leftist president or legislature who will work to once again fund all manner of 'dump on canvas'.

[July 4th]

The state didn't pay for: the Mona Lisa, Le Nozze di Figaro, Starry Night, Beethoven's 5th...

(Granted, people did pay for those things. Private people.)

[TomServo]

One more time, NP. I don't give a damn about the Government bringing art, in whatever form, to anybody. And I don't liked being mugged so that others may experience the arts. Does that clarify it?

[eddie willers]

What you said.

[nopardons]

Really ? All it's going to take is " good parenting "? The parents of the kids in wayoutnowhere, who don't have all that much money, are going to take their kids to N.Y.C. and drag them through the Met and the Frick ? Then, they'll go buy tickets to see La Boheme and hopefully there'll be some Shakespearian play ( there isn't now )on Broadway?

Okay, you can see some paintings on line and in books, you can buy records, but there is NOTHING comparable to seeing a live performance!

I'm against funding the NEA, but this, at least, was something worthwhile.

People here talk about not wanting to lose " our culture ". What exactly IS " OUR CULTURE " ...hip hop, Janet Jackson and whatever his name is, doing soft porn on T.V., MTV, rap music, or is it Grandma Moses paintings and Irving Berlin, and RHAPSODY IN BLUE ?

[tessalu]

Too many Americans are not able to afford healh care, and too many jobs have been fleeing the USA for too long, and these things come first. Whlle there is a lack of health care, the arts should just wait!

[tessalu]

When one is rich, it is most difficult to see that the poor have anything that is sorely needed. But this is what rich people do when they are in office.

[kayak]

With all due respect, you have some misinformation. The White House was decorated in a theme of children's story book characters, just one of which was Harry Potter. And perhaps the media played up that one because the books are so immensely popular with young people (and even many adults) today.

That is just some of the decorations shown on the White House web site ... but I couldn't find the Harry Potter figure displayed there.

About the twins ... I don't drink and don't condone the stunts that the girls have pulled. But from the reaction I have seen on FR, apparently I am in the minority for never having bought an illegal drink while in college. I suspect that the girls have done some rebelling against their parents .... which is not at all unusual among teenagers .... but that in itself indicates that the parents taught them to act differently.

Would you want to be judged solely on the basis of what a very biased media chose to print about you? We have heard nothing of the girls except for those much-publicized escapades. Unlike their predecessor, they are not running around the world on our dime, though they have occasionally traveled with their parents and a small retinue of people. They are not issuing policy statements nor sitting in on high level meetings. They are being college students.

If you see no difference between the previous occupants of the White House and the current ones as far as morality, dignity, and values then you must not be looking very hard.

[kenth]

Below are listed a few of the grants given in 2003. Heck, just look at the grants on the NEA website and where they went and then tell me again how much rural Americans benefit. Mind you, these are the same rural Americans who have their funds forcibly taken to pay for such ventures.

The question of why to fund the NEA at all aside, why should the funding be upped? Why not cut back in other areas to fund Shakespeare?

New York Foundation for the Arts, Inc. (on behalf of Check Your Body at the Door)
New York, NY
$25,000
To support a fine-cut edit of Check Your Body at the Door, a video documentary about popular, social, and club dances and dancers in New York City. The documentary is filmed in the clubs and the studio, and features a group of dancers, ages 16 to 46, demonstrating a variety of styles including free-form house jazz, hip-hop, vogueing, fast footwork and other new free styles.

Cambodian American Heritage, Inc.
Fort Washington, MD
$10,000
To support instruction in Cambodian classical dance and music. The project will culminate with a concert in observance of the Cambodian New Year.

Center for Traditional Music and Dance, Inc.
New York, NY
$50,000
To support the New York World Festival. The festival will focus on the rich musical traditions of countries of the Western Caribbean and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Texas Folklife Resources
Austin, TX
$50,000
To support the third International Accordion Festival. The event celebrates the accordion's central role in the traditional music of the United States and throughout the globe.

Orange Show Foundation
Houston, TX
$10,000
To support conservation and restoration of the Beer Can House, a work by self-taught artist John Milkovisch. The Houston landmark, consisting of a house and grounds decorated with methodically trimmed cans, will be used as an artist-in-residence project space.

Cinema/Chicago
Chicago, IL
$15,000
To support the 39th Chicago International Film Festival. Over 60,000 people will see 125 films from around the world.

Arts at St. Ann's (St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts, Inc.)
Brooklyn, NY
$35,000
To support the 2003 Puppet Lab and Labapalooza! Mini-Festival of New Puppet Theater from The Lab. The project is an ongoing professional workshop where emerging and mid-career puppet artists and collaborators meet weekly to create new, interdisciplinary puppet theater works.

[MissouriForBush]

Everything you have listed is a frivolous, complete waste of hard-earned taxpayer money.

We need to be cutting more -- not spending more.

[EternalVigilance]

DON'T INCREASE THE FUNDING -- END IT!!

Don't Spend It, End It!

Nice soundbite. :-)

And I just signed a petition today to name a new grade school in Texas after her! LOL...

[KantianBurke]

YES!!! YES!!!YES!! NO FUNDING FOR THAT BS!!

Sorry Laura. That $20 million ain't yours to play with. Now go away and leave the taxpayers alone.