{"id":1198,"date":"2009-02-12T20:26:50","date_gmt":"2009-02-13T04:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1198"},"modified":"2009-08-10T09:21:29","modified_gmt":"2009-08-10T16:21:29","slug":"are-artists-real-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1198","title":{"rendered":"Are Artists Real People?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Believe it or not, there are actually living relics of the Dark Ages who have the audacity to publicly wonder as to whether artists are real people. One of them is Georgia’s Republican Congressman Jack Kingston who, addressing what he felt were wasteful provisions of the stimulus bill, said the following:<\/p>\n

“We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Someone needs to tell Rep. Kingston that some of the real people who are out of work are artists, and that artists are more than the celebrities whose fame creates thousands of jobs. They are people who write textbooks as well as novels. They design ads for local businesses to help them to prosper. They create products in every industrial field, which puts other people to work manufacturing them. What’s more, some of those who are out of work are real people who have labored in jobs that support the arts like electricians, caterers, carpenters, truck drivers, seamstresses, ushers, janitors, printers, and accountants.<\/p>\n

\"Arts<\/a>Kingston should surf over to the web site of AmericansForTheArts.org<\/a>, where he would learn that 5.7 million people are employed in the arts; that the arts occupy a $166 billion chunk of our economy; that the arts generate almost $30 billion in taxes.<\/p>\n

Kingston might then be able to figure out that $50 million is a pretty cheap way of putting millions of real people to work and boosting local economies across the country. Then he could tell his pal Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to stop asking stupid questions like this one:<\/p>\n

“…what does $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts have to do with creating jobs in Indiana?”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The stimulus bill, as passed by the House, contained the NEA grant. In the Senate, however, it was removed by an amendment<\/a> by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that lumped arts funding in with a bunch of other projects. The amendment passed 73-24 with the votes of some supposedly art-friendly members such as Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Bob Casey, and Russ Feingold. It stipulated that…<\/p>\n

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point I think it would be appropriate to note that Coburn’s daughter, Sarah, is a budding opera singer. She will be opening in November<\/a> at the Los Angeles Opera playing in Handel’s “Tamerlano”<\/em> opposite Placido Domingo. The LA Opera has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NEA over the years, but today, like so many arts enterprises, they are in dire straits. Domingo, the Opera’s general director, deferred his salary to reduce costs. Last month they announced<\/a> that they would have to…<\/p>\n

“…lay off 17 employees, stage fewer performances and reduce its operating budget by a quarter to cope with falling donations and reduced endowment income.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For now, Tamerlano is still on the Opera’s calendar. But by November it may be a different story. I’m sure the Senator’s daughter\/diva will be fine. I’m not so sure that the same can be said of the workers laid off by this facility, or hundreds of others – to say nothing of the related workers and small businesses that depend on these venues and other artistic enterprises. They number in the millions and, contrary to the insensitive blathering of Pence, Coburn, and Kingston, they are real people.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Arts Recovery Funds Restored in Economic Stimulus Bill<\/a> [Woo hoo]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Believe it or not, there are actually living relics of the Dark Ages who have the audacity to publicly wonder as to whether artists are real people. One of them is Georgia’s Republican Congressman Jack Kingston who, addressing what he felt were wasteful provisions of the stimulus bill, said the following: “We have real people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[511,482,500,510],"class_list":["post-1198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-culture","category-general","tag-jack-kingston","tag-mike-pence","tag-nea","tag-tom-coburn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-jk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1188,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1188","url_meta":{"origin":1198,"position":0},"title":"A Stimulus Bill For The Arts","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/2\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As the economy continues to wobble, and Americans face the bleakness of a looming depression, Washington is cobbling together a stimulus package designed to restore the economy and create jobs. The overwhelming majority of the $850 billion proposal is allocated to infrastructure spending and the rescue and reform of financial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art\/Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1355,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1355","url_meta":{"origin":1198,"position":1},"title":"The Fox Nation Of Fanatics Fails Again: Health Care Edition","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/7\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As if it weren't bad enough that Fox Nation populates its web site with right-wing hysteria and links to uber-conservative purveyors of propaganda, they have now demonstrated that their editors are (at least) as stupid as their readers are gullible. Today I observed a graphic at Fox Nation linking to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":120,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=120","url_meta":{"origin":1198,"position":2},"title":"Fake FEMA Director To Appear On Fake News Show","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/27\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael Brown, the former director of FEMA, will be the guest of Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, March 28. This is comedy at its finest because what could be funnier than a jovial romp with the man that let tens of thousands of hurricane victims suffer in a crumbling sports arena\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36673,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=36673","url_meta":{"origin":1198,"position":3},"title":"To CNN’s Jake Tapper: You HAVE Wasted Enough of Your Viewers’ Time, So Stop Doing It","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/7\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"On Sunday morning's episode of CNN's State of the Union, there was a remarkable interview by Jake Tapper. His guest was Donald Trump's senior advisor for policy, and thirty-two year old man still stuck in a temper tantrum he began as a five year old, Stephen Miller. The segment (video\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Free Press"","block_context":{"text":"Free Press","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=14"},"img":{"alt_text":"CNN Stephen Miller","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cnn-miller-treasonous.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cnn-miller-treasonous.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cnn-miller-treasonous.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=123","url_meta":{"origin":1198,"position":4},"title":"Feds Fix Fines For Radio Friends","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/4\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Payola in radio is an old story but, like everything else in the age of new media, it has been made over by technology and a regulatory environment that curtails competition. 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