writes<\/a> in the Times today:<\/p>\n“I fear that this current call to abolish the N.E.A. is the beginning of a new assault on artistic activity. Arts and cultural programming challenges, provokes and entertains; it enhances our lives. Eliminating the N.E.A. would in essence eliminate investment by the American government in the curiosity and intelligence of its citizens. As the planet becomes at once smaller and more complex, the public needs a vital arts scene, one that will inspire us to understand who we are and how we got here \u2014 and one that will help us to see other countries, like China, not as enemies in a mercenary trade war but as partners in a complicated world.”<\/p>\n
But that might help prevent the war with China that Bannon wants so badly, might it not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The arts generate tremendous economic activity, so forget that bullshit about cost-saving (and of course what the Fed gives the arts are droplets in the bucket). And as the Met Museum’s Thomas Campbell writes in the Times today: “I fear … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7212,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions\/7212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobenthal.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}