[Overpaid Slacker]

Art saves lives.

Therefore, we must publicly fund art in order to save lives.

Publicly funded art is the moral equivalent to properly equipping our public servants.

Therefore, we must fund art on an order of magnitude commensurate with what we spend on fire/police/education/welfare/etc ad nauseam b/c we will be saving lives.

I'm just not familiar with this terrain, Supe.

Public funding of art saves (preserves) lifestyles of the recipients ... not lives.

Art is nice, but not exactly an effective substitute for water, sustenance or shelter.

If an artist is any good, he'll use it to pay his rent and bills -- through commissions or sales of his craft. If he's not that good, then he's really not an artist and should do something at which he'll add value to the community -- not suck money out of that same community through a "grant" to make a scrapmetal welding experiment that looks like a particularly grievous helicopter crash.

Why is it not "music saves lives" and we can dole out thousands of dollars to every no-talent drop-out dirtbag who can shriek incoherently into a microphone? Is it b/c enough fools out there are actually willing to PAY to hear him so he can buy mansions, Ferraris and helicopters?

But godawful "music" is still art and therefore it still saves lives and we are therefore under the same moral imperative that does not allow critical examination to throw money at bad music every and anywhere.

JP