Get a sponsor, like they used to. Solves two problems at once: funding, and gets the real garbage

I’d rather give their share to Larry Flynt!

Let Bill Moyers bail them out.

On January 29th, 2009 at 11:47 pm, oldbuckaroo said:
I propose that a life-sized sculpture of Ms. Dana Gioia ..

Please at least Google the subject of your post if you’re unfamiliar with the name. Stuff like this doesn’t help public perception of conservatives.

Dana Gioia is a guy. He was a successful businessman who cashed out his stock options to pursue a life as a poet and writer. He is a very well-respected leader of “the new formalism,” which aims to bring structure, rhyme, and vitality back to modern poetry. As such he is considered a dangerous conservative (aesthetic) reactionary by much of the arts community. I have no idea of his personal politics, but do know that he was selected by President Bush to head the NEA and implement a program to eliminate the abuses that so many of us remember from the 80′s and 90′s. He has largely succeeded in orienting the NEA to support local arts organizations — the kind of people who teach your children art and theater.

There is a principled argument to make about whether the NEA should exist at all. I’ve made that argument myself to enraged liberals. But as long as we have an NEA, Dana Gioia is the very best we’re ever going to have as its leader.

Eliminate the NEA. There is no need for it except to fund liberal dinner parties and showings of art of dubious quality.

Gioia is considered a dangerous aesthetic conservative by many on the left. He writes and advocates well-structured poetry that often rhymes (i.e. the new formalism). I have no idea of his political leanings, but his artistic outlook is conservative.

Most on the left would consider me a paleo-con. But I’ve got to disagree with this general thread. If Dana Gioia says he needs some additional money, I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.