Paint by numbers

red white blue...

pinked by brownback

has no clue

now no greenbacks

dazed sad bemused...

sacked, underhanded spiteful...

power playing tool.

intellect attacking, screwged? ......

Looks like a gathering storm behind him. Let's hope so.

Ironically, as bad as it is, that awful background in that "portrait" was created by an artist somewhere.

Then it's not surprising that the governor would want to shut artists down. Too bad he doesn't realize that it's not the background that people don't like.

Well, you're right.

I didn't say the background was good. The point is that artists exist and work in many ways and many places. Shutting down ANY arts/artists makes Kansas that much worse (if that's even possible).

ART is all around us, not only is it in the background for Sammy B's portrait but if your really look at almost anything man made, art/design is within it and the item wouldn't exist without it. We will never open the eyes of the blind conservative ideologues but if we can open the eyes of the majority of the masses then perhaps the perennial fight we wage from a reactionary position can end and our efforts better served fighting other social ills.
We need to change the perception of what art is and find a way to illustrate it's significance in our daily lives.

Jess

I cannot find Uffy in the stack, so you will have to do.

My response to this story (as is quite often the case with me) "GOOD GRIEF!"

Control the arts.....by not funding it. It seems to me that an artist that gets funding from private sources (or customers) would have more freedom than funding from the government. A goverment stipend could stipulate boundries - no "pornography" or controversial subject matter - that could be very controlling. I understand that funding for the arts are, a lot of times, to grant access to people that would otherwise not be able to experience or create art (the poor for example, being allowed into galleries/museums for free or reduced cost). But in my opinion, I just don't feel that a local, state or federal government should be involved in a "want" of the people, but should stick to the "needs" of the people. I know that is over-simplified and people will argue that art is a need, but the Libertarian in me just thinks otherwise. Art for centuries has flourished as a private endeavor.

It's not a lot of money, but when you cut half a million here and a few million there, it starts to add up. And I would rather trim small things like this than larger "needier" things like food stamps or low cost housing. I find it interesting that the politicians and their supporters shy away from the biggest expenditure items (like welfare or SSI) and then in the same breath say things like this are too small and won't make a difference. Well, what do we trim our budgets with? The "medium" things?

Yeah Skip, to heck with the arts. Supply side economics will save us! I doubt you see much use to a liberal arts education either. Clearly you also believe that the Gov should impose his personal will against the will of the people in this case.

I was not necessarily siding with the Kansas Governor on this specific issue Bear, just responding to Randy's statement about controlling the arts. Don't you think that if a government gives money to the arts, that they would be able to control it more than if the arts are funded on their merits by the consumers of that art? I like the arts immensely, but I don't expect the govenment on any level should be the one controlly the purse strings. Same with education to an extent. To me the more the government is involved in ANYTHING, the more control they have. As I stated above, it would be great if everyone could get everything thing they "wanted", but we both know that in reality that won't happen. I think we should FIRST worry about the needs of the population, then if there is $$ left, we can move down the Maslovian hierarchy and fund the arts, give free education to all, etc.

Let's say you are a governor and you HAVE to stay in budget (I'm dreaming I know - this never seems to be the case). Would you cut programs that will help people get by in everyday life (like heat or food) or cut programs that would be nice to have, but would not impact someone in dire need? Again, I know that a lot of these programs are not huge dollars, but 5 or 6 or 10 half million dollar items start to add up. We can't always do everything all the time. Think about how you would personally save money if you were in financial difficulty. I would imagine you would proabaly start with little things, like making your own coffee vs. Starbucks, or brown bagging for lunch. They, by themselves are small items, but together they could save you hundreds a month.

So in other words artists should be controlled by companies and private art collectors, not the government. The artist being controlled and unable to create the art he wants isn't the problem here: it's who's funding it.

Just like we don't care if healthcare costs rise, we just care that the private industry is the one controlling the rise and not the government.

Le sigh.

This is the SOB Governor that is going to pass a bill for voting in this next election to more or less just vote for Republicans.....the voters who are Democrats will have to show their Birth Certificate!!! Gotta get this guy out of here...he is up there with the rest of them who are trying to wreck our government, not that it hasn't already been wrecked!! Sure hope the Republicans who voted for this guy is happy with their decision. Obama will win in 2012....no doubt in my mind!!!

Hi, (sorry, had some housecleaning to do.)

Skip,

That comment I made initially was intended as a historical reference and a spin on "10 steps to take over a country", so I didn't really expect a response to it.

But to your reply, I do think of this from an entirely different perspective than you...judging by what you've said. Here's how I see the issue.

Taking how the human brain works into account, right half of the brain is the arts, left half of the brain is logic. To deny exposure to the arts for right brain-dominant people is to deny their entire exposure to information in the terms they best understand it. In the same way, denying left brain-dominant people to text books of equations, formulas and the table of elements would be denying their mind to things in the best way for them to learn or understand it.
To me, this isn't about the "luxury of art", it's about denying half the popluation (regardless of party affliation or country of origin) exposure to the best way they learn things.

For most people, we have our right brain translating formulas, equations and tables into something representing a picture, a color or a sound, then when we need that information, it's recalled and translated automatically back into the form we need to actually use that information. The opposite happens to left-brained, poetry, music and paintings are broken down into measureable angles, equations..translatting words into numbers that form a recognizable pattern..then translated back again when we go to recall it.

Whether it be funding in terms of teaching kids in school, or funding of the arts in public institutions to give the public easy access to it, I don't believe this is a "want". I believe it's a "need", because half of us think in terms of art and half think in terms of logic...predominantly. People with equal balance between right and left halves of the brain are few and far between.

One last point, to deny equal exposure to both art and the math and sciences leads to the inability of half of us unable to effectively communicate with the other half us.

I hope this made some sense.

To the "funding issue" specifically (which I kinda forgot about above)..

It's all about balance. Neither right or left brainer's get to "win". The shared sacrifice needs to be spread out. We simply can't keep thinking of our country or our world in terms of a football game.

Randy you make good right-left brain comments but I was just trying to understand your first comment when you stated that control the arts, control the press, etc and I was just pointing out/asking how you could control the arts if you left it alone (not fund it). And again, I am not against the arts. I just think getting the government involved is not the best approach. I can't really think of anything the government does well or is of the highest quality. As for your shared sacrifice comment, I am betting that the arts is not the only thing being cut, so they are sharing the sacrifice.

And Mickey, artists should not be controlled by anyone, public or private. BUT if you let the govt fund it, it WILL be controlled. On the private side the artist can do what he likes - whether govt approves of it or not - and if they are good, they will get the funding from the appreciating audience.

And again, I would luv to fund the arts and many other things that some here may view as either a want or a need, but we can't keep thinking that we as a country, have some magical pot of gold with endless riches. And even with drastic tax increases and/or cuts in spending we owe 14,000 Billion dollars (PLEASE don't respond with who got us to that number - I know - but we still owe it regardless). Seriously, does anyone at this Maddow blog site ever think for a slight minute that maybe, just maybe we can't afford everything, no matter how noble that cause is. Or do most here just ignore the bank balance altogether - both on the state and federal level?

Randy Cain, I think you're mistaken about the ratio of populations. By any measure, people are distributed along a "bell curve" shaped chart. On the vertical axis, quantity of individuals is measured. Along the horizontal axis (for this example) tendency to use right or left side of the brain is on a continuum. In the center, where use of the brain is evenly distributed toward an average degree will be 68% of the population. Individuals who use primarily one side or the other make up about 4%.

I think you are onto something as far as dividing people based on how they view the importance of art, and that concept is critical to the discussion. The relevant psychological variable is probably the personality variable referred to as "openness to experience". The more open to experience an individual is, the more they will be willing to derive a message from a piece of art work. The people who have a high level of OtE (as well as high Extroversion and Conscientiousness) tend to report higher levels of happiness (subjective well-being) and are liked more by friends and co-workers.

It seems to be the case that Libertarians came to that "political" viewpoint by wanting to conclude their psychological experiences, especially as Ayn Rand compresses the whole romantic experience of being human into ideological contrivances and short answers that are essentially a bolt on the door to new experiences.

Oh, I get it. I guess I should have put everything after "Let's see.." in quotes, but I couldn't remember which doctrine or speech it was I was trying to remember. ...Stalin, Lenin, Mao..., they all followed it, but I couldn't remember the phraseology to make it a direct quote.

Sorry for the mis-understanding.

Just to be fair, it's been used by FDR and other Presidents here, to one extent or another. We are an "ideological cocktail" of founding principles.

Brad, I'm certainly not a doctor and I didn't do any homework before responding, so I "respectfully stand as amended".

"Don't you think that if a government gives money to the arts, that they would be able to control it more than if the arts are funded on their merits by the consumers of that art?"

Why would you necessarily think that? Ah, that's right. You distrust government because that's what Libertarians seem to do best. I trust the government over the private sector any day. I think your view of needs and wants is overly simplisitic, but you're within your rights to your own opinion. The world doesn't run on a zero sum game in quite the way you make it out to. Your hypothetical situation isn't directly related to the issue at hand, unless you have real numbers that I don't.

@ThusIsBrad

Are you 100% positive the bell curve goes /\ and not \/?

I am only asking because there was no evidence presented for either. Bell curves do not all go up in the middle ground, some go down. Bell just means the shape, not the direction.

@Skip
The private sector puts more constraint on arts than the government does. Yes, you are right, the government will not commission pornographic art (not that porn is all art, anyway) but they do not restrict a University student's rights to free speech or expression through their funding of the art program. A private collector will often commission art and not buy things the artist chose on their own, so your view of control is actually the opposite of real, tangible control. A private commission will dictate what you can do with your art. Look at the things commissioned from the greats of the past. Most of their private commissioned work had to be done and redone until the buyer had the level of control of the art they wanted. Private sector art is far more controlled than government funded art in the US.

The government won't put anything wild or depicting grotesque scenes on their buildings, but they really don't care what you or I do in an art class.

You have to think outside the box that Ayn Rand created in so many minds. Don't immediately assume that government applies control over things that they fund. The private sector has always, at least in the US, been WAY more controlling over your actions than the government has. Think about why things like hemp cannot be grown in the US. It was not the government that decided it was a good idea, it was paper manufacturers.

Private companies buy governments in laissez faire settings, so having an unregulated private sector and an unfunded public sector will end up leaving us under more control than the government would ever want to have over us. We are more productive for the national outlook and democracy when we are not subjugated. We are more productive for corporations as their subjects, because they can pay us less and work us more.

They don't directly control education, so why think they will directly control art? Education is up to local, county, state, and they get extra funding from the Federal Govt depending on how they perform and if they teach religious or other non-secular subject matter outside of history / philosophy courses.

I think you're onto something, Mr. Schloss.

It is amazing how one person feels that he is king of the world when elected to public office. The key words are Elected and Public Office. He was Elected to Serve the Public while in Office. There seems to be a lot of that going around. If we cannot wait for the next election there is always Recall or Impeachment

George W. Bush said something revealing once. He called the 2004 election an "accountability moment" (see www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12450-2005Jan15.html). He said that the election was a ratification of his approach to Iraq. He was accountable to the electorate in that "moment" and was found deserving of another four years. In his delusional mind, anyway.

But here's the really revealing part of it: he characterized accountability as lasting for only a moment, for only the duration of the casting of ballots. After that was done, he felt he had carte blanche to do as he pleased. Once the election was over, as he apparently saw it, after that "moment" had come and gone, he was no longer accountable to anyone.

Clearly, just based on the actions of the current crop of Republican governors and legislatures, that attitude is not limited to GWB. They apparently all believe that if they are voted into office, they are authorized to do whatever they wish to do, whether or not they campaigned on that issue or even whether they have the support of other members of their party. They were elected, and no one else can say boo until the next "accountability moment", provided they'll even let you vote the next time around.

Perhaps, when they are sworn in, they imagine themselves to be Napoleon Bonaparte crowning himself emperor.

And how is Kansas really all that different from any other state that has Republicans for governors and legislators these days? They're all singing from the same hymnal. Some are tenors, some are sopranos, but it's all the same tune. (Now, if they were all castrati, that'd be just fine.)

There's an apocryphal story about Winston Churchill, during the height of the Blitz, being accosted by a passer-by as he left the theater one evening. "Don't you think there are better things to spend our money and time on than something like the theater? Shouldn't we cancel funding for the arts?" asked the man. "After all, there's a war on!"

"Good God, no," Churchill replied, "Just what do you think we're fighting this war for?"

Perhaps we could all wait for Brownback to attend the theater, or a museum, especially if (as often happens) that visit is one of those "the state honors such-and-so company for their contributions to the arts &c &c", and turn Churchill's exchange around on him-- "if the arts is so important, why hamstring the entire sector the way you did?"

A branch of the Department of Tourism? Does Walker think art is just for tourists?

Maybe all the art he knows about is the display of velvet Elvises at the Esso gas station on the way to the Wisconsin Dells....

The Republican governors are doing a great job of alienating their citizens

Short term, the situation will only get worse. Long term, however, the GOP alienating the citizenry might be a good thing.

(So glad I moved to Portland just in time for the Teabagger Governor. Really...)

Yep, the mural fiasco immediately sprung to my mind, too as I was reading about what's happening in Kansas.

I haven't heard anything in LePage's proposals that further go after art funding, but he does want to defund MPBN which I read in today's BDN.

You should try Portland, Oregon. They have a much better governor!

I'd be open to that-- the project I'm working on currently runs until April/ May of next year (so long, of course, as the money doesn't run out... but it's funded under the IMLS, which is also under the gun in terms of funding, I hear), so I'll be looking around for a new position soon...

Of course, given the constant wrangling nowadays about the place of the humanities in this society, that may be a problem in and of itself. Much like the arts, history (in terms of museums, &c) has been under the same gun--no perceived value until you want it there, ignored or denigrated when you don't (or if it can provide an easy scapegoat)...

non-essential expenditures

To those who will lose their jobs, and to the sector in general as they take a hit, these expenditures are not non-essential.

To the hopes of building and maintaining an well-educated, culturally-literate society, these expenditures are not non-essential.

But I suppose we have to make way for more tax breaks for corporations and such, don't we? That's worked so well for us so far, hasn't it?

I hope the commission can be restored during better fiscal times.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Who needs a well-educated and culturally literate society? Oh, wait...

Not one in which corporations control their workers...

Yes, "1984". Much of the power held by Big Brother was due to thought control, or the practice of limiting the thoughts that could be possible in one's mind by eliminating the images and language which were a vehicle for the thought. Double ungood.

doubleplus ungood, even.