If you care about the arts than PLEASE contact your legislators and plead with them to stop this.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Trump-Administration-Plans-to-Eliminate-National-Endowment-For-The-Arts-20170119
I was afraid of this. They call it “waste.” The mourning for this election result is going to continue for a long time. Will call legislators, thanks.
Also funding for national labs that in turn fund a fair amount of PhD student research and summer employment for STEM majors. And Dept of Energy funding for college research as well – so REUs, summer campus research, and PhD funding is at risk.
UGH…REUs are so important! My middle son who is now a PhD candidate did 2 of them and they were highly influential. One of the REUs he did was at the Mathematical Biological Institute at Ohio State. Many famous and successful scientists and mathematicians have been involved with MBI over the years and the institute played an important role as it offered many post-doc positions. Last year MBI failed to get it’s funding renewed an like that all these post-doc positions were eliminated. NOW THAT IS SAD.
So depressed. We can take whatever measures we can, call legislators etc., but feeling powerless.
I’m sure paintings of the new POTUS will be commissioned. Those will be the only government sponsored art we will have in this administration.
Sad.
Enough to make me crawl out of the woodwork. May the gods help us all.
Violadad!
As far as I’m concerned, the arts (music in particular, in my opinion, although I have no talent at it myself but was hoping to apply for a poetry grant next year) are one of our few remaining saving graces. I will never understand the world-view that sees money or energy or time spent on them as being wasted. Music has such power, and so much potential to bring people together.
@asmother:
That is part of the problem I think, music and the arts cause people to think and ponder, if you listen to Britten’s war requiem it can make you think about the cost of war and whether it is wise to commit it. Not to mention that politics, especially these days, is all about dividing people, why would you?
Sadly, I think it really reflects what a lot of people think, that anything that isn’t about three R’s education or the military or something ‘real’, it is a waste sigh. Makes me nostalgic for the cold war where they literally talked about a ‘culture gap’ with the USSR and there was a lot of arts spending. It is kind of ironic that we could have a world where most of the arts funding comes from big financial firms and the like who have the reputation of not supporting anything with a ROI…
Oh, I am so grateful–I have not been on CC in a few days and it is so wonderful to find a haven of kindred spirits. After being surrounded since November by friends, relatives, and acquaintances, all of whom are of a different political bent and just make me feel like the whole world has gone crazy, I open this page and feel comforted that there is sensibility and sanity still in the world. Thank you.