Barack Obama

Some suggestions to satisfy your reading, viewing and listening appetite throughout the weekend… Read more…

Supporters of the arts received good news late Friday when the Senate voted 60 to 38 in favor of a $787 billion economic stimulus bill following a 246-183 House vote earlier in the day. The bill included $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, which seemed to be in serious jeopardy mid-week. Read more…

Critics of the economic stimulus plan (read: impotent Republicans in Congress) have, throughout the debate over the size and scope of the package, cherry-picked various programs—ones, of course, that they don’t like or that run counter to their ideology—as evidence of “pork.” And in some cases, both in the House and especially in the Senate, Democrats have caved, stripping billions of dollars from the package in the name of bipartisanship, despite the obvious ways in which these programs would have played important roles in moving this country forward during tough economic times. Read more…

Despite the increasingly unambiguous value of arts education in American schools, thanks to scores of studies and surveys in recent years, government funding of arts education, and the arts in general, seems to ignore those established, consequential benefits—not only for students that are directly impacted, but all of society. Read more…