Doofus Of The Day #405

Today's award is presented to the National Endowment for the Arts. CNS News (which presented the NEA with its 'Golden Hookah Award' for the same reason) reports:

CNSNews.com presents this week’s “Golden Hookah” to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for distributing $1.4 million in special economic “stimulus” grants to 37 “arts” organizations located in the City of San Francisco.

Money for the grants was slipped into the $787-billion economic "stimulus" law that President Barack Obama signed in February 2009.

While the NEA says the grants were awarded on the basis of artistic merit and excellence--and that political affiliation was in no way a part of the selection process--"arts" groups in San Francisco got more grants than any entire state except New York or California, taken as a whole.

One grant recipient in San Francisco claims credit for fostering the success of a group that puts on a live performance it describes as an experience in which “ethno-cyborgs create slow motion emblematic tableaux variants” and "some performers feel inclined to eroticize political violence.”

The Golden Hookah is the symbolic token that CNSNews.com confers on government agencies that win our “What Were They Smoking Award” for outrageous government spending. CNSNews.com presents the award weekly to a component of government that has distinguished itself in taking the hard-earned money of taxpayers and sending it up in smoke.

There's more at the link, including a video report on the NEA's grants.

I objected to most of the 'stimulus' expenditure on principle. To have it applied to an artistic and erotic 'stimulus' merely adds insult to injury! I think it's high time we killed all government funding for the arts. I value and appreciate some of them, and I'm willing to spend my own money to support those that interest me; but I object violently to having my tax dollars wasted in this fashion. Let the arts raise the money they need from their supporters and patrons, and stop mooching from the rest of us - and from our taxes!





Peter