Speak Memory

Then:

Arts Journal
Is there a Better Case for the Arts?
A Public Conversation, March 7-11, 2005

"Back when I was NEA Chairman, it was a great deal of fun to work with the good Endowment staff, Americans for the Arts, NASAA, members of Congress pro and con, in order to get the agency moving again. We accomplished that together, and it's great...

Thanks for all the good ideas.

- Bill Ivey"

Now:

Wall Street Journal
The Arts Need Better Arguments by Greg Sandow
February 18, 2009

People in the arts had a triumph.

They got culture money into the stimulus bill -- but not without a fight. The House, in its version of the bill, gave $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, increasing its budget by more than the third. Then the Senate took that out. Arts advocates mobilized, made phone calls, asked supporters to make some noise. And lo! The final version of the bill restored the funds.

Arts advocates, from Robert Redford to the president of New York's Lincoln Center, are celebrating now. But I wonder, in a still, small voice, if this is really such a victory.

For one thing, in the larger scope of things, it's not much money. Fifty million dollars, in a hastily assembled $800 billion stimulus, is just a bubble on a wave...

Meta-musical: Shirley Bassey-History Repeating.