Book Review
New New Media, by Paul Levinson; Penguin Academics, 2009; 191 pages.
Those of us who have tiptoed cautiously into the Brave New World have reason for our trepidation. The first time you take a cell phone call in the bathroom is an epiphany. “My god, I can’t get away.” But you don’t have to answer it, do you?
Now comes the text message revolution. How do you duck that? And Twitter… What in the world is Twitter and why is everyone, including professional athletes caught up in the middle of a game, using it? Who could possibly be interested in knowing that you have an annoying hangnail?
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Newport, RI
Commentary: Cutting Off Your Arts to Spite Your Face
by John Pantalone on February 6, 2010 · 4 comments
Here we go again… Rhode Island is broke, so how do we stem the tide? Cut spending for the arts.
Good grief. In the grand context of the state’s budget troubles, support for the R.I. State Council on the Arts seems like small potatoes. This week Gov. Carcieri submitted his budget to the General Assembly and with it a 58 percent cut in funding for the arts council, which funnels money to non-profit arts organizations throughout the state.
Why do we have to go through this every year? Even in some years when the state has been flush, political leaders have tried to reduce spending for the arts. When you consider that most school systems have stripped arts related programs to the bone, it makes you wonder how any kid attending public schools will ever be inspired to embrace art, music, dance or theatre as essential to their quality of life.
Beyond philosophy, cutting the meager amount spent by the state on the arts makes no practical sense. It isn’t going to have any impact on the state’s deficit, nor will it help re-direct the negative economic trends that have catapulted the deficit into the relative stratosphere. In the long run, a cut of this magnitude in the Arts Council’s budget will cost the state jobs, not to mention part of its cultural fabric.
According to R.I. Citizens for the Arts, a non-profit advocacy group that is leading the charge against the proposed budget reduction, every dollar invested by the state through the Arts Council generates $21.55 in funds from other sources (mostly matching grants from foundations and other donors). Even more to the point, arts activities in Rhode Island generate millions of dollars for businesses throughout the state.
Citizens for the Arts claims that in Providence alone non-profit arts and cultural organizations generate over $111 million in economic activity for hotels, restaurants, shops and others. They say that the state has more than 2,000 businesses that are directly or indirectly involved in creative industries, and these businesses employ nearly 12,000 people.
Can Rhode Island afford to lose half of those 12,000 jobs? Why would you cut arts and cultural investment when that sector of the economy has grown while others have shrunk? It makes no sense, especially when you consider how small the investment is compared to the overall size of the state budget.
Every community stands to lose in this scenario, especially Newport, where cultural tourism forms one of the foundations for the city’s economy.
Anyone who is concerned about the proposed cut in arts and cultural funding should make themselves known to legislators and state leaders. Fixing Rhode Island’s fiscal problems isn’t a simple task, but chipping away at good investments like arts and culture shouldn’t be part of the solution. There are much bigger fish to fry, and some of them take far more from the state than they contribute.
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