Closing Night - CBC cutting down on Arts Programming

[judih]

My brother, Larry Weinstein, Rhombus Media, is a Canadian filmmaker working in the field of Music documentaries since 1976 or so and has a good reason to rant about CBC cutting back its promise to promote Arts programming.

He writes his rant in Flipster e-zine, available at:
http://www.flip-publicity.com/newslette ... pril07.pdf

His article is 'Closing Night'. Enjoy yourself while you scroll down. And better yet, what do you think? Artguy and Kari and Axander and any other Canadians or empathetic Americans?
How's your local funding situation for the Arts?


judih

[Zlatko Waterman]

An old friend and correspondent of mine, Janice Keefer, a prominent Canadian novelist,


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_Kulyk_Keefer


used to extol the level of support for the arts in Canada. The CBC used to sponsor writing contests, and she won the short story contest a couple of times.

This is sad news. The U.S. compared to Europe, shakes out with alarmingly low statistics in government support for the arts:

Eight CITIES in Germany provide more monetary support for music than the U.S. does in its Federal programs to the individual states.

(paste)

On February 6th, President Bush released the Administration’s budget request for FY 2007. The President requested a budget of $124.4 million or level funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. The President once again eliminated funding for the Department of Education’s Arts in Education Programs. This is the sixth consecutive year that the President's budget has eliminated funding for the Arts in Education programs. The budget lays out the President's funding priorities and is the starting point for the Administration's negotiations with Congress. The $2.7 trillion budget calls for the elimination or reduction of 140 federal programs and a 2% cut to most discretionary funding programs.

(source)
http://www.americanartsalliance.org/ame ... id=3739481

(locally, for me)

(paste)

The levels of funding from some public and private sources for 2004 were close to or even below 1998 levels, when the nonprofit arts sector was significantly smaller, according to the groups.

The survey found that public funding across local, state and federal government levels amounted to only about 1 percent in the Los Angeles area, compared to the national average of 10 percent.

While local government entities did report an increase in arts and cultural support between 1998 and 2004, reduced funding from the California Arts Council resulted in an overall reduction of 21 percent in public funding compared to 1998, and a 35 percent reduction in comparison to 2002, the survey found.

Of the funding, 78 percent went to support specific projects and events, while 22 percent went to cover general operating costs, endowment buildup and capital campaigns.

Just one in five private funders supported individual artists.

( note: I was NOT one the supported ones!)

source:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=4770700

The Germans do better:

( except from Brittanica article)

The quantitative dimensions of Germany's cultural life astound non-Germans. Several hundred theatres are subsidized by the federal government, the states, and the cities, and there also are many privately financed theatres. Unlike the United States, Britain, and France, in which theatre is more often than not centred in one city, no single German city predominates. Also, productions in Vienna, Austria, and in Zürich, Switzerland, are significant to Germany's artistic life, and artists and resources move easily and freely among the theatrical and operatic companies within the German-speaking regions. Only in Vienna, the capital in which the arts arouse far more intense passions than do politics, does theatre have a broader audience base than in Germany. Audiences in Germany are not limited to a small intellectual or social elite but are drawn from all ranks of society. Season tickets, group arrangements, bloc tickets bought by business firms, and theatre clubs constitute the major patronage of such production companies as the People's Independent Theatre (Theater der Freien Volksbühne), dating from 1890 in Berlin. Going to the theatre or opera in Germany is nearly as affordable and as unremarkable as attending the cinema is elsewhere. The same is also true of concert music. Every major city has at least one symphony orchestra offering many concerts and recitals each week, and many smaller cities and towns also have concerts.

In few countries are the arts so lavishly cultivated as in Germany in terms of the proliferation of cultural amenities, the funds allotted to them, and the attendance upon them. Although this abundance and generous support has not called forth a new era of brilliance to rival that of the Weimar Republic—when Germany (especially Berlin) experienced a resurgence in the arts and a proliferation of creative talents unparalleled since German Classicism and Romanticism—there are a number of noteworthy individual talents and movements dotting the contemporary landscape.

( source)

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-58067/Germany


The Bush administration spends ( at current levels, requests for increases are in . . .)

about 8.5 BILLION DOLLARS per MONTH! on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures.


Thanks for the article, judih.


--Z

[Lightning Rod]

everywhere you look, there are funding cuts for the arts

luckily the arts don't depend on funding

they depend on imagination and the will to create

[judih]

thanks, zlatko, for so much research and pointing out the sad truth about which budgetary areas are expendable and which are kept sacredly intact.

L-rod, the arts will never die, but filmmakers immortalize artists for those who never get to see them live. TV programmes share the wealth with anyone who has a television. TV has inspired so many. It's available. It's potent and it's there for a flick of a button.

For someone far away from cultural centres, TV offers the best of exposure to great art. The medium is superb. It works!

So, one asks: Is it so hard to make reality TV about reality other than the worst, the biggest, the saddest, the most...?

Well, in the case of CBC slashing the Arts budget, there has been a highly charged campaign run by artists to try to sway the gov't to save the arts from dying of malnutrition.

Money's tight. Perhaps Youtube will bring it all down to the fast and the furious. Meanwhile, i'm glad i've been able to salvage some made for TV arts films to show my kids.

[WIREMAN]

Here in the cradle of democracy the PBS stations have become one continuous fundraiser and a succession of DO-Wop & Lawrence Welk
repeats, (no bullshit!).....and I still gave my fair share and have been waiting for my gift for nearly a year.....thanks alot MPT & PBS......

[Whitebird Sings]

"Money's tight"... the lie of scarcity. It is a lie on the lips of the affluent -- the lie made by the haves to the have nots.

In my country, Canada, there exists a bizarre paradox: unprecedented scarcity in a time of unprecedented wealth!

It is no accident! The poverty and uncertainty that so many people find themselves dealing with on a daily basis is the result of intentional acts of heartlessness and cruelty by the affluent.

The majority of the affluent are distant and uncaring at best, and they are also brutally ruthless. They exist in the realm of "us and them" -- divided from us and each other.

The affluent are those who control our governments, our corporations, our media... you know the list. They decide what will live and what will die. They decide who will live and who will die. It is not just "the arts" that is expendable... it is everything we love, and it is us.

This is hard to accept because it is NOT how the rest of us exist. We live peaceably, supportive of each other. Kind and caring. I know this to be true.

The media, the government -- the affluent -- would have us believe that we are like them, that we are disconnected from one another and that we are lethargic and selfish when it comes to taking any kind of action. NOT SO!! judih's message and her brother's are proof that there are many who are not afraid to speak up and out, that there are many who take action. Many people care! And not just about ourselves and what is important in our lives -- we care about each other! I know this to be true.

The problem is that we have been cut off from each other too often in our daily lives. Segmented, divided in too many ways. This does not allow for collective action. And what we need IS collective action!

We are working on too many separate fronts. We need to come together, artists and scientists and lawyers and educators -- whatever our vocations, whatever our passions -- we need to speak in one voice, and act as one powerful united front!

THEN, and only then, will we be able to take back what has been stolen from us!

so it is.
so it must be.

[judih]

well, is it or is it not the Age of Aquarius? Are we not supposed to be standing in the footsteps of the 'change we want to see' (Gandhi)?

Is this not the cusp of change? Are we not the product of the 60's awakening and the Boomers' communal recognition. If not us, who?
(and how?)

[Whitebird Sings]

OH YA j! I hear your challenge and take up your challenge!!

As for the how, well, it seems to me that what we do is what you and your brother are modelling. We speak up and out. We pass on the word. We invite others to consider what is happening. We shout and invite, "We won't take it anymore, who is with us?" We call out far and wide to everyone we know... and we join together. Given the 9 degrees of separation thing that we all know about... someone knows someone and others know others who have the ties, the information, the resources (all forms of power) that we need to make change or reclaim. So let's do it. Gather us up. Articulate the challenge. What do we need and what do we want? Brainstorm possibilities... and let's do it! Here and now in this place. Let's forget about the borders ...false lines on a map. You've reminded us of that with your post... generated in Israel, about a brother in Canada, sent out to and responded to by people from many countries -- the issues are the same... even if sometimes the paths we take are different... they all lead us to the same goal!

so it is!!
wb

[Dave The Dov]

My country tis of thee
Can't seem to spare the money to those who inspire to see
Come two years time there a change to be
No more the "elephant" will be around me
Whoooooooooa Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
_________________
Mercedes Atego

[Artguy]

Welcome to Canada where if it doesn't happen on bay street or the tar sands....it don't happen...

[e_dog]

Who needs funding for the farts?

Caanadia ennes should pay like the rest of US.

forget culture.

WAR!!

[knip]

i wish they would go one way or the other...if you're going to have a cbc, then do it right - no half measures

i understand the other side of the argument to get rid of cbc, although i wouldn't like to see it, especially cbc radio

[e_dog]

iT'S ABOUT TIME cANADA IS ANNXED TO THE UNITED SLATES.

nORTH aMERICA FOR THE aMERICAS!!