I'm entertained, at the least, and that's all can really ask for, is it? This was especially amusing:

"On education, Obama has said that he sees a great educational value to the arts. Indeed, de facto cultural attache Quincy Jones has said that promoting the arts in schools will help to avoid cultural aneurysms like the Columbine shooting. What could further the president's goal more than cooperation between a department of culture and the department of education? And absent a cultural authority, who does secretary of education Arne Duncan turn to?"

I am impressed--I wouldn't have had the nerve to write that with a straight face. That said, there's probably something to the general idea of rebranding the NEA in order to get rid of the associations of the past, and I'm even more sure there's a role to play on the part of government in helping to develop/implement conservation/preservation standards for new art, collections, etc. But that's part of the reason why the real action in arts funding lies not with the NEA, as much as people love to talk about it, but with IMLS.

(Oh, I can't resist--the idea that the Department of Defense, coming straight from telling State to shove it, would stop to listen to whatever the Department of Culture had to say about protecting the Iraq National Museum? That's just darling.)