Where’s Sen. William Proxmire when we really need him?
The late legislator from Wisconsin famously delighted in bestowing his “Golden Fleece Awards” upon what he considered absurd applications of federal funds.
What might he have thought of the Request for Proposals just issued by the National Endowment for the Arts, which asks applicants to design a new logo around Rocco Landesman’s lame new slogan for the agency that he chairs—“Art Works”? (Above is the current logo.)
Some $25,000 from the NEA’s administrative budget, to be paid to the designer of the winning proposal, will be squandered on this frivolous project. Why not instead transfer it to the grants budget, to further artists’ projects of their own choosing, not the agency’s promotional gambit?
Maybe the “Art Works” emblem should include an image of artists waiting on tables, since so few can adequately support themselves through their creative undertakings.
All of this seems all the more absurd in light of its timing—on the same day as the announcement of NEA and NEH funding cuts in the President’s proposed 2011 budget.