I ask this leading question because, though we know the answer, we persist in champing at the usual bit. Almost no one running for office will discuss the arts or something as specific as gay rights when business and war put national, even international, livelihood at risk. Yet the health and some of the wealth of civil society depends upon the health of the arts, upon the survival of its small as well as large institutions, and upon the strength of its journalist criticism, now under mindless attack. Our souls too depend upon the arts, but … [Read more...]