Fox News talks about some unusual uses of Obama stimulus funds:
The NEA was given $80 million of the government’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill to spread around to needy artists nationwide . . . .
But some of the NEA’s grants are spicing up more than the economy. A few of their more risque choices have some taxpayer advocates hot under the collar, including a $50,000 infusion for the Frameline film house, which recently screened Thundercrack, “the world’s only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla.”
Obama has gone on record as admitting that it would be impossible to regulate all of the uses of the stimulus funds:
“We can’t afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary,” Obama said at the time.
But he presumably didn’t intend to have stimulus money help fund the weekly production of “Perverts Put Out” at San Francisco’s CounterPULSE, whose “long-running pansexual performance series” invites guests to “join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun.”
CEOs of publicly traded companies have been indicted, convicted and jailed for spending corporate money on lavish parties yet the U.S. government can waste taxpayers’ money on a show that,
. . . depicts “the sharing of a central axis, [as] spine, mouth, genitals, face, and anus reveal their interconnectedness and centrality in embodied experience.
Kinda makes Jimmy Buffet and a couple of gladiator waiters seem reasonable, doesn’t it?
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Simon Sheppard // Aug 4, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Hey, I’m not entirely sure that accuracy matters to you, but…
The NEA grant does not fund, or partially fund, Perverts Put Out! It goes toward the theater where many – but not all – PPO!s are staged. We pay them rent. They don’t pay us any par of the grant. Surely even a tax lawyer – even one who unquestioningly parrots whatever Fox News spews – cares about that distinction, no? A more accurate headline would be “Approximately .0003% of NEA funds go to a theatre that rents space to, among dozens of other performances, Perverts Put Out!”
(Oh, also, the photo you posted has nothing to do with Perverts Put Out!, but is of an unrelated modern dance performance. I do hope you’re more scrupulous about the facts when dealing with your clients’ cases.)
2 Peter // Aug 4, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Simon Sheppard,
Emotional, aren’t we?
Do you think for a second that if the theater put on a racist play or one that demeaned and degraded women the government wouldn’t pull its funding faster than Usain Bolt being chased by a Cheetah?
The government is spending money on garbage when it claims to be concerned about people lacking healthcare.
I find that hypocritical, disturbing and, sadly, business as usual.
This is just one of many reasons why you’d have to be out of your everloving mind to want to give more money to the government.
And as far as the photo goes, it is relatively benign compared to what I am told actually takes place on the PPO stage.
I did you a favor and downplayed the trash. You can thank me later.
Finally, I am not sure accuracy matters to you, but stop parrotting everything Keith Olberman spews.
3 Simon Sheppard // Aug 5, 2009 at 11:26 am
Oh, I’m angry, sure, at Fox demagoguing about this and you lapping it up. (And yes, Fox News was your sole source on this story. Olbermann – nice try at a feint – never said anything about this, nor did anyone outside the right-wing blogosphere…all of which uses Fox’s reports, riddled with factual errors, as its only source.)
A model of journalistic integrity, Fox never contacted anyone involved with Perverts Put Out! for a comment or fact-check, and, in typically fair and balanced fashion, put on a breathlessly prurient report that lasted nearly 6 minutes, devoting about half that time on an echo-chamber “interview” with bloviating right-wing congressman and spending a big 11 seconds devoted to reading the NEA’s boilerplate response.
One would think that, if one is being accused of “destroying American culture” on national TV, one would be given a fair and balanced opportunity to respond? Fat chance.
All these crocodile tears about healthcare obfuscate the issue. You know it and I know it – Fox is attempting to use this as a club against Obama and Pelosi, though this particular bit of swiftboating hasn’t gained much traction.
So what are we actually talking about here? CounterPulse will receive, as I said before, .0003% of the total of NEA funds and not one penny of that money will be allocated to us. To put things in proportion, $25 K is equal to what we spent in 5 seconds on the Iraqi War. If that money went to medical care instead, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for a single proctoscopy. If the NEA grants were a mile, CounterPulse’s share would be two inches.
Anyway, how the government is, as you say, “spending money” on PPO! remains, sorry, obscure. Once again, in case you don’t get it: CounterPULSE does not “put on” PPO! It rents its space to us. That’s it.
I find it kind of sad that you think sexually oriented readings and performance pieces are malignant, and somehow equivalent to racism or misogyny. I suppose that says more about you than about PPO! But since we’re playing hypothetical…if a theater receiving NEA funds had rented to an organization that put on a racist or sexist play, do you really suppose Fox would have spent 6 overheated minutes on THAT? Do you think Glenn “Obama hates white people” Beck would even have mentioned it? Really?
So let’s sum up. A tiny proportion of NEA funding go to CounterPULSE, which puts on perhaps a hundred other performances a year besides PPO! No taxpayer funds go to PPO! CounterPULSE, rather than channelling money us, on the contrary receives a significant chunk of our ticket sales. Though the picture on this page has nothing to do with PPO!, your unnamed sources have told you that I should be happy about that. And Fox – and you – are making a big hullaballoo about a truly miniscule sliver of NEA funds, and thoroughly mischaracterizing where it goes. All to raise the rabble.
I stand by what I’ve said. Accuracy does matter to me. You, on the other hand, continue playing fast and loose with facts.
Oh, and of course, none of your gang has the slightest problem condemning something none of you has ever seen. Congrats!
I’ve decided not to spend a lot more of my time on this. So I bid you a fond adieu.
It’s been real.
4 Peter // Aug 5, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Simon,
You make some very good points and I will check out the facts and see if I can’t find corroboration from sources other than Fox.
I don’t blindly follow Fox. I read all of the major news feeds – MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc – as well as the Daily Kos and other left wing blogs.
I think you have every right to put on any show you like. I am a big believer in the first amendment.
What I object to is the government funding of art in a time of record deficits, massive unemployment and a healthcare crisis.
We should prioritize.
Good luck.
5 Tax Overhaul Needed Says Brookings Institute // Aug 10, 2009 at 12:11 am
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6 Simon Sheppard // Aug 11, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Hi Peter,
For my own sanity, I decided to take a vacation from reading the blogs about PPO!, so I’m just now catching up with the past week’s. I just wanted to thank you for your – yes! – fair and balanced last post.
Simon
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