Donald Satz wrote: >This brings me to one of my pet peeves - public involvement in the arts. >You always know what a private business wants - money and profit. What >do these public and subsidized entities want: money? control? influence? >reputation? high quality? exposure with celebrities?. It could be just >about anything, and it changes quickly as well. There is also the "mind" >and "behavior" control element that public bodies place high priority on >because the power structure wants to retain its position. The problem with this argument against public support for the arts is that, if government aid is ruled out, no one else has enough wherewithall to inject major doses of cash into expensive arts such as CM except big business, and they are just as interested in maintaining their position as politicians. They may be willing to throw a few dimes and nickels into the CM pot now (in return for getting their corporate names plastered all over the concert programs and anywhere else they can stick up a billboard), but tomorrow they could decide that they could promote themselves more effectively by sponsoring a tennis tournament, or something, and good-bye to your orchestra or opera company. These guys are under even less control by the public, and less concerned about the public good, than government bodies. Ultimately, it has to be the rank-and-file CM fans--that is, us--who will keep it going, because we can't trust anyone else to look out for our interests. This is why we have to expand our numbers as much as we can, which is a hard row to hoe. The future may not bring us very good news. Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]