Ohio's senators both voted for the Coburn Amendment

I just sent an email to Senators Brown and Voinovich. Both voted for the Coburn amendment yesterday, acquiescing to Republican demands for cuts in stimulus spending. The GOP won't be happy until we are all uneducated and uncultured louts. They made a long list of projects that shouldn't be funded, including museums and theatres along with other "entertainments" such as casinos. These projects were called "wasteful" and "non-stimulative." I agree that casinos are not essential to our survival as a culture, but grouping arts and non-profit museums into that category is a disgrace:

Here's my email:

I was horrified to learn you voted for the Coburn amendment yesterday. This is the amendment that lumped funding museums and theatre along with casinos into an amendment that cuts funding to such projects.

Make no mistake -- arts and non-profit educational organizations are in just as much danger of failing as banks and automakers. Which is more essential to our human condition -- an art museum or a gas-driven pollution machine?

I do not like the way this so-called stimulus package is taking on the face of congress -- white and male oriented. Are theatres too sissy for funding? Is it okay that the Akron Art museum is cutting back hours and staff because its endowment is shrinking along with the economy?

Theatres are closing across the country. Why won't you support funding opportunities that will keep theatre workers employed?

I hope to read a substantial response from you on your web site or in the media, not just one of your canned email replies.

Contact your senators if you think museums, theatres and other cultural institutions are worthy of stimulus funds.

Give me some stimulus, please!

Sorry folks -- real life intrudes way too much these days. However, I swear to you I will continue this blog sooner rather than later. Although I've been quiet here, I have been watching the continuing petty dramas imposed by the defeated GOP. Put me in the "fed up with the bipartisan approach" category. Get Franken in the Senate and a moderate New England style GOP placeholder for New Hampshire and keep slapping down the Republican amendments and hissy fits. Just do it!.

Also, if we must have bi-partisanship, then lets demand a genuine progressive appointee in the new government for every Republican brought into the Obama White House. I weep no tears for Tom Daschle and wish that Tim Geithner could be replaced by -- oh say -- Paul Krugman. As my mum says, nobody is irreplaceable. If there is only one superduper person on the planet to fill any particular slot, then we are all doomed. If ever a cabinet post needed to be filled by a progressive, it would be that of Health and Human Services.

Still waiting for more of a hue and cry against the rip off artists extraordinaire who ran the economy into the ground and who have their obscene profts hidden in off shore accounts. Also waiting to see changes in the programming on all the Home and Style networks on television. Reality shows about going through foreclosure. A Survivor series for the unemployed job seekers. Health Care roulette -- spin the wheel to see if you earn enough for a MRI. Now into the Bonus Round to see if you can win a free prescription.

Other than that, I've been staying inside away from the cold as much as possible. Wish I could go into hibernation mode, but there is too much work on my plate and not enough time to get it all done. I'll be away for the weekend, but will take the laptop in case there is time and motivation to blog.

Until the recovery, everybody sing:

Cheap is small and not too steep
But best of all cheap is cheap
Circumstance has forced my hand
To be a cut price person in a low budget land
Times are hard but we'll all survive
I just got to learn to economize