Comforting The Comfortable

Let’s be clear, here:  “Public Art” is to art what “public restroom” is to rest.  I’m at a loss to think of any publicly-supported “art” that advances “art” in any way.  It could exist – my art trivia-fu isn’t the same as my music-fu – but it’s not leaping to mind.

I think public subsidy of art is a bad thing, both as government fiscal management and as art.

So when the idea of the “Legacy” amendment – diverting part of a one percent sales tax to the arts as well as natural resources – came up, I was skeptical.

But I thought “as long as the money goes to art education, it’d be the lesser of the possible evils”.  Art education is sorely neglected in our society; having some appreciation for art in its many forms is one of the things that adds depth and color to life, and it doesn’t matter if that art is a trip through the Minnesota Museum of Art or a little music or the occasional play (from the Ordway to some waaaaay-off-Nicollet startup house) to a good book.  Music – along with foreign languages – was one of the few things that kept me engaged with the idea of “education” at all during those miserable years from seventh through tenth grades; I’m hardly alone.

So if you have to spend money on “arts”, for the love of pete, spend it on bringing art in its various forms to schools and community centers and kids who, in our society, just don’t get exposed to much of it at all.

So how much could we have done for $45,000?

A Stillwater library paid that much in Legacy funds to bring in Sci-Fi author Neil Gaiman.   And Rep. Matt Dean was unhappy about it, and called Gaiman a “pencil-necked weasel”, which got Sci-fi nerds and GOP-haters all up with the victorian vapours:

(“Um, hullo? It’s “SF”, not “Sci Fy”.  Doy.  And don’t call me a “Trekkie”.  It’s Trekker, thank you very much”  There.  I wrote it so you don’t have to).

The feud between celebrity author Neil Gaiman and House Majority Leader Matt Dean took several bizarre twists Thursday, when lawmakers threatened retaliation against local libraries, Gaiman threatened retaliation against Dean, and the cast of characters expanded to include Snooki from MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”

Neil Gaiman, starving artist.

The action started when a House Republican committee chair said he is recommending a $45,000 cut in the Twin Cites’ regional library system budget to make up for the state Legacy money it paid last year to Gaiman for a speaking appearance.

Gaiman quickly defended his speaking fees, saying they are comparable to those charged by Snooki, the reality TV star.

And to be fair to Gaiman, if taxpayer money had gone to “Snooki”, I’d be even more irate.

“I won the Newbery Medal. I won the Carnegie Medal,” said Gaiman, who said he has 1.5 million Twitter followers. “I’ve written movies that were the Number 1 movie in the entire world.”

Well, that’s great.  Kudos.

You, Mr. Gaiman, are someone who has been rewarded bountifully for your talents.  I don’t begrudge a nickel of what you’ve earned…

from the private sector.

But can anyone say, honestly, that $45,000 expropriated from all of us working schlubs for “arts and culture” is better spent on allowing locals to bask in the presence of a millionaire sci-fi writer than on, say, buying rental band instruments for a high school music program?  For keeping an after-school art program open?  For anything else?

Dean, R-Dellwood, got things rolling Tuesday by calling Gaiman a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota,” has since apologized. He said Thursday he did not direct Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, who chairs the House Legacy Funding Division committee, to trim $45,000 from the regional library system’s proposed budget.

Dean’ comments, however, underscored the ongoing concerns of the Republican majority about Legacy money being spent on arts and cultural projects as the Legislature struggles to solve a $5.1 billion budget deficit.

Concerns?

Try outrage.  As someone who supports the arts, I’m stupefied at the tone-deafness of the library’s action.

Although my inner cynic isn’t surprised (I’ll be adding some emphasis):

The Legacy amendment, passed in 2008 with considerable financial support from arts groups in Minnesota, raised the state sales tax for 25 years to fund outdoors, clean water, parks and trails and arts and cultural heritage projects.

And when Republicans point to things like…:

  • …the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and their racket of funding arrogant avant-garde art while school arts programs go begging
  • …the millions in annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which enforces a rigid political agenda on its own governance…

…as evidence that the public art funding bureaucracy is out of control, and the arts and culture advocacy communities are fighting against a legislative majority committed to cutting government waste, really, it seems it’s more than just arts education that’s lacking.

Gaiman is a successful “artist”, and a pretty wealthy guy:

Gaiman, reached Thursday afternoon, said he found the entire episode “very weird” and said he could win court damages from Dean, the leading Republican in the Minnesota House, should he choose to do so.

“If I actually wanted to come after you, dude, I could,” Gaiman said of

[For what?  Defamation?  Buncombe.  Dean made no factual assertions; he stated an opinion.  The opinion isn’t going to harm Gaiman’s standing in his community or his livelihood; it’ll likely do quite the opposite.  And malice?  Gaiman must be a sci-fi writer – Ed]

Gaiman said he would not file a lawsuit, but was considering other options that would be “so much more fun than going legal.”

There’ll be a Klingon character named “Deangrfx” in his next book, I’ll bet.  Socially-maladjusted twentysomething computer geeks will titter with glee.  Life will go on.

Gaiman also maintained that he received $33,600 for the four-hour appearance — a booking agency received the remainder — and said other appearances, outside Minnesota, have paid him more than $60,000.

And if they were paid for with tax money, then we really need to talk.

Anyway, fine – Gaiman’s not a pencil-necked weasel.

He’s just an unconscionable waste of tax money.

How many writing programs, or art teachers, or after-school music programs, could we have supported for what we wasted on this narcissistic frippery?

35 thoughts on “Comforting The Comfortable

  1. I and others were totally opposed to the bogus “Legacy Amendment” before it was passed by a bunch of brainless, uncritical, Obama worshipers. This is exactly why we opposed it. They sold us the despicable Minnesota Lottery under the pretense that proceeds would go to the environment and natural resources.

  2. Dean shouldn’t have criticized Gaiman for taking the money — hell, nice work if you can get it. Making it personal about Gaiman made it too easy to dismiss the argument. Dean and the rest of us have every reason to be furious about the morons who gave Gaiman the money, though.

    And your point about band programs is a real good one, Mitch. People who haven’t had to price the cost of band equipment rental recently would be shocked.

  3. As someone who books “name” speakers on occasion, Gaiman’s fee hardly makes me blink. (And I’d love a job where I could earn my current annual salary with just two or three day’s – or hours’ – work, along with first-class travel perks.) these events are for the private sector and subject to a cost-benefit analysis. I don’t begrudge anyone anything that their talents have earned them, but this particular event would have been a great opportunity for Gaiman to “give back”, perhaps in honor of the artistic support he received as a youngster. Isn’t “giving back” a prized meme with the Left? Yet studies show that conservatives at all income levels are more generous fivers than their progressive counterparts.

  4. A few thoughts:

    1) I agree with Mitch – this was not an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. I oppose taxpayer funding for the arts but would just note that whenever these subsidies are defended (often by wealthy professionals like Gaiman), the defenders usually argue that the funds are being used for things like providing supplies or supporting museums in disadvantaged communities (the sort of things that Mitch has argued would be a better use of funds).

    2) If Representative Dean really did call Neil Gaiman “a pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota,” he was out of line. Full stop. He should have just made his point the same way Mitch made the point without the counterproductive and pointless trash talk. If he can’t do that, then he needs to be replaced with a primary challenger who can.

    3) Gaiman a British native so perhaps (despite living in Minnesota for the last decade) he’s not aware how ridiculous a threat of a defamation suit by a public figure against comments made by a legislator while the Legislature is in session is. Even if the First Amendment didn’t pretty much such suits a non-starter, State Legislators generally have additional protection for comments that they make that are arguably within their duties (e.g. Speech or Debate immunity).

    4) According to IMDB, Gaiman wrote the screenplay for “Beowolf” and wrote “Stardust” which also became a movie. I’ve seen both and I doubt that either were ever the “Number 1 movie in the world.”

    5) I am not a Neil Gaiman fan. I tried reading “American Gods” and was quickly bored with it. Didn’t really care for “Day of the Dead” even though I’m a huge Babylon 5 fan. I probably will watch “The Doctor’s Wife” because I love Doctor Who.

  5. Dean shouldn’t have criticized Gaiman for taking the money — hell, nice work if you can get it. Making it personal about Gaiman made it too easy to dismiss the argument.

    Exactly, I think Dean would have been wiser to propose repealing the Legacy Amendment and saying that any request for public “arts” funding would have to compete with other budgetary priorities. Make the defenders of the Legacy Amendment have to argue why we should spend tens of thousands of dollars inviting authors to speak at public libraries rather than education or health care.

  6. I’m a fan of Gaiman’s work. But he could stand a lesson in humility. Robert Heinlien, who paved the way for writers like Gaiman, traveled to librarian events at his own expense, and even once donated a short story to a librarian group. Whining that he only received $33,000, not $45,000 is a symptom.

    Mr D is right: the majority leader shouldn’t have attacked Gaiman, but rather the group who agreed to pay the fee.

  7. Definitely the criticism should go to those who offered the fee, not he who accepted the fee. Maybe they should have waited until he published a new book and could have gotten him as a part of the promotion tour.

  8. I’m not familiar with Gaiman’s work, but no matter. I’m opposed to using state funds to pay ANY artist, author or musician to appear in public and speak, perform, sign autographs, whatever. No doubt Gaiman can command those fees from the private sector. Go for it, dude. But you can’t suck on the public teat.
    As for punishing the regional library system: ouch. But I don’t think there will be a repeat offense.

  9. I find myself in agreement with Mr. D and Nightwriter, to a point. If anyone is at fault here it is the entity which spent the money on Gaiman. As I have commented elsewhere, his speaking fee was in the same range as that paid recently by Rutgers for a commencment speaker, another prominent author; and for Snooky, the cable tv bimbo. Snooky to her credit, was a sold out figure on campus, which at least suggests some income was generated that may have offset what she was paid, and even possibly generated a net profit after deducting what she was paid.

    That may have been the case here as well; I have yet to see anything which addressed whether people who attended did so for free or for a fee.

    What did strike me however was that both the Toni Morrison commencement at Rutgers, and the Snooki speaking engagement were to far more people, thereby providing a much greater bang-for-the-buck cost benefit.

    Public art, when well selected, is a good public investment, and very different from public restrooms. Not everything is a good selection, nor is every c\ritic necessarily correct in objecting to it. Time tends to be the final arbiter.

    As to the objection to spending public money? Seriously? I didn’t hear too many objections to public money being spent for failed executives to get unlimited bonuses, as I recall, when I phoned in to your radio show some years ago Mitch. You argued that their efforts merited whatever the going rate would sustain, and other free market mantras.

    Public money can be spent just as appropriately on art as it can on anything else. Was it in this case? I don’t know; it might or might not have been. Is it Gaiman’s fault for accepting a reasonable speaker’s fee? NO. Should someone be asking the organization that contracted with him? YES. Especially regarding the number of people served by him speaking for the money spent.

  10. Like others here I am not upset with Gaiman. He could be more grateful, but, being a primidonna isn’t a crime. It sounds like he gave away most of it, some of it back to the library( sounds like a pay to play scandal).

    I think we need to look at how the money donated back to the library is spent and does anybody make a profit for themselves from this arangement.

    It seems to me that we now have a Constitionally protected slush fund.

  11. Public art, when well selected, is a good public investment, and very different from public restrooms.
    No, it is not. Public restrooms serve a vital purpose. Public art is not a necessity. And define “well selected”. $50,000 drinking fountains?

    I didn’t hear too many objections to public money being spent for failed executives to get unlimited bonuses
    I didn’t hear the Left object to all of the money Obama handed out to banks and car companies either. Talk about not germane to the topic.

  12. Oh Kermit…please be reasonable. Pointing to things like this for Dimwit Doggie is so unfair.

    And by the way Dimwit Doggie, I have yet to hear the left howl like rabid coyotes about all the “unlimited bonuses” that the guys running Fannie and Freddie got. Yup, those guys are as guilty as the boys over at Enron, and they got their money…and they are NOT in jail. Instead, they are given awards and get-out-of-jail cards.

  13. And how in the hell is $50,000 a “reasonable speaking fee”? TO A BUNCH OF SCHOOL KIDS AT A LIBRARY!

    No, this speaker raped the Public and the people writing the check gave him the lube. So to speak.

  14. I would imagine that for $45,000 you could have paid 45 working Minnesota writers to give one day seminars to classes of gifted writing students.
    The value of private goods is easily determined. The value of public goods is not, and there are great incentives for the people who actually spend public money to divert it to suit their own vision of “public good”.
    Money for public art has an odd history. Not that long ago it was provided by wealthy individuals or the Church. Now it is handed out by government employees. What do you expect? Shakespeare? Michaelangelo?

  15. all the “unlimited bonuses” that the guys running Fannie and Freddie got
    You mean like Franklin Raines, Obama’s buddy?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Raines

    On 16 July 2008 The Washington Post reported that Franklin Raines had “taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”.[22] Also, in an editorial on August 27, 2008 titled “Tough Decision Coming”, the Washington Post editorial staff wrote that “Two members of Mr. Obama’s political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.”[23] On September 18, 2008, John McCain’s campaign published a campaign ad that quoted the Washington Post reporting regarding Raines and Obama. The ad also notes that “Raines made millions and then left Fannie Mae while it was under investigation for accounting irregularities”

  16. I always thought the first scandel with the “legacy amendment” would be a Piss Christ moment. But this works also.

  17. Something about liberal Democrats:

    Both the library and the speaker should have thought “geesh, this amount is very excess. Think about what we could do with that money if we didn’t spend it on a 1 hour speaker”.

  18. Dog sez:

    As to the objection to spending public money? Seriously? I didn’t hear too many objections to public money being spent for failed executives to get unlimited bonuses, as I recall, when I phoned in to your radio show some years ago Mitch. You argued that their efforts merited whatever the going rate would sustain, and other free market mantras.

    Assume you’re talking about TARP money going to pay the scheduled compensation for Goldman Sachs execs and other similarly situated Wall Street types, right? We’ll leave aside that the matter was a little more complicated than you are portraying it, DG. Actually rather a lot of conservatives opposed that. And Mitch was one of them, IIRC. Conservatives don’t care for moral hazard.

    But there are two problems — it’s a tu quoque argument (Mitch explained those the other day) and it’s also irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The question isn’t whether public monies benefit private individuals; they do all the damn time. The discussion ought to be limited to the matter at hand.

    Now, the other point:

    Public art, when well selected, is a good public investment, and very different from public restrooms.

    There’s no way to measure the ROI on public art. All you can do is assert it has value. I’ll give you two examples. First, consider the Picasso scupture in the middle of Daley Plaza in Chicago. It’s one of the most famous examples of public art I can think of. Would you argue that people come to Chicago just to see it? Not likely. Do people come to Minneapolis to see the Spoonbridge and Cherry? They might stop over if they’re visiting from out of town, but chances are they are visiting for other reasons.

    The real issue is this — even in the best of times, when the tax revenue is flowing in, spending money on public art, lecture series, etc. is problematic. When we are looking at a multibillion dollar deficit, as we are now, there’s really no excuse for it.

  19. 1. Gaiman’s fees for what he does were not out of line for a person of his accomplishmnts. They’re pretty standard, as Nightwriter noted. He didn’t jack them up to rip anyone off; this is what he charges,and he gets that from other speaking engagements. It was an appropriate speakers fee. People like Palin get more to speak, and for having accomplished far less.

    2. This was not, as “MyGovIsNuts Says: a “reasonable speaking fee”? TO A BUNCH OF SCHOOL KIDS AT A LIBRARY!” It was 500 people at the library in person, it wasn’t a crowd of school kids, and it was also broadcasting to many thousands more via MPR, and becoming part of their archive where it can continue to be accessed. Just as, for example, the Rutgers commencement speakers fee to an author was to speak to some 50,000 people, the breakdown of that speakers fee to listener becomes pretty small per person.

    3. Public art is like all art; art is many things, but one of them is a commodity, it is something which has value which is bought and sold and consumed. As was done with this event, just as is done with sporting events, it was something which benefitted the immediate community where it took place, in multiple ways, including the attendees having dinner, the same way people spend money around the experience of attending a theater production or a sporting event. Cultural events, like sporting events, are part of the kinds of activities that people attend in communities. It is arguable that art actually provides a better quality of experience than say a sporting event. I seem to recall quite a lot of money being spent to promote sporting events, including the building of the metrodome and the new stadium that many people would like to see benefit from public money. Thees activities, whether sporting or arts related, cumulatively benefit the community, including the businesses in those communities. The money spent at businesses is a direct benefit; the benefit to the individuals who attend arts events is a direct benefit. The ability of business to attract people from outside the state is directly related in part to what the state and individual communities have to offer, including arts events and sporting events. If you don’t believe me I suggest you check with HR people about what factors into their ability to hire people to come to MN from out of state, moving their families. This is an investment in MN, and a pretty darn smart one.

    What you are promoting is a very narrow idea of spending public money, one which doesn’t take into account the results of that expenditure to benefit the state. I’m not a big fan of Minnesota sports teams, be it hockey, basketball, baseball, or football. But they involve attendance by a lot of people, affecting a lot of businesses and a lot of money. So do the arts, and in this case if you read the whole story, this benefitted not only the 500 attendees, and the radio listeners, it benefitted the library system. I happen to believe that getting 500 people in person out to one library event is a pretty important accomplishment; getting all those thousands more to listen and support books gives it an additional and important bang for the buck. I’d far rather see the money support our library system than far more highly paid atheletes benefitting from a public investment in their sports facility.

    The reason Mr. Gaiman charged this library his full speakers fee was that the funds had been allocated to be dispersed over a two year period, but were only made available from last October to the end of the present biennium, and those funds had to be spent in that time. Whatever Gaiman chooses to do with that money – spend it, donate it, or keep it – is his business, and doesn’t get our input or approval. He earned it. That would seem to be a very conservative and libertarian view of what a person gets to do with what they earn.

    Was it too much? No, it was pretty standard. Could they have gotten him for less? Maybe yes, maybe no. But they didn’t, and how the arts and library group made that moeny benefit the greatest number of people to get the maximum benefit from that money was pretty clever.

  20. FYI, the speaker fee paid to Gaiman was closer to $30,000, not $45,000.

    It seems typical Minnesota Republican Math to exaggerate by half again the amount in question.

    I would suggest gentlemen that if you wish to have an intelligent and informed diiscussion on why we fund the arts, be it public money or why business does so through philanthropic donations, you would be wise to read up on this a bit more. It is not done out of altruism, it is done because it makes good financial sense. You might want to start with some reading; an example would be Richard Florida’s creative class theory, as expressed in The Rise of the Creative Class and the Flight of the Creative Class, as it relates to retaining a competitive economic edge and retaining and attracting creative professionals.

    There is quite a lot of data on the economics of the arts. I’m guessing that not too many of you have sat in on one of those sessions where business executives are pitched WHY they should part with either their own money, or their company’s money for this purpose. It doesn’t persuade them that it is simply a nice thing to do. What persuades them are hard figures of why it will benefit them, and their bottom lines.

    What gets printed in newspapers about how wonderful they are and their companies are is a very different story. Apparently you are only familiar with the latter.

    Bone up, gentlemen. You and your politicians have a lot to learn about this subject, and for that matter a lot of other public policy issues.

  21. Dog Gone, Gaiman was paid with public money. If the money was returned a thousand fold, and the people opposed it, it was wrong, no matter how many books say spending money on public art is a good thing.
    And, if you hadn’t noticed, Mitch did not say that spending public money on the arts is a mistake, he wrote it was a mistake in this particular case. The world would be a much better place if liberals would simply realize that spending money on A means that you cannot spend that money on B.

  22. Lovely bit of snark this: It seems typical Minnesota Republican Math to exaggerate by half again the amount in question.

    If Dog Gone had taken some time to actually read the entire post (instead of composing rambling, extended comments), she would have read
    Gaiman also maintained that he received $33,600 for the four-hour appearance — a booking agency received the remainder —
    indicating that the author was being quite fair and balanced.

    Her assertion that the state benefits from spending public dollars on public art is specious on it’s face, as it is not quantifiable. What IS quantifiable is that at a time when we face a $4 billion deficit, spending money on crap like this is idiotic. As Mitch pointed out, that $45,000 could have been better spent in the schools. Tom Dooher would agree with me.

  23. There’s no way to measure the ROI on public art. All you can do is assert it has value.

    Remember, the person to whom you wrote this comment is also the person who asserts, without any verifiable means to measure, the increased international standing of the US after The One was elected. A person who loudly claims to use facts and rational conclusions, but, on further investigation, really just uses factoids and assertions.

  24. One of the rules of the private economy is that if there is no way to measure the return on value of an investment, don’t make the investment.
    The pool this money came from was not a slush fund (although like all public employees, I am sure the spenders did their best to exempt themselves from critical oversight). Somewhere there has to be a paper trail and written justification for spending it as they did. Minnesota ain’t Hawaii.
    Nevertheless I hope the MN GOP hits the DFL hard on this. After lecturing the people for months that the state government doesn’t have enough money and that the current state tax system is regressive, they’ve shown just how much respect they have for the poor and middle class taxpayer by giving a millionaire author $45,000 of their money so a few hundred people could listen to a lecture.
    The usual economic rules apply: if the five hundred or so attendees thought they were getting $90 worth of value from the lecture, why couldn’t they pay for it themselves? If they did not think it was worth $90, why did anyone have to pay for it?
    It is not true that you can’t set a value on public goods, even public art. It is true that the process is murky and easily manipulated. Every underutilized, heavily subsidized public transportation system in the country is backed by reams of paperwork proving that it adds value to the economy.

  25. So if I undestand the situation, the library system was alotted funds through the Legacy Amendment to bring top talent at market rate to suburban libraries, venues that otherwise would not be able to offer such a program. The library did not have the choice to use this money for other programs, only to use it for this purpose or forfeit the funds. So they brought in an awarded, best-selling author that is quite popular in certain literati circles,, as was the intent of the program.

    But, you say, this money could have been used for much better purposes (and I would agree you can make a valid argument there). Fortunately, Mr. Gaiman also agrees, as he has reported that he donated the payment he received, part of to a sexual abuse charity and a larger portion to a library/bookbased organization.

    So when you look at it like this, Stillwater Library got their notable speaker and a good-sized turnout for a library on a Friday night. Mr. Gaiman got his fee, and while what he chose to do with it is completely his perogative, money that would not have been available to support libraries got funneled back into supporting libraries. I highly doubt there was any kick-back or “pay-for-play” situation established, but Mr. Gaiman has long been a friend and generous supporter of libraries. In the end, much more could have been and was done with the money, a winning scenario.

    While I think the library was within their rights to offer the opportunity and Mr. Gaiman was within his rights to accept, I also believe Rep. Dean was within his rights to question the philosophy of alotting the funds. Other speakers may not be as giving as Mr. Gaiman. However his approach was completely out of line. Scathing personal attacks directed towards Mr. Gaiman and vindictive threats against libraries seem petty and certainly don’t paint Rep. Dean in a good light. If he wants to be angry at someone, it should whoever alotted the library the funds in the first place. I imagine it was the DFL, so business as usual.

    “So if you have to spend money on “arts”, for the love of pete, spend it on bringing art in its various forms to schools and community centers and kids who, in our society, just don’t get exposed to much of it at all.”

    I’m just curious if you would or would not consider a library a community center, especially if they have a forum for public cultural events like the one Mr. Gaiman spoke at?

  26. One of DG’s most irritating debate “techniques” is to drag out the name of some book or article she has read and claim that she is more informed on the topic than some other commenter because she has read it.
    This is junior-high level debating, the blog-commenting equivalent of trying to score points in a public debate by holding aloft a sheaf of papers and declaring their author an expert on the debate topic who agrees with your position. I recall that this was actually done during some foreign policy debate back in the 80’s. One of the parties answered a point by showing a dossier marked “Top Secret” that he claimed validated his position.
    Very poor form and very juvenile.

  27. It must be nice to be immune from criticism. “There are none so blind as those who will not see”.

  28. “I’ve read this book all about how the oil companies are great selfless heroes who drive the US economy and provide high paying jobs for thousands despite the wicked liberals who try and stop them.
    “Gosh I wish liberals were better informed and wouldn’t parade their ignorance about the wonderful oil companies and what they do!”

  29. I’ve read this book about how Adolf Hitler was right about the Jews. Gosh, it’s in a book so it must be right.

    It must be nice to be immune from critical thought.

  30. But, you say, this money could have been used for much better purposes (and I would agree you can make a valid argument there). Fortunately, Mr. Gaiman also agrees, as he has reported that he donated the payment he received, part of to a sexual abuse charity and a larger portion to a library/bookbased organization.

    Sure. And that’s the (legitimate, IMHO, and all) issue. A bit less than a third went to Gaiman’s agent, and the rest to two apparently perfectly decent charities. That’s the way private funds ought to be used — the person who “owns” the funds gets to decide where they go.

    The one problem with applying that to this situation is that these didn’t start off as private funds — the $45K started off as taxpayer money, which was assigned on a “use it or lose” it basis. And, in that, Dean is right — if the money hadn’t been spent on the Gaiman lecture, instead of going to the charities of Gaiman’s choice, it would have gone back into the general fund.

    With the huge deficits that the governor and lege have to cut — one way or another — what I’m wondering is how many other perfectly-nice-but-peripheral things that the state is funding. (It’s one reason I like King Banaian’s zero-based budget amendment, and wish it would pass: it would force all state agencies to justify what they’re asking for, rather than to start with a baseline that assume’s everything’s just find, and should be either increased or trimmed a little.)

    The fault isn’t with Gaiman, for taking (and, for that matter, in terms of his established fees, earning) a paycheck and doing what he pleased with the money; it’s with the system, that spent what could have been a librarian’s annual salary on one speech by one guy. No matter how good that speech was, I don’t think it would be easy to make the argument that it served the library system better than putting a librarian to work in the system for a year.

  31. But Joel, many people stopped at the Stillwater Arby’s before and after the event, pumping money into the local economy. It’s good mood food!

  32. Yes, and state legislators have staff that can run down to Arby’s and grab some good mood food to bring back to the office. And they pay for it with their per diem. Sweet deal. Now how do we distribute several hundred thousand dollars we don’t have for “arts projects”? Who cares, as long as union workers get their cut.

  33. Oh, was that cynical? I’ve been watching the DFL for forty years now. Your damn right that’s cynical.

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