I'm kind of shocked that people think that the soul of a culture, to use Mario's phrase, can be so easily stifled that a few hundred million dollars a year will bring it crashing down around our heads! After all, aren't souls what is durable after the material shell disintegrates? Let's have more faith in our collective artistic impulses! Teach your kids to draw, to play music, to look a pictures, to write and read. Go to the museums and concerts. And, don't give up on the politicians, that's facile cynicism. Find what arguments will turn their heads. In your own organizations, find the programs that are important to your visitors, promote them, and ask them to tell legislators that they *are* important. All this, and pay your rent too...It's not easy being artistic. Eric Siegel [log in to unmask]