If I Ran the NEA — Discussion on Parabasis

The LA Times has a piece up where they ask a lot of big name people on what they would do if they ran the NEA. It’s definitely a mixed bag. Rachel Maddow and Jon Robin Baitz have some good ideas (and appear to actually understand and have read up on what the NEA actually does and what its charter is, something every artist should do) while the Neils (LaBute and Patrick Harris) seem a little clueless. Neil Patrick Harris seems to have gotten the NEA confused with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, while Neil LaBute goes in for shallowly ironic provocation (amongst other things, he doesn’t seem to know that the NEA is forbidden by law from giving grants to individual artists).  Read more.