Every time there’s a budget problem the weasels come out of the woodwork, each with a plan to gut a program they never thought should be funded in the first place. That’s how, step by step, we’ve gotten to the point where the arts in the public schools, not to mention physical education, has largely been eliminated.

You’ll never hear a top administrator say, “Wait. Drawing and music is too important to loose. All of us in the top 25% of the district salary range will take a pay cut for the next two years.” The current crisis is no exception. At least one Representative, though, David R. Obey, is going against the grain.

Obey wants to use almost a…

It’s fundraiser week on my local Public Radio Station (WILL) and so I am feeling characteristically crabby about public life and services. It might be worse this year, since I discovered the wonders of BBC 3 and 4, and Canadian Public Broadcasting, all available without begging or commercials or the passive aggressive guilt tripping attitude typical of National Public Radio.

I value NPR, of course (I’ve been listening to it daily for almost 30 years) but it galls me that a radio station in the wealthiest country in the world, affiliated with a rich university, needs to ask for money from its listeners. We seem to suffer from a permanent lack of imagination when it comes to public services….