Tagged: politics

I don’t Tweet. I’m not sure why. I’m an introvert – maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe I get everything I have to say out in my editorial cartoons or in my banjo playing.

I joke around a lot during KMUW’s pledge drives with my little song parodies and twangy banjo riffs. As a cartoonist, I guess I’m used to making light of serious issues. That’s what cartoonists do, after all.

But don’t let my silliness obscure the significance of public radio’s economic plight. Recessionary pressures affect us all, including this radio station. What if they had to lay off Click and Clack? What if Sylvia Poggioli or Garrison Keillor found themselves in line at a soup kitchen somewhere?

If Governor Sam Brownback is really serious about attacking our state’s 492 million dollar deficit, why is he messing around with teensy little amounts like the $600,000 that the state will “save” by obliterating the Kansas Arts Commission?

It struck me that the best way I could respond to the Governor’s call for discontinuing all state funding of arts and music in Kansas is with a piece of music. So here goes:

Oh give me a home where we cut to the bone
All the arts funding here in our state
We see folks as heretics if they value aesthetics 
And the artwork that artists create

Who needs theater and ballet? Why should symphonies play?
Museums are a nuisance at best
Why expose kids to arts when we know in our hearts
Art and music are not on the test

How exactly do robo-calls help politicians? You know what I’m talking about—those automated, prerecorded phone messages we get on our landlines (those of us who still have landlines).

I don’t know anyone who ever says, “Wow, I got the nicest, most informative robo-call the other day.  The information was so pertinent and it really convinced me that that person was the right one for the job!”