[UPDATE: Auction is over; the bag sold for $28.66! Thanks to all who bid. ]
Fewer than five hours to go on the ebay auction for a fabulous limited edition Barack Obama messenger bag, which can be autographed by moi if you want me to autograph it (or not)! And the bidding is up to $25.56! Wow!
Miss Lucy wants you to bid, too.
Cheney says Obama will not close Gitmo…
In an article in The Politico, Vice President Richard “The Dick” Cheney said Obama would not close Guantanamo Bay.
If Obama does not close Guantanamo, one of the most important promises of his campaign will be on the rocks.
There has been no comment back from Obama on Cheney’s statement…as yet.
Under The LobsterScope
Mahabarb,
I won! I won! go check your ebay messages and let me know how and how much to pay? I’ve got a good friend for whom this will be a perfect present 🙂
I’ve sent an invoice. Let me know if you want it autographed or anything. You won’t hurt my feelings if you pass on the autograph.
btchakir — Why in the world would you believe anything Dick Cheney says about what Barack Obama is going to do?
Barack Obama has said several times he’s going to close Guantanamo, and I believe he has a better idea of what he’s going to do than Dick the Dick does.
Oh, autographed! definitely! I’ll respond further at ebay. I know she reads you, tho she’s even less of a commenter than I am.
Jobs for Artists?
I spent a lot of time at Change.gov this morning, looking at Obama’s agenda for the next four years and, in general, agreeing with much of the direction he is proposing for the Obama/Biden Administration. There was, however, one area where I hoped to find a longer and more detailed commitment for the future and that is in “The Arts”.
The only mention of the subject was this:
While this is a positive statement it is also highly generalized, vague, and lacking in the kind of focus I found in most of the topics covered.
Some background on my point of view is necessary. Way back when Ronald Reagan won his first Presidential election I was the Director of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, a revered organization in the visual and literary arts that provides workspace and funding for 20 or so young artists throughout the winter months. As a program it draws hundreds of applicants, the best young artists in the country, for its minimal number of live grants. The funding sources for the FAWC are comprised of private donations, foundation grants, and state and federal program contributions, and my job as Director was to spend about 75% of my time seeking that money.
It became clear that the National Endowment for the Arts was likely to cut funding of individual artist programs – this was reinforced by a conversation I had with Eleanor Mondale, wife of the then Vice President Walter Mondale, whose special interest was the arts and the funding of artists and who was visiting the FAWC on a tour of northeast institutions. I was getting ready to change directions in my life and was going into private business and felt that this would be a good time given the political implications.
One of the first things the NEA did under Reagan was to stop its funding of individual artists, mostly due to conservative Republican criticism of what some artists did to offend them with artwork. It was an ugly situation. Although funding continued, and even expanded, to educational programs and established museums, the encouragement of individual artists by this Federal agency disappeared.
…article continues at Under The LobsterScope
maha, I’ve often wondered how we get permission to post our own mini-blogs as unrelated comments to your posts….
[snark]
Me, too.