Some stimulus dollars stimulate oddly

"Long a punching-bag for critics of wasteful government spending, the National Endowment for the Arts continues to live up to its reputation by throwing hard-earned tax dollars after frivolous and not-infrequently obscene projects. A group of 52 congressmen, all Republicans, recently wrote the agency to question the latest example of NEA spending foolery. Take, for example, CounterPULSE, which received $25,000 in stimulus funds, and which may be best known for its "Perverts Put Out," a "long-running pansexual performance series." The group urges guests, "Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun."

Last Friday, the NEA defended this and numerous other small grants of extremely questionable merit in a letter to Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. "The NEA did not use [stimulus] dollars to fund any of the projects," wrote Patrice Powell, the agency's acting chairman. The grants, she wrote, "can only be used to provide salary support for staff positions or fees for previously-engaged artists and/or contractual personnel that are critical to an organization's artistic mission and in jeopardy of being eliminated as a result of the current economic climate." In other words, you're not paying for "Perverts Put Out." You're paying to make sure that CounterPULSE has enough money to produce "Perverts Put Out."

CounterPULSE is just one of several groups whose grant awards baffle. There is also the Tuscon-based Teatro Fronterizo, which will soon put on "What's Under that Skirt: A Borderline Look at Gender" (described on the group's site as "a family favorite,") and "She Was My Brother," which "explores the borderline between love, sexual orientation and fluid gender identities." Then there is the Buffalo-based Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts, which is promoting the transgender photography of Alice O'Malley and a play called "Deviant Bodies," "presenting work through the multiple lenses of Transgender, Genderqueer and Gender Variant perspectives."

There are many, many more examples."