Nuttier than ?

I'd like to quote in brief the following from the News Limited website :
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June 26th 2003

A THRIVING arts sector well backed by corporate Australia would help solve many social problems, NSW Premier Bob Carr said today.

Mr Carr, who has also been Arts Minister since 1995, today urged business to view the arts as more than just an opportunity for client entertainment.

"Don't forget all the research which says when youngsters in schools are challenged to work with music, part of their brain expands which helps them solve problems in mathematics," Mr Carr told a business breakfast in Sydney.

Mr Carr said he had this week met with Australian director Baz Luhrmann, who is pushing to have a epic film adaptation of Alexander the Great filmed largely in the NSW outback town of Broken Hill.

"That's a beautiful example of how we've benefited as a nation, when someone we've nurtured as a creative talent ... is promoting (Australian work) all the time," he said.
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So Carr is our Arts Minister ? I love his line about not forgetting all the research done that indicates school kids grades improving through the use of arts. That would probably be the international research cause he wouldn't have commissioned that himself. Just for the sake of it I may even publish online my research for an arts grant that provides information on the benefit of teaching cartooning to kids and adults alike. One fact is that you retain information 8 times better by seeing it visually than you would otherwise. But I doubt that Carr would know that. He's been hell bent on Policing issues than anything else. Not that that is a bad thing but you can't neglect your other duties. And the arts industry has been neglected for some time now. The most irritating line from his breakfast speech was the comment about the beautiful example of how we've developed as a nation, when someone we've nurtured as a creative talent is promoting Australian work ? What a toss. Australia unfortunately does not nurture its creatives nearly as much as they think. Why is it that all our creative people have to take their talents and ideas abroad ? Lhurmann is only doing what every other hollywood title is doing and bringing the production costs down by filming here. But where has Carr put in his mind that we've been nurtured here ? How ? I see the only available grants going to people who have received them very innapropriately. Much of the funding is not being administered in a fair manner or one in which would provide the most benefit to the community. We've asked many times before for the government to provide a Museum for Cartooning. I doubt that there will be a time we'll ever see one at the rate we are going. It's even been suggested that the Contemporary Art Museum in The Rocks provide space for a permanent Cartoon Museum. All gone by the side. Seems the politicians are all too keen to tell us how much the arts industry is important to us but don't place their money where their mouths are. Frankly Carr's perceptions make him out to be nuttier than squirrel dung.

If schoolchildren in the US slum areas can improve their grades threefold by using arts as a source to encourage education then why is it the Arts classes in our government schools are almost gone ? Why have we not realised that our lack of interest in learning has come from not having fun and experimenting. Why haven't the appropriate departments considered increasing the funding to art classes ?

Why has society changed from a time when we looked to the artists to tell us the future - to know taking advice from business economists ?