Not to hi-jack the thread- but I did appreciate your NA booster type posts on the "arts" thread on the T----good going---chbpod
 

OMG I agree with chbpod - thought you both were the voice of reason in a thread filled with some very bitter people.
 

I tend to think that the "arts economy naysayers" around here are like Bush supporters — there actually aren't that many of them, but when they speak, they are loud, pushy, and bitter, so it seems like there are scores of them.

Besides, all the complaining doesn't matter. They're wrong that "artists" get special things from the local government, they operate on some antiquated, 1950s definition of what a working artist is and what a working artist does, and people in arts-related fields are the ones moving here regardless of anything. There could be a mass influx of plumbers, pole vaulters, or migrant farm workers if the area offered opportunity, affordability, or optimism in any of those areas and that would just be the way it is. We'd all have to figure out how to live with all those pole vaulters instead of busting veins in our foreheads about it, just like the pole vaulters would have to deal with us.

I noticed no one complained about a street being blocked off yesterday for a classic car show. Surely classic car enthusiasts shouldn't get special consideration from local officials. It's not fair!
 

There is a difference between occasional events and staking the life blood of an area on one particular industry. As quickly as the artists move in, they can move out - their roots don't go down that deep.

I think the artists are a welcome sector, but all people see in the headlines are artists this and artists that - with the educational system heading right for the dumper.
 

In the modern transient America, few people's roots go down very deep at all. But if people are made to feel welcome, their roots have a chance of growing better and faster.

Furthermore, you don't have to be a long term resident of any place in order to have a positive effect on it.