The Twins and the Vikings are not "culture," and they can not be put on the same footing as supporting the arts.
Sports themselves can be part of our culture, but pro sports franchises are very expensive, very lucrative for-profit entertainment businesses. Supporting non-profit amateur sports, or non-profit arts organizations, is part of creating a rich community life. Let's look at the arts equivalent - Nobody would seriously consider giving public money to a highly-paid artist. Let's say Madonna was possibly coming to Minneapolis. Nobody would seriously consider raising public funds to pay for her to come. She is paid for by tickets and royalties from her recordings & paraphenalia - and she makes out like a bandit. Or perhaps Cirque du Soleil is a better example, since they come to a city for several weeks or even months at a time. Thought the city might spend some money for extra security and traffic control around their big tent, and arrange some special permits to have them here, the city isn't paying Cirque to park on the riverfront with their show. Again, they make their money selling tickets, programs, & souvenirs, and they even bring their own venue with them when they travel. (Honestly, if we're going to give money to an entertainer, let's give it to Cirque - they spend MORE time playing in a guest city than the Vikings do performing in their stadium. The Vikings will only play in the dome some 7-8 times in a regular season, for crying out loud. Cirque shows up for several weeks and plays at least once a day. At least we're getting real value, there.) Pro sports, as a for-profit entertainment business, can bloody well pay for its own stadiums. If it can't, it needs to cut salaries and readjust its business model until it can. The public paying for a stadium makes no more sense than the public paying for a new corporate headquarters building downtown. We have to face the facts - the only reason that we are even considering giving these fatcats public money is that we, the public, were slowly suckered into catering to their whims over the years, ALLOWING them to put salaries through the roof while sitting happily on the corporate welfare dole. Now they're coming back whining because they want to continue that parasitic relationship. They don't care that we're cutting money right and left from our schools because of a deficit. They just want their new toys, and our legislators are seriously thinking about giving it to them. Hey, legislative folks - here's a reality check. If you can raise funds for the stadium, you can dump your plans to raise them for the stadium and raise them for fully funding K-12 education instead. If America is hot and bothered about "welfare reform" because it is concerned about all those homeless pregnant teen mothers living "high on the hog" (NOT!) on public money, America MUST also say NO MORE CORPORATE WELFARE. Anything else is economically unsound, intellectually dishonest, and morally bankrupt. It puts the good of artificially created entities before the good - even the very lives - of our own human citizens, and that is unacceptable in any civilized country. Roxana Orrell Central On Wednesday, March 20, 2002, at 05:13 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Message: 10 > Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 11:52:46 -0600 > From: Erik Riese <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Organization: Decisive Moment > To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [Mpls] Schiff, Rybak & Berglin on stadium > > <snip> > > I'm amazed at how emotional the stadium issue is for folks. Sports are a > part of of our culture. Pro sports help to define us. I know that not > everybody enthuses about the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Lynx and that > team in Saint Paul that plays hockey or the one that plays soccer > somewhere. That's not the point. The arts are a part of our culture. Pro > arts help to define us. Not everyone enthuses about the Minnesota > Orchestra, the Guthrie, the Walker, Jeune Lune, Children's Theatre, the > MIA and those museums in Saint Paul. The point is culture deserves > yeast. We need to mow the lawns of our parks and trim the trees on our > parkways just as much as we need to provide parking for the Walker or > the Orpheum. > <snip> > -- > In cooperation, > Erik Riese _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
