From one of Tom's posts:

"Do you think the government should support the arts?"
(I know the question was posed more for the purposes of illustration than direct discussion, but what the heck...)

Most emphatically NO!!

If an artist has such little popular appeal that they can't make a go of it, why should the state step in and support them? The people have spoken, and it's thumbs down.

Canada gives obscene amounts of money to "artists" and the return on the investment is pure crap...not only that, it's crap absolutely no one wants to see. It's not even fun crap, like the crap on TV...it's deadly, dull, boring crap, like the crap that's not good enough to make it to TV.

Great artists find an audience...either that or their audience finds them. Shakespeare for example, created art because the theater-going public of the day loved his stuff, not because some Royal pen-pusher decided to fund his writing.

If you gotta go to the government to get it done...don't do it.