Today in Fox News Stupidity

Conservative media launches new culture war over NEA grants
From Artnet News, August 4, 2009

Could the right wing be trying to launch a new culture war, demonizing those pervert art groups out there in San Francisco? Sure they could! According to MediaMatters, Fox News' Glenn Beck and Greta Van Susteren, the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore and Fox Business' Eric Bolling have singled out a few recipients of federal economic stimulus grants recently awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The conservative commentators have focused on the well-respected Frameline, the organization that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. The Fox hosts seemed especially stirred up by the fact that Frameline sponsored a screening of the campy 1975 film Thundercrack!, which combines a murder mystery with hard-core sex content. The film was shown for one night during the most recent festival, [which] screened a total of 226 films. A second touchstone is a $20,000 grant for CounterPULSE, a dance and performance art space that hosts among other things, a cabaret dubbed -- wait for it -- Perverts Put Out! On its website, the cabaret says that it does not, in fact, receive any stimulus money, though cabaret "co-host Simon Sheppard sure does have a major chubby for studly Glenn Beck!" Other admirable events that CounterPULSE organizes or hosts -- not mentioned by Fox -- are a labor history bicycle tour and Performing Diaspora, a festival and residency program dedicated to artists from diverse cultures who want to expand or explore traditional forms. MediaMatters points out that government funding for such groups is hardly new -- both Frameline and CounterPULSE were regular recipients of grants during the administration of George W. Bush.