More Classical in CA, Republican Irony, and Sirius XM Filing Bankruptcy?

Where shall I start?  There’s so much news!

Let’s start with the Republican hypocrisy irony,  since the Stimulus Bill is on everyone’s mind.  Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but the final bill apparently really does cut the hoped-for $50 million in NEA funding.

UPDATE 2-12-09: A press release just sent out by the RNCC claims:

Democrats said they would fight for fiscal responsibility in Washington, but went back on their promise by voting for $335 million in STD prevention, $75 million for smoking cessation and even $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts.

Does this mean the NEA funding is back in?  Stay tuned.

The author of that cut in the Senate was Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma), whose daughter Sarah, ironically, is a top-notch opera singer.  The LA Times just ran this story about her.  He considers museums, theaters and arts centers “wasteful and non-stimulative projects.”

Here’s a newsflash, Senator Coburn: the majority of working artists and musicians work for peanuts, and what they do is not frivolous entertainment.  They taught your daughter to sing and helped her become the beautiful artist she is today. Your disparaging, condescending attitude toward the arts is a slap in the face to all of us.  What we do is real work, and what you and your cohorts cut from the stimulus were jobs, jobs, jobs.

Senator Coburn apparently attends the Washington National Opera quite often.  He and many of his colleagues obviously are so elitist they don’t get it.  But Michelle Obama does, according to the Vogue article that’s coming out soon.

She sees the White House as a national classroom. “We want to make sure that our young people remember and understand what classical music is, who some of the great American artists are,” she says, to give one example.

One further note: it’s possible that stimulus funding for Education will help the arts.  Music Educator Richard Kessler thinks so and he explains it here.

Classical in CA

There’s more classical music on the radio than ever in California now.  As we mentioned a couple of days ago, KGIL-AM in L.A. is adding the NY Phil, the Chicago Symphony, and Exploring Music to its weekly schedule.  And just today a new report out that classical KUSC in L.A. is expanding its coverage up the central coast of CA with a frequency they are buying in San Luis Obispo.  The University of Southern California, owner of KUSC, is buying Romantica KXTY in Morro Bay-San Luis Obispo for $1.2 million from Lazer Braodcasting.

We’ll keep you posted.

Sirius XM

And the big shocker, as the New York Times reported this morning, is that Sirius XM is preparing to file bankruptcy, rather than submit to a hostile takeover by TV Satellite company EchoStar and its CEO Charles Ergen, who has quietly been buying up some $400 million of Sirius XM’s debt.  Sirius XM has assets of $5 billion, so a bankruptcy this big would create a thud heard round the world, but the company is only trading at 11.4 cents a share.  It’s way out of whack. Things are not looking good for satellite radio right now.