Oh. Oh my stars and garters. Oh, oh, oh. People at an opera event support public funding for the arts. Someone bring the smelling salts. I mean, have you ever?
If they don’t sing too often, they can break even.
I’m backstage during a show and I totally Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there’d at this.
I think the important point that’s missed here is that you went to the opera?! They have movies now, with special effects and scenery changes that doesn’t require curtains closing or a stupid intermission and forgotten lines :dubious:
I hereby nominate **Bricker **for “Most Thin-Skinned” doper of the year.
I mean, really. I’m so underwhelmed by this pitting that I’m completely at a loss for words. The only reason I’m responding to this thread is because I simply wanted my nomination to be recorded for posterity.
I am a liberal and an opera-lover (and a Catholic, since that seems to have entered into this discussion). I get a subscription packate to the Metropolitan Opera here in NYC every year (I don’t think that’s exactly the same as “season tickets”).
On the subject of public funding of opera companies, I kind of agree with Bricker. Even if I were in favor of public arts funding (and I don’t really care that much about it – it’s fine when the budget permits, but there are a lot of things that should have higher priority), it seems to me that opera appeals to such a tiny minority of the public (and that minority is largely, although not entirely, a well-heeled minority) that it seems that public funding of opera is a trickle-up proposition, and that’s something I don’t like very much.
My feeling is that it’s good the well-heeled opera lover is able to get a trifle tossed at them from the government. It keeps them from thinking they don’t benefit from the rest of us.
At long last we are in agreement. Free Money is the worst Monopoly house rule and it’s the one that makes everybody hate the game since it extends them for hours.
Could any Monopoly rules lawyers in the house let me know about the game-legality of entering into contracts? Whenever I’ve been able to rouse up enough of my nerdy asshole friends (the kind that enjoys arguing over numbers and dice rolls more than anything else), we’ve had great games where we loan each other money at interest, buy and sell shares of monopolies, trade or sell insurance for landing on properties, and so on.
Interestingly all of the above hasn’t made games drag any.
I have a feeling this thread won’t be over until the fat lady sings.
What a swell party this is…
Only the liberal middle class wants publicly funded culture. Think of the people who watch PBS. As a card-carrying liberal myself, I’m a little agnostic about this. Most well-off countries have public funding for the arts, but most of them would recoil in horror at the idea of public funding for single-use stadia like we have here. There are publicly funded sporting venues in the UK (for example), but they are multipurpose arenas and things and the local teams don’t get sweetheart revenue deals; they pay to rent the facility for their events like everyone else.
ETA: I think Measure for Measure’s mention of the Smithsonian is an interesting point. I don’t care if the US has a showcase for culture, but I value the Smithsonian as an educational institution. I don’t think opera or orchestras or theaters are educational, per se.
Agreed absolutely. You think taxes should be higher as a matter of good public policy – that doesn’t mean you, personally, should volunteer to pay something that others in your income bracket are not.
If you know it happens – then aren’t you proving my point?
Er, yes you are, and your followup post indicates that you’re reacting to the fact that somebody called you out on it.
If such a subject came up, I would hope that the attitude would be vastly different than the “Of course, everybody who’s anybody agrees we should do this,” thing I experienced.
I suppose it’s possible I never noticed it in such an irritatingly-displayed way before, then. And I suppose it’s possible I never noticed the conservatives doing it because it didn’t trigger any outrage.
What kind of fucked-up logic is this?
If I disagree that I’m hypocritical, then …that proves I’m hypocritical?
No, that’s stupid. Read bup’s analogy and then tell me how it differs.
I have answers.
The rules specifically forbid any player from giving money to any other player, except as outlined by the rules. So “interest” would be forbidden, as would “loans.”
Of course, alliances being legal, I suppose you could agree to buy a property for $500 and then sell it back for $600 in a few turns, thus gaining $100 that was part of some interest deal. But these would be extra-legal agreements, unenforceable if the recipient of the loan decided to default.
No. But you seem to have wandered away from the meaning of the word “hypocrite.”
It doesn’t mean, “Meanie who does stuff I don’t like.”
Well, you have one appeal to the court of Flipping the Board Over and Storming Off in a Huff as a matter of right.