Pinch me I must be dreaming.
The richest and most exciting city in the world is so cashed-strapped that Gov. Paterson’s budget proposal would eliminate the Bronx Zoo’s entire funding in two years along with funding for living museums across the state which includes the New York Botanical Garden and Wave Hill in the Bronx. The hack and slash numbers are as follows: the 2009 fiscal year state budget for the New York Zoos, Botanical Gardens Aquarium Program will be reduced from $9 million to $4 million. And funding would be be eliminated entirely in 2010 under the proposal.
So is this what it comes down to? Is this the message we want to send to the rest of the world? New York city forcing its Wildlife Conservation Society (which runs the city's zoos and aquarium) to send some of its animals out of state, letting flowers die at the gardens, reducing staff positions at museums. Pretty darn sad if you ask me, and totally unacceptable when you stop to consider that the taxpayers burden for the new Yankee Stadium stands at $374 million, and the "Amazing Mets" tab is around $435 million!
Yup, you heard right.
Billions of dollars, readily available for new sport stadiums and the so-called war on "Terror", but not a dime for protecting and sustaining cultural institutions and living collections that make living in New York so desirable. The cupboards are always bear on that account. Perhaps the ancient Romans had the right idea -- give the masses Bread and Circuses and you can gain the whole of the world with minimal protest. Unfortunately, the Bread we receive in the great American Empire is rather moldy and the Circuses in most cases, not worth the price of admission. According to legislators in Albany, the beauty, the fresh air and the refuge the gardens and living museums offer is to be consigned to history's dustbin.
So is this what it comes down to? Is this the message we want to send to the rest of the world? New York city forcing its Wildlife Conservation Society (which runs the city's zoos and aquarium) to send some of its animals out of state, letting flowers die at the gardens, reducing staff positions at museums. Pretty darn sad if you ask me, and totally unacceptable when you stop to consider that the taxpayers burden for the new Yankee Stadium stands at $374 million, and the "Amazing Mets" tab is around $435 million!
Yup, you heard right.
Billions of dollars, readily available for new sport stadiums and the so-called war on "Terror", but not a dime for protecting and sustaining cultural institutions and living collections that make living in New York so desirable. The cupboards are always bear on that account. Perhaps the ancient Romans had the right idea -- give the masses Bread and Circuses and you can gain the whole of the world with minimal protest. Unfortunately, the Bread we receive in the great American Empire is rather moldy and the Circuses in most cases, not worth the price of admission. According to legislators in Albany, the beauty, the fresh air and the refuge the gardens and living museums offer is to be consigned to history's dustbin.
1 comments:
That is what living in the concret jungle is all about. The Governor does not care anyway about beauty he cannot not see. Not only is he blind, but apparently dumb too.
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