I heard a great interview on the Mars Hill Audio Journal with David Smith on his book, Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy, which deals with the subject he writes about here. Is the National Endowment for the Arts for the purpose of granting artists a bit of freedom or livelihood to create new art or is it to promote community involvement in the arts? According to Mr. Smith, Lyndon Johnson and the congress who voted for the NEA’s creation didn’t really know what they were doing or how contentious artists are.