Filmmaker Patrick Courrielche has been doing the rounds lately because he was on a conference call with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in which the government agency called on us, the artists of our times, “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”

In other words, if we could do a variation on “Yes, We Can” or put together another one of those cool Hope posters on the theme of government-run health care or obeying the Feds without question–all volunteer work, you understand–that’d be great. It’s for the cause, you know.

Now, the NEA is denying it coordinated that call, and of course, it doesn’t see anything wrong with it’s blatant politicization.