[SATLUG] [Fwd: San Antonio Open Source Research]

[Bob Tracy]

Geoff wrote:
> You havn't been on Houston street lately...

Let's stop there.  I'm aware of all the arts venues you mentioned, to
include the gallery on S. Alamo.  Until the symphony ran into enough
trouble they felt compelled to cancel the season, my wife and I had
been full "A" and "B" classical series ticket holders.  I've been a
member of the San Antonio Opera chorus since "The Merry Widow" (late
bloomer :-)).  You'll also catch me at most of the San Antonio College
and Trinity University concerts and theatre productions: doesn't hurt
that my wife is on faculty at both institutions :-).

Yes, we have "the arts" in San Antonio, and the situation is getting
better, but as one respondent already mentioned, it's not helping that
conservative politics as practiced locally means open hostility toward
the notion of public funding for the arts.  If, as I do, you tend to
view the arts as part of the public infrastructure necessary to attract
and retain educated people who tend to hold the high-paying jobs, then
we're on the same page.  I only wish people could get over the notions
that being educated equates to supporting every idea advanced by the
extreme left, and that being conservative equates to being an uneducated
subhuman.  The exceptions to both assertions are legion, which makes
one wonder how they became so deeply ingrained in our consciousness
to begin with, eh?  (Yes, Virginia, *some* conservatives read the San
Antonio Current: where *else* am I going to get up-to-date information
on what's happening in the arts community?)

As a good friend of mine (now deceased) once observed, south Texas
politics is an amazing spectator sport as long as you don't take it
too seriously.  Apologies for the detour into non-Linux land, but techie
folks *do* by and large tend to be arts supporters, and not all of them
lean leftward :-).

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Bob Tracy                   WTO + WIPO = DMCA? http://www.anti-dmca.org
rct at frus.com
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