Kansas is about to become the only state without an Arts Commission.
I’m not sure whether to cry or throw my shoulders back in pride, because this grim, take-no-prisoners thrift is akin to the qualities that made my home state so wholesome, sturdy and resilient. Kansans don’t like to live on borrowed money or borrowed time. We understand the fickle nature of … most everything, God excepted. For everything else, we expect an honest balance. And we’re willing to work for it. That’s what got us through the Civil War, the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the Great War, the Second War, Brown vs. Board of Education, and everything after that all the way up to the present.
But it’s hard not to panic at the thought of the Kansas Arts Commission just getting … erased. My best effort to stay calm appears in this week’s Gravity & Stars.
