There is a scandal about the NEA, because it's 1990, hooray! Did the NEA give grant money to a lady who showed her vagina to people? Or to a gay man who takes pictures of gay butts, again? No, this time it is totally not about censorship, at all. It is about FREEDOM. Because Obama is turning the NEA into a fascist propaganda machine!

In a conference call with some artists, the NEA's head communications director encouraged artists to make art about Public Service. This is also what Goebbels did.

But if your answer to that question up top is "yes" then you will not understand this scandal, and if your answer to that question is "no the government should never give money to artists at all unless they promise to only make velvet paintings of puppies or those Magic Eye pictures maybe" then you will find this all to be a terrible thing. And if you don't give a shit about the NEA but just want to lob a cheap shot at a soft target in order to score political points and get a scalp, then you might be a conservative blogger.

According to "art community consultant" Patrick Courrielche, who supports those Obama Joker posters, the NEA organized a recent conference call to assemble an army of artists who will maybe possibly (hopefully?) use their work to inspire service in key social arenas, such as health care and energy.

The call, he says, included the NEA's Director of Communications, Yosi Sergant, White House Office of Public Engagement Deputy Director Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy, who directs outreach for United We Serve, the President's community service initiative. All parties apparently highlighted the importance of these pressing national issues.

The call's participants were "encouraged" to use their myriad mediums to concoct "creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country." Now, it's not unusual for the government to use art in times of economic need. Long ago, the New Deal's Works Progress Administration set up the Federal Art Project, which had artists beautify the Depression-pocked landscape and remind them of essential needs, like good dental care. But the WPA and NEA are different beasts, and Courrielche worries that the NEA, which offers grants to artists and often drums up even more money for grantees, will use this initiative to pick and choose ideologically motivated artists.

Discussed throughout the conference call was a hope that this group would be one that would carry on past the United We Serve campaign to support the President's initiatives and those issues for which the group was passionate.... A machine that the NEA helped to create could potentially be wielded by the state to push policy.

After voicing even more concerns about government overreach, Courrielche asserts the call's maestro described the initiative as a "brand new conversation," yet intimated that the group itself doesn't know the legality of the project:

We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?…bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely…

Yes, this could all be very scary, but Courrielche — who only includes that one direct quote — offers little more in the way of proof for his art-induced anxiety. While we don't doubt this conversation happened, it seems to us that the government should be encouraging artists to use their craft to raise awareness.

It's not like all Americans read the news. Some of them simply like looking at pretty pictures. If the government used its funds to back artists who agreed with the administration's proposals — well, that would be a problem, but Courrielche hypothesis basically assumes that Americans are stupid and will believe anything they see. In more ways than one.

A new study finds that more than 50 percent of American adults read a work of fiction in the past year. The survey's questions did not specify where they read it, even though common sense tells us that with Internet access now commonplace, some of that reading must be happening online. Gioia, a 58-year-old poet, credits librarians instead:

Mr. Gioia said that Internet reading was included in the 2008 data, although the phrasing of the central question had not changed since 1982. But he said he did not think that more reading online was the primary reason for the increase in literary reading rates overall.

Instead he attributed the increase in literary reading to community-based programs like the “Big Read,” Oprah Winfrey’s book club, the huge popularity of book series like “Harry Potter” and Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight,” as well as the individual efforts of teachers, librarians, parents and civic leaders to create “a buzz around literature that’s getting people to read more in whatever medium.”

Gioia's been downplaying the role of the Internet in promoting reading for years, even as far-sighted educators — even librarians! — have been incorporating it into their lesson plans. And the Internet has restored reading and writing (if not fancy poetry) as a normal everyday activity for millions. There's some good news for them, and others who dare to dream that the heavily textual medium of the Internet might actually promote literacy: Gioia is resigning his post later this month.