That said, terms and conditions should certainly be revisited. The higher food tax in town needs to change, the city’s treatment of venues other than CenterStage needs to be reevaluated, how the city chooses to promote some businesses and ventures over others and what perks they do or do not provide private enterprise and small, community driven businesses, all of that needs to be looked at as a means to help this city continue to develop the businesses and entertainment that we want and need to be a vibrant community.

The success of the National and Movieland show what can be done if the city just gets the hell out of the way. There is certainly room for improvement, and the city weaning itself off of the CenterStage boondoggle would be GREAT but it unfortunately can not happen overnight.

Do you really love Richmond?

Do people really love Richmond?

I am sorry to be harsh, but this conversation usually goes nowhere- and I fully admit that I may not be the best example either- certainly Carol Wolf and SaveRichmond.com have also attempted.

What I will say is that I love living in city where every conversation somehow becomes about the city. PEOPLE LOVE RICHMOND!!!

What’s really obscene is that this white elephant arts center will NEVER make a return on its public investment and will continue to cost the City at least a HALF A MILLION a year (that susbsidy we know is in the ridiculous Center Stage contract that City Council approved) at a time when basic neighborhod services, mass transit, and school budgets are being cut even further.

For the record, I like and own some of Crumb’s comics, but did not attend this event. I don’t believe in censorship, but I also don’t believe our increasingly poor city should be in the theater business. Do any ‘conservatives’ or ‘liberals’ agree with me or is Richmond made up of all art-crazy radicals who just don’t care and/or can’t read a balance sheet?

Related:

http://cjwn.net/news/2009/11/02/hippodrome-getting-600000-boost/

And in all the years I’ve read Crumb’s comics did I ever think the man was a racist or a misogynist. Sure, he has used inflammatory images & rhetoric, but within the context of his work, his intentions are to provoke reaction and not to belittle or mock women or non-whites.

I have to say, Crumb’s comical depictions of rape offend me, but at the same time I’m cognoscente of the fact that it should be offended. All of us (especially us filthy men) have darker sides that we know are better left between us, ourselves, and we.
However, the merit of Crumb’s work lies in it’s filter-less presentation. That’s why it SHOULD be studied. We should accept his work as valuable because most people are incapable or unwilling to confronting their own darker side (some may read SIN) and so work like Crumb’s forces us to face that in someone else, and thus, is a catalyst to knowing ourselves better.

Censorship in the college atmosphere is definitely unhealthy. I think that things like Crumb’s work should be disagreed upon as good or valuable, but it should not be muted. It’s meant to be quibbled over, that’s what good art does, but the end result of any such conversation should never be the censorship of said art.

Along similar lines of being confronted with opposing and sometimes offensive viewpoints, some VCU students are upset with Christian protesters who utilize one of the school’s few “free speech zones” to push their views of who all is going to hell or not. Instead of engaging in debate or utilizing similar tactics to spread their thoughts, some students want to BAN these people from campus, or push them farther and father into a corner to ensure their message is not heard.

Life is all about confronting different people and different opinions. We won’t always be able to ignore them or put them in a corner out of sight. If kids aren’t going to learn how to engage, debate, critique or accept opposing viewpoints while in college then how on earth are they going to get by in life?