“Rocked by a budget crisis, Brandeis University will close its Rose Art Museum and sell off a 6,000-object collection that includes work by such contemporary masters as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Nam June Paik.” (story)

This is simply stunning, but - of course! - not surprising: “It’s always art that goes first.” That’s David Robertson, a Northwestern University professor who is president of the Association of College and University Museums and Galleries, quoted in the article. Brandeis is a private university. With a set of budget shortages in Massachusetts, public schools also had their budgets slashed.

Art and education are two of the few human activities that provide any lasting value - and yet they are the first ones to get their budgets cut, while billions are poured into what can only be described as a black hole (“the nation’s largest banks say they either can’t track exactly how they’re spending the [bailout] money or they simply refuse to discuss it” - a quote found over at FoxNews.com, hardly a leftie outlet).

Are we having our priorities straight? What are we doing?