Cowtown Columbus Ohio: We Can't Afford A Symphony Orchestra

COLUMBUS (TDB) -- Culture now takes a back seat to college football in Ohio's state capital, which seems to be living down to its low-brow reputation. Financial problems have become so acute at the Columbus Symphony Orchestra that it is sacking nearly half the full-time musicians and may downsize to a chamber orchestra. Columbus is Ohio's largest city, having outgrown its economically troubled sisters Cleveland and Cincinnati in the past 30 years. But both Cleveland and Cincinnati still maintain excellent orchestras and have deep commitments to supporting and patronizing the arts -- and football. Columbus may be the seat of state government, but it still looks like a cultural cowtown. Or Sahara of the Bozart.

Public broadcasting's WOSU has details about the orchestra's downsizing in Columbus:

"Now the Symphony board has decided to terminate 22 of 53 full-time musicians. Doug Fisher, a long-time CSO bassoonist and president of the local musicians' union says the news is discouraging. 'There isn't a single orchestra is this country that has ever solved its problems by firing 40% of the players,' Fisher says. 'It makes absolutely no sense to me that that's what they want to do.' The orchestra ended last season with a $2.2 million deficit. That shortfall cleaned out what was left of the orchestra's financial reserves."

H/T Columbus RetroMetro, which spotted the news.

Witness A Bush-Cheney Impeachment: Proceedings Being Staged In NYC

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- With all likelihood of real impeachment proceedings bottled up in the House by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, a group in New York has begun exploring the case against President Bush and Vice President Cheney by staging a mock trial. They are making videos of each separate charge and Article 1: Initiation and Continuation of Illegal War is now available online here.

Tomorrow night, Nov. 26, The Culture Project continues its six-week presentation with Impeachment Article 2: Torture and Extraordinary Rendition. A New York blog, Gothamist, notes the first segment that has been posted online includes New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg and Ray McGovern, a retired CIA analyst who appeared as a witness against the Bush administration in the mock trial. Over the course of the trial, former military officials, journalists, academics, actors, and retired government officials will make presentations in the series, which is called A Question of Impeachment. Former CIA insider Ray McGovern is a bona fide intelligence expert, as Gothamist pointed out:

"McGovern chaired the National Intelligence Estimate for many years and produced the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford and Reagan. The morning PDB is a one-page breakdown of the most urgent recent intelligence gathered by the CIA; one such PDB was famously shrugged off by Bush in August 2001 - it was titled 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.'"