The economy is bad, so the arts are in trouble. It's always the same reaction: Cut funding to organizations, dismiss art teachers and reduce grants to artists.
Art education improves academic performance, augments critical thinking and increases creative problem solving. And though the arts are a viable profession to pursue, they are deemed unworthy of government support.
The arts that try to legitimize themselves by proving they can bring in revenue through dining, shopping or traveling have missed the point. My town had 20-plus ballfields and didn't need to prove that revenue would increase when it built four more. What the arts need is more competition: heated, cheering, jeering events that audiences can respond to.
Let's form art teams. We can build structures to hold competitions for the largest mural, the fastest painter, the highest sculpture. There will be betting, popcorn and lots of yelling. We'll have high art vs. low art, realists vs. abstracts. Teams can design and sell T-shirts, cups and caps, paint their logos on buses and compose scores for pep rallies. All without having to justify their worth.