I’m serious. Close it. As CNS News reported, $762,372 of your money was spent — under the stimulus, of course — by the National Science Foundation to study . . . interpretive dance. Here’s Recovery.Org on this fiasco:
In this project the PI will study lightweight embodiment as an input for collaborative creative interaction, specifically applied to the domain of dance. The PI and her team of technologists, choreographers and artists will work together to define an evolving system that assists in the design and production of interactive dance performances with real-time audience interaction. The Dance.Draw system will enable dancers’ motions, tracked via small RF transmitters worn in satin cuffs . . .
Those had better be some darn fine satin cuffs, is all I have to say.
And if you want to feel even worse about this, check out that bottom-line jobs number:
Award Number: 0855882
Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Total Award Amount: $762,372
Project Location: City: Charlotte
Award Date: 06/17/2009
Project Location: State: NC
Project Status: Less Than 50% Completed
Project Location: Zip: 282230001
Jobs Reported: 1.50
A job and a half for more than three-quarters of a million rapidly depreciating U.S. dollars. If you liked the stimulus package, you’ll love the American Jobs Act.
It's only fine programs like this and cowboy poetry that are keeping the USA afloat. If we were to cut such worthy programs there would be riots in the streets and our economy would collapse, never to recover.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKEVIN!
Have you not learned? When Obama became president, the Secret Service handed him an AMEX Blue with "Uncle Sam" embossed along the bottom.
Rouser of the Sidewalk Rabble will just charge it all.
And after three years, the # of projects that actually ARE "shovel-ready" surely has increased, no? I mean, after over 1,000 days, aren't shovels halfway out of the dirt, already?
Naw, Obama is so good at understanding the US economy, we now have projects that are "dump-truck ready"! They've already been fully dug, and the dirt just needs to be deposited somewhere.
CAPTCHA: "Finger lickin' good"
I'll say. Just ask Solyndra execs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWilliamson, you're dropping into Coburn-style pork busting.
I don't know this particular project, but I do know something about the NSF. They don't do art for art's sake. When they approve a project, they're thinking of a fairly serious application for its techniques. In this case the application might be toward physical therapy or organizing military maneuvers.... I don't know, but you can be sure somebody does.
It may not yield any good results at all, but that's the whole point of research. It's a calculated risk.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat could be plausible during an administration which hasn't thoroughly politicized every executive department. When NASA eschewed actual space exploration and aeronautics in order to become yet another "climate change research" facility and a Middle East outreach program, *nothing* can be assumed to be what it was.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can help you go from Don't Know to Know in less than 10 seconds. This project is for no one but dance freaks.
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It appears the application of this study is to do the following: "The PI and her team of technologists, choreographers and artists will work together to define an evolving system that assists in the design and production of interactive dance performances with real-time audience interaction. "
It sounds like a worthy study fully deserving of our tax dollars to fund it. But it's time to make a choice: 1) raise taxes; 2) Cut the military; or 3) Stop funding interpretive dance studies.
Thinking, thinking...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey're all buddies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs someone who works directly with dozens of NSF grant recipients, I can assure you with 100% certainty that there is an abundance of utter waste toward projects that have no such benign (or potentially useful) motives.
When one applies as a scientist to NSF for research grants, half of the consideration is given according to "scientific merit" and the other half according to "broader impacts". The latter is the euphemism for "how many poor black children will you volunteer to help in some way based on this grant?" That is true whether one is doing research for a new solar cell, more efficient engines, or anything else.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbsolutely right. And if the mission of the NSF is truly basic science, then there should be no consideration of broader impact whatsoever. That's for political organizations and I thought we were supposed to get the politics out of science, or something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I don't know this particular project, but I do know something about the NSF. They don't do art for art's sake."
You *know* this, do you? How, praytell, do you *know* this to be a fact?
More importantly, how could you ever be persuaded to change your mind? You've created a dogma for yourself whereby no matter how obviously stupid something the NSF funds is, you can never be persuaded that the NSF has funded a stupid project, because hey, you know the NSF, and the NSF never funds stupid projects, so it must not be a stupid project after all!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou can know, as in be very certain, that NSF doesn't fund art for art's sake by checking NSF's website, including their searchable database of past grants. They don't fund art for art's sake, like the NEA does. They might fund art projects to understand how students learn or use dance, as in this case, as a model for developing and testing new computer technologies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou begin with the assumption that the project is valid and put the burden on critics to prove that it is not.
With taxpayer funds, it should be the opposite.
The NSF is notorious for underfunding really true basic science like mathematics. This has an effect, it tells our youth that math is for chumps and real science is that which can be explained to a lawyer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's see how this logic works--let's find a piece of a large federal bureaucracy that sounds silly. Let's not consider at all what else that bureaucracy accomplishes. Let's then decide to cut the entire thing based on this limited information.
If we apply that logic, then the first department that should go is the Defense Department. Where are the NRO posts bemoaning the loss of BILLIONS in bribes we paid in Iraq? I understand we need an army and its in the Constitution and all, but let's bring them all home, have enough people to press the button for a nuclear bomb and call it a day. Then we can pay for everything
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sure there's an alternative universe somewhere out there that thrives on your logic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo there isn't. I checked.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou missed the point. Hodge is not proposing closing down the Department of Defense. He is saying that you don't close down the NSF because you think one research grant is a waste, just like you don't close down the DoD because you find them wasting some money.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe U.S. Constitution REQUIRES the federal government to fund and field a military (aka Department of Defense).
The same cannot be said for The National Science Foundation and certainly not a Program of Interpretive Dance.
Folks: the federal govt is not only BROKE, its borrowing $200 Billion per month ... and digging. If a program of Interpretive Dance is so important to our culture why can't its advocates raise the funds from the private sources?
Enough already!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, I understand that the Constitution requires we field an army. That's why I said it. Of course you must be too busy to actually read comments before replying. The Constitution does not require us to spend $700 billion dollars on it or that we should simultaneously fight three unconstitutional wars. My point was--pare down the military to what we need. We don't need to be anywhere but here. If someone invades us (or looks about to), then we can attack.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly what part of the Constitution was violated by engaging in these wars?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere was congressional approval for two of them which is essentially a declaration of war.
First things first, we are in one unconstitutional war, the one in Libya. Both Iraq and Afghanistan had Congressional approval, which is all the Constitution requires. Please read the frigging document.
Furthermore, you are most likely thinking of George Washington's admonition to avoid "entangling alliances". For a great real-world example of the type of structure he was referring to, see pre-World War I Europe. He did not mean that we should be isolationist. That would have flown in the face of history, given that we sought help from the French in the Revolutionary War
Lastly, please read Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, at a minimum, before you comment on military actions. Also read up on Just War Theory, Law of Nations, the Geneva Conventions, and preferably Machiavelli's The Prince before you comment on foreign policy. If anything, our foreign policy under both Bush and Obama has not been nearly aggressive enough. See the British occupation of Sudan, specifically how they put an end to the insurgency, for the appropriate degree and method of force.
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