New Rule!

New Rule: Bill Maher can never look at anything aesthetically pleasing ever again until he recants his “visual arts are bullshit” statement.

Now I know Bill would have all the kids major in chemistry so his weed can be more potent but Bill, what would you stare at for 3½ hours if we don’t have any visual arts programs? Elizabeth Hasslebeck’s abs?

You see Bill said that one doesn’t have to go to school for the visual arts and he is 100% correct. You don’t have to go to school for nutrition either, just look at America’s waistline for proof. You don’t have to go to school to be president, just look at G Dubya. You don’t have to go to school for anything and you can be shitty at everything, just like Bill’s America.

Now I usually like Bill but he blew this one quicker than a Charlie Sheen escort.  

Now sure, we are lacking in the STEM areas to be sure but Bill’s implicit premise that the STEM college programs are more valuable than the visual arts and that visual artists don’t need technical, formal education is as absurd as putting Christopher Hitchens and Mos Def on the same panel. Oh wait, I think Bill did that.

Maybe Bill needs a refresher course, maybe Bill doesn’t know that we kooky humans started putting visual art up some 32,000 years ago on cave walls, well before republicans hated the national endowment for the arts. Maybe Bill doesn’t know that Albert Einstein said that "The greatest scientists are artists as well."

It is truly a shame that a supposed man of reason doesn’t see the importance of collegiate visual arts programs and how the skills learned in these programs can be applied to other areas for informed, fresh perspectives but then maybe Bill has gotten a little stale.

So you can put that empty frame up on the wall Bill and you can call college visual arts programs bullshit, just close your eyes when you do it. You might want to close your nose too, because the shitty art that is going to result is going to fucking stink.