who says Americans ain't got cultcha?

This article points to one Frenchman trying to set the record straight, though maybe with a little dust collected on the needle :

Alan Riding: "American Culture's French Connection"

During my stint at the Getty a few years back, I often wandered star-stuck throughout J. Paul's amassment of antiquities and impressionist masterpieces, silently calculating the millions of dollars the trust fund might have represented. Not a mathematician am I, but the end total came out to - approximately - a whole lot of dough.

As a not-for-profit/educational organization, most of the Getty's simoleons are conveniently off-limits to Uncle Sam. Considering where much of the American tax-payers' dollars currently end up, the Getty's revenues are probably best immunized from Washington's butterfingers.

Anyway! I am looking forward to getting my own grubby paws on Mr. Martel's study on how private funding for the arts in the U.S. compares with the largely state-funded system in France. I've always felt a fondness for any state that feels responsible for ensuring that "the arts" are financially provided for. Living in Paris, one can immediately reap the benefits of such attentive fiscal nourishment: constant, world-class exhibits, cheap entry fares (often free for certain sectors of the population), and sufficient funding to publicize the myriad shows so that you actually know when Maurice Denis' caravan rolls into town.

Then again, with a 35-hour work week, maybe French folks simply have more time to enjoy the fruits of the Minister of Culture's labors, and the return on this artistic investment warrants such established cultivation.