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I'm from Winston-Salem, home of the #2 tobacco company, R.J. Reynolds. RJR for decades (less so since the tobacco settelement) has been hugely important to arts and education philanthropy in Winston-Salem, a city which is second to New York in per capita theater seats sold. Wake Forest University, in particular has been a huge beneficiary of RJR's giving including a new campus, Reynolda Estate (RJR's family estate) and the former headquarters of RJR Nabisco (at the time the largest office building in the Carolinas).

Maybe the Brooklyn Academy of Music could pull off a big cocaine deal, like John DeLorean, to subsidize their season. Artists are risk-takers, right?

I agree with Norman. My issue is that money is never pure. We could all examine the hundreds of choices we make every day as individuals and as industries and trace the trickle-down back to the source and discover that we're contributing to evil or to systems that harm or that we disagree with. But we have to deal with reality and take responsibility for the choices we make that have real effect. We make compromises daily. If artists refuse cigarette money, it's not going to bring down the cigarette industry; it will cause barely a ripple in their boardrooms - they'll find others willing to take their money. The effects of that principled refusal would be felt much more deeply among the artists and consequently broader society. Symbolism is powerful, but I don't believe that the refusal of cigarette money would get anyone very far. (Another point is that while the cigarette industry is guilty of a huge amount of dishonesty and exploitation of communities and populations, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, individuals do ultimately choose to smoke. The victims are not entirely innocent of responsibility. Not a very compelling argument, I know, but it does help me draw a distinction between cigarette money and, say, Third Reich money.)

Now that r.e. has explained it, I feel much better about taking money from an industry that is responsible for killing 400,000 Americans every year, and now killing millions of people around the world, and addicting children to get them started early.

When my spirits are elevated by a beautiful work of art, I can put those reservations aside.

It's problematic to take money from cigarette manufacturers, there's no question about that. But the fact is that there is such limited support for the arts, and especially for the experimental and progressive arts, that the amounts of money that Altria has donated really do make an enormous difference by allowing experimental and progressive artists to do their work. In many cases, it's a simple matter of survival. If other segments of society stepped in to provide financial support, then sure, artists would have the luxury of refusing enormous amounts of money. But you have to recognize the funding realities in this country, where government and general audiences don't provide sufficient support, and the realities of corporate philanthropy, which redirects and redistributes lots of money. And as Brian Lehrer and his guests mentioned, the benefits don't flow only to the artists and their often "elite" audiences but very importantly to the broader society and culture of our country.

I assume Karen Brooks Hopkins would fully support Leni Reifenstahl in her acceptance of her funding sources.

I've been to a bunch of shows in the past month at various venues, & Artists are still the biggest smokers around. You'd think Phillip Morris would be able to figure out how to make money off of BAM & it's still smoking constituency.

What about tax benefits corporations get from their philanthropy? I have a hard time believing that corporations donate money solely to benefit society. Aren't they beholden to their shareholders above all?