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Not Grateful for a Grant to Digitize the Dead

Last year the University of California at Santa Cruz struck a deal to house and archive 30 years' worth of memorabilia collected by the Grateful Dead. Last month the university proudly announced that the Institute of Museum and Library Services had given it a $615,000 federal grant to digitize that collection.

It's been said that every avalanche begins with a snowflake, and in this case the first one fell at precisely 2:38 p.m. on October 1, when the fiscally conservative Club for Growth posted a note about the grant under the headline "Your Tax Dollars at Work." Maybe it stops there, or maybe it develops into flurries.

Today the Web site FutureOfCapitalism.com gives a hat tip to Club for Growth and notes that the university's press release says the archive contains, among other things, "materials related to ... the Grateful Dead's highly unusual and successful musical business ventures."

"If the Grateful Dead were such successful businessmen, why do they need taxpayer help to take care of their old stuff?" FutureOfCapitalism demands to know.
Read entire article at The Chronicle of Higher Education