Did you know that Washington state has a poet laureate? That's outrageous! In this economy? What are they thinking? This is bullshit! The commenters on this blog, like Laura:

While I fully believe it is essential to fund "the arts" in schools, I think we need to put our priorities in order. Our teachers are losing there jobs, as are their aides. Before we pay a gentleman to read a poem we should first make sure we fund our teachers who are perfectly capable of reading poetry.

and Alvin:

I believe Christine has turned into a nut. What on earth does Wa. State need with a Poet. $20,000 would do well elsewhere. This is ridiculous.

Agree with me. But more than that, this Americans for Tax Reform blog is more outraged than anybody on the planet over this, as you can tell by the title of the post, "Rhyme over Reason Flushes Taxpayer Dollars."

Really!?! An essential service?! Poets are an essential service?!? Washington's unemployment rate jumped from 5.1% to 9.7% in the last year, but I'm really glad the state's poetry czar is there to keep Seattle's local poetry slam going strong. Really!?!

Filthy Seattle poetry slams! They're the reason we got into this budget mess in the first place! We need to have an anti-poetry tea party! Who's with me? Gaaaah! I'm so outraged! I can't even see straight because the blood vessel in my forehead has exploded and I've got angry, angry blood in my eyes!

That said, our state poet laureate is not very good:

(Thanks, Brian, for the tip.)