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omnium gatherum, n. : a collection of many different, often unsorted, ideas or items.
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Saturday - March 17, 2007A follow up..... on something I mentioned about three years ago
(three
years?!!?) -- if you are interested, some of the
talks given at the University of Chicago - Chicago
Society's "Consolidating Democracy in Mexico" conference in
April 2004 are now available as part of a podcast (iTunes link) from the Center for
Latin American Studies, as part of a larger collection of talks
entitled "briefing series." Very cool.
Thursday - November 16, 2006ACH ACH ARGHSo, I think I know why Reynolds Price said that you
can't really, fully write before you're 35 or so. (Especially for someone like
me, who lives now as a 30-something, but experienced the teens and 20's all the
in the space of 6 years between high school and
college.)
It takes at least ten years to get over everything, so that you can sit down and write a paragraph without cursing all to hell, delving into self-loathing and shame, deja vu awkwardness, desires to call people and correct records, clarify positions.. and ultimately throwing your computer and yourself out the window. I haven't resorted to the last bit yet. Time will tell. I guess, though, that I should be painting, after all. What did Goyen say? Ah, yes. "It is enraging to work in words, sometimes; no wonder writers are often nervous and crazy: paint seems to be a more benevolent, a more soothing and serene-making medium." Thursday - November 02, 2006A note on healthcare, of sortsIn '08, this should be the strategy, the policy,
and the general framework for the
rhetoric:
"You know, I've noticed that politicians in Washington have gotten a little bit of Attention Deficit Disorder. And deficits are something we're going to come back to later, but I want to talk about health care right now. No one seems to think in the long term anymore, but that's what I'm about. And I'd like to propose a solution. It's not going to be a quick fix, but I believe that it will ensure the best outcome for all. And it will help you build trust in your representatives, and in me, and in the fact that government can do good. First, we get the 46 million uninsured Americans on a health care plan. Deal with the people who don't have it first. You build a system that has accountability and transparency, and basic fairness and simplicity. (Simplicity in a flat-tax kind of way.) Once the system is up and running, and running well, then we can go to the rest of the American people, and say, "look at what we've done. Now we will open this to all of you who have healthcare." And that is what I propose. There will be nothing about this system that has even sniffed at big pharma. We will look at and talk to big health care companies only because we can learn what does not work. And we will talk with you and engage you, the American people -- not by polling, but asking you questions and listening to what you have to say -- to see what works and doesn't work. And we will consult with various states who have implemented programs, to see what their experience has been. And, if need be, we can reference what other countries have done, if it has been effective. Because this is a system that should work for all Americans -- the people using it, the people running it, employers, industry leaders, doctors, nurses, and most of all, it should make sense to government. If it's just going to become another wasteful bureaucracy, then we will scrap it and go back to the drawing board for a better solution. But I'm going to engage you in this process, and together we will make long-term strategic decisions that will change things for the better. It's the glory of participatory democracy. Now about those deficits.." The person to deliver this talk: Barack Obama. He can work with Jim Cooper of Davidson County, Tennessee on this legislation. Cooper has worked a lot on comprehensive health care plans in the past. As far as the rest of Obama's bid, I'm working on compiling his cabinet right now. So far, I've got Bob Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury and Al Gore as head of the EPA. Those are the locked in folks; there's a bigger list of contenders for the other seats. The biggest problem is coming up with VPOTUS. It should be an elder statesman (and yes, a man), from either the Republican or Democratic side, who has universal good numbers. I would say Colin Powell, but I think the presentation to the UN stuff would come back to haunt him. I really should be in Washington, I wake up thinking about this stuff. Tuesday - August 01, 2006Introduction.What follows is the introduction to a longer
formulation of my critique of the state of contemporary American art. While I
may not be the most well-exposed critic or writer as far as my subject matter
goes, I feel that a revolution needs to occur, as I have hinted at in previous
posts on this site.
Art has always had a revolutionary spirit; its aim, in my opinion, has been to elucidate the human condition. The status of the human condition is fundamentally at a crossroads right now, which may explain the utter incoherence of art in our time; but. Even the last sentence of assertions, not to mention my thoughts below deserve definition and expounder, to follow in coming days. Thence, to the introduction, in its most nascent, rough form. ~~~~~~~~
The price of living in the Age of Irony, of the era of the egocast, the absurd cognitive dissonance of these times in which truth does not exist -- God was Dead one hundred years ago in Europe -- and Truth, that great Enlightenment principle for which revolutionaries sought (and whose passion and zeal so inspired the founders of this country) -- the moral, intellectual, existential, even Puritanical Truth, and its fraternal companions Liberty & Happiness ---- Freedom and Truth, American Principles, and, thusly, Gods -- they are now dead. While on the very practical, micro levels of experience and reality they may have never truly existed, they were nonetheless present on a national mental horizon, as guiding philosophies, illuminating beacons -- part of the national ethos, simple, straightforward, and evermore looking towards the future, in a regenerate ablution, a la "the promise of a better tomorrow." No longer. Obfuscating fog quickly crept into the crevices of our hills, swarming over the national mentality and enveloping it, a protracted trompe l'oeil bait-and-switch of the highest -- and lowest -- order, a complete eclipse. Recalling eras past for a sense of context, indeed America born witness to times of fierce partisanship and hackery, slander, corruption, as in the 1800's; perennial public apathy, vis a vis participation in voting and substantive intellectual engagement; government and corporate propaganda campaigns and their collusion with entertainment industries; deceptive practices, gerrymandering, and blatant undisclosed swathes of critical information; and inaccurate and biased media. The unique and definitive element of the contemporary situation, however, is the global infrastructure of knowledge that we now have in place; it is an organism equal to God in its scope, molecular, cellular, but inhuman -- the Internet. It offers Revelations; shows us its omniscience, the structure of the world; and represents and displays the sum of human achievements, or rather encompasses them. It is human's nature (in so far as it mimics the systemtic order of the natural world.) This has enabled us to become enlightened to a reality that few before could only glimpse, or hope to realize -- namely, that there is no one Truth, and that Liberty doesn't really exist for the Individual, unless it is in the will of the beholder. It reveals and demonstrates to us (the what and how) that the fog was always there; but it also shows us just how much more densely that fog has developed around each one of us. Wednesday - June 07, 2006An Epicurean with profoundly Stoic tendencies.Fundamentally, I love people, I think -- ideas
might be second -- or, rather, it's the combination of the two -- ideas of
people and people as ideas. It's amazing how one can come up with so many
narratives based on such limited sets of information. (note, note
note.)
But my question now is: what do you do with a person or an idea of a person that you are in love with -- down to the tiniest physical details, like a flash of a tongue behind the teeth during a smiling pause of a phrase -- when you know, so strongly, the end of the story line, and know that it's not going to work? [I mean, my gut instinct tells me that it's not going to work, but being that Wildean aesthete that I am, I want to savor it nonetheless, just to at least know.. and taste..] Is this what getting older is about? Once you learn more about who you are, on the most fundamental level, and how you work.. does that process of self-awarness automatically instigate the invisible hand crossing off people on your list of those to spend your most intimate life with? Of course, I'm coming at this whole thing from a very specific point of view, ie marriage. It's really not on my brain except for intellectual reasons; and, admittedly, perhaps, the climate in which I find myself these days. And indeed, the climate in and of itself pressures you into that system of thinking, that heterosexual marriage is the only choice. (I'm reminded of how easy it is to slip into the system and forget about the many other wonderful worlds I've experienced, and am a part of..) There is something very sexy about it, though, and so appealing... but it's an opt-in kind of system. (Pause: Kate, will you ever actively opt-in to anything, or just sit outside commentating?? (are you spending too much time in midtown?) Wait.. when I fall in love, I forget about this third person commentary.. ) .. I don't know. Sleep time. .. It's a tricky business. And I don't think I'm ready for it, any of it, any time soon. IE: I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now. And, a reminder.. "It was to have service of the intellect, certainly; yet, it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the ascetism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach Man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is in itself but a moment."
-
Oscar Wilde
Monday - May 08, 2006'08I truly believe that if Al Gore can get some good,
honest, outside-the-beltway maverick thinkers behind his campaign strategy, he
can win it in '08.
He was right 7 years ago, and he's even more right now. Perhaps I might have a new passion.. Friday - April 07, 2006I knowthat no one can come, of course not, but honestly,
my soul is begging someone to come for it. Please. I need someone there to let
me bow my head on his or her shoulder and let out a long wail, just once. Yes,
me.
Please. Please. Monday - February 27, 2006I have decided......that a man, and a woman, needs a maid, (to
employ artistic license on neil's words.)
And in my particular case, a stenographer for the brain. So many things to write, to say, to link to... I am overwhelmed. {Random thought -- I really am bothered and I don't know why about the fact that in this town, WALK signs cuckoo at you to walk, I think the animalistic irony of it is what bothers me and simultaneously placates me with its dry humour -- that we are chickens, birds, sheep that respond to animal noises about what is good and bad etc etc (long train of thought continues in my interior monologue) Painting and the subject that I am working on have been consuming my life. Also, my email has been really screwy lately. Perhaps unrelated, but damn those hackers targeting we small but strong proud, and cheers to the person affording me free wireless, although it is insanely frustrating when you are on a deadline and your internet dies. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ARRRGH AND NO TIME Monday - February 06, 2006A thoughtful reflectionAs usual, I'm backlogged by two weeks' worth of
things to say, but no time to write my commentary. Oh well. It's been a rough,
long, and hard week, and I'm looking forward to starting afresh tomorrow. I took
myself out to my favorite restaurant this evening for my
almost-one-month-back-in-NVegas reflection on life, love, work, passion,
thoughts -- musings, generally. And, for dessert, read through the Times Book
Review, where I came upon one of many interesting snippets -- but I thought
generally this was a good one to reflect upon. So....adieu, for
now.
"So welcome to the new age of impressionistic history. Like an Impressionist painting, it relies on dots of varying hues and intensity. Some come from leakers like those who spoke to Risen. Other dots come from the memoirs and comments of the players. Eventually, a picture emerges, slowly getting clearer. It's up to us to connect the dots and find our own meanings in this landscape. As long as we remember that the truth these days comes not as one pronouncement but as part of a process, we can properly value ''State of War'' for being not only colorful and fascinating, but also one of the ways that facts and historical narratives emerge in an information- age democracy. So let the process begin!" - Walter Isaacson, reviewing James Risen's State of War, Sunday
5th February, 2006.
Sunday - January 15, 2006The Price of IronyI found this article by Benjamin Barber through the NY Times
Week in Review Reading File. It's a great essay
on the times. Excerpts from Salmagundi of my favorite
bits.
"Irony is the postmodern form of conspicuous self-consciousness and suits our era’s puerility – its fey aestheticism and political cynicism — to a tee. It is complacency’s rationalization, disengagement’s excuse, the alienated spectator’s self-justification. The ironic bystander (the phrase is redundant) is the citizen’s jeering nemesis and the poet’s wily shadow trying to make sure that truth and beauty and goodness, those stalwarts of the world before it was disenchanted, do not re-infect the post-modern’s cool voice with hot earnestness. Or make us think too hard or feel too keenly. While intellectuals work – Stanley Fish making irony respectable, Richard Rorty wrapping it in the cloak of privatization to minimize its political impact, Jedediah Purdy laboring more recently to expose its costs to community – artists play, assuring that irony endures and spreads in sanitized screen violence (Kill Bill or Sin City), television news wryness (The Daily Show), knowing Broadway shows (The Pillowman) and teen consumer advertising (the beer commercials, for starters). For irony allows us to armor our self-consciousness, and make our moral puzzlement and anxiety seem almost virtuous – though we can only utter the v word ironically. As Claire Colebrook has noticed in Irony, irony is deeply implicated in “the huge problems of post-modernity; our very historical context is ironic because today nothing really means what it says. We live in a world of quotation, pastiche, simulation and cynicism: a general and all-encompassing irony.” We might even say that irony defines the postmodern sensibility and that to be anything but ironic is to be hopelessly old-fashioned, gauche, out of it – in a word, me. Yet irony is sometimes literally killing as in Brian McDonagh’s play. Irony plagues politics and the arts alike, and hence signals their ongoing intimacy with one another. Want to kill citizenship? Undermine what is earnest and engaged in the world of art, as McDonagh does with the subject of child abuse. When McDonagh is done, feeding Viagra to sex offenders seems quite normal, in an ironic kind of way, and children killing children is, well, a clever and costless game. Want to put an end to art’s ‘pretentious’ ambitions? Assail self-serious politics and civic responsibility. ... So yes, irony is bad for art — but then what’s art? asks the ironist artfully. It’s bad for audiences — but then who cares? asks the careless spectator. And it’s bad for civility in both the civilizational and civic senses – but then are not civilization and the civic sensibility two of the ironist’s more fetching targets? ask the complacent aesthetes who pass as artists in the age of irony. ... At Arthur Miller’s memorial service last May, Edward Albee said of him “some writers matter and some do not. Some of our most clever writers don’t matter. They teach us nothing and they do not render ourselves coherent.” But Albee was showing his age, and was obviously wrong. In the age of irony, teaching something, rendering ourselves coherent, doesn’t matter while cleverness does. ... Irony alienates us from alienation, depriving it of its critical purpose and leaving us and the artist free to be – well, more or less nothing at all, other than self-consciously voided of our self-consciousness. It is the ideology of the age of emptiness. It offers bearings on a sea with no ports, no longitude or latitude, and no destinations and hence (ironically) without need of bearings. ... Yeats wrote “after us, the Savage God.” Today we might say, “and after the Savage God, the ironist.” So that savagery is voided of the savage, and we need no longer suffer the loss of meaning associated with post-modernity because the ironist helps us lose the loss of meaning, so that the loss is not felt. ... The dirty little secret of the ironist is of course that irony is always parasitic and can exist only by virtue of the earnestness it takes such pleasure in annihilating. Like sentiment, which has been called unearned emotion, the new irony is a form of unearned skepticism. It creates nothing of its own but waits to ambush moral purpose, to play havoc with common sense, to deny reason its moment. It is true that we live in the age after Nietzsche, after the ‘death of God’ and the deconstruction of reason. But irony is not existentialism. It is not brave. It avoids a confrontation with God’s passing in favor of clever parsing of the sentences in which his passing is asserted. The only stand it takes is that there is no stand to be taken, so neither the author nor the audience has to take one. Irony asks nothing of us. In letting itself off the hook, it lets us off the hook. We don’t just laugh at the cruel and the bizarre – which might leave us feeling some culpability even as we laugh – we laugh at ourselves laughing. We do not merely distance ourselves from our terrors for reasons of psychic survival, we congratulate ourselves on our distancing. Audiences at Pillowman do not seem to be stunned by the cruelty of life; nor even transformed by the transfiguration of mere pain into something fabulist and imaginist. Rather they stand and cheer as if they’ve just enjoyed an aria from La Boheme by their favorite soprano, as if Jerry Springer had just taken the stage with a couple of pathetic misfits parading their deviance to spectators who are beyond not only compassion or pity, but beyond contempt and derision as well. Irony is liberation on the cheap; irresponsibility without regret. Puritanism may be too hard to bear; skepticism may be the price demanded by reason; but irony is all too easy. No wonder our infantilizing, attention-deficit, lazy, consumerist times are in love with it. No wonder that the less crafted, less crafty version of McDonagh is found at every studio script conference for the latest thriller or HBO movie. The Puritans make work of play, moderns make play of work, but ironists make nonsense of work and play, seriousness and fun. To be too serious may at times be a sin; and to laugh too much at seriousness may be a greater one. But the ironist laughs at those who laugh at seriousness, somehow thinking this will enable them to recover seriousness without embracing its vices as seen by those who mock it." Saturday - December 17, 2005My Blog Motto"Thinking "on
paper"
slowly and feebly about time and memory and these posts [words] are simply flashes of fins above the water." -sfj. Sunday - December 11, 2005Year in Ideas5th Annual Year in Ideas published today in the
NYT
Magazine. Here are my favorites, delineated between research/concepts
and actual
things.
Concepts: The Hypomanic American. What an interesting idea -- American Exceptionalism as explained by DNA. Subadolescent Queen Bees . Having gone to all-girls school for 12 years... I witnessed these folks first hand. "The Crawl" Makes You Stupid. Actually, if I'm forced to watch a 24 hour news channel like CNN, I only read the crawl and block out whatever the talking heads are yapping about. At least some international events, or important domestic news ones, seems to be covered on the tickertape. I really don't care about some crazy stunt a celebrity pulled or a single incidence of a man abducted. I care about what the hell is going on in the White House, in the Middle East, on the floor of the Senate, and on the floors of everyone else's Senates. I understand that sometimes all the press coverage can help solve crimes, but then why doesn't someone come up with a TV Network simply devoted to that kind of stuff. There are an insane amount of elections going on right now in Central/South America. The entire continent is basically gearing up to vote. COVER THAT. It's important. Venezuela offered to supply some American cities with heating oil this winter. So, even out of self-interest, the networks could cover these things. And why not talk about the 1.5 million women who die every year, or the 1 billion children who are denied a childhood from hunger, war and disease? That could get you ratings. Those numbers are attention-grabbers, and do more to advance awareness of the problems and thus sparking a dialogue on how to fix the systems that allow such things to happen. Because clearly, these "news" networks are biased anyway, so a more instructive problem-solving approach such as this would fulfill the network needed to spin stories as well as, you know, do that pesky "reporting actual news" thing. The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution . And Noah Feldman should know. He helped write it. I'm so interested to see how this actually works out in the court room. The Yoo Presidency . I'd love to read some critical reviews of Yoo's arguments (duly added to list of things to google). But if this thinking does get employed by other administrations, I have a feeling this country's going to hit a bit of a rough patch, as Americans clearly have some problems with common sense and electing people who have good judgment. Also, and I understand that ours is not a parliamentary system, but isn't a president supposed to govern, not dictate? And if the framers really wanted to avoid having a king-like figure, doesn't such concentrated executive power, uhm, negate that? Checks and balances, what? Pleistocene Rewilding. Cool. Making Global Warming Work for You. I'm glad some countries are thinking ahead. Really interesting experiments. I want to go inside that floating house... Stuff In Vitro Meat -- the implications, for food and environment and ethics and and and and .... are overwhelming, but fascinating to think about. The Zero-Emissions SUV -- well, the title's a bit misleading. The TerraPass System seems like a great idea. Sign me up. The anti-rape condom. Wow. This is awesome. I can't believe it's taken this long to create something like it. And while I agree with the criticism that its existence leads to some implication that women are held responsible for their security, I nonetheless am glad to see such a thing. Especially with something like the next item on the list coming to a marketplace near you... Trust Spray. Holy sh*t this scares me. The Suburban Loft . If it's in the middle of a gated community, doesn't it defeat the purpose? Or is it just a really clever reinvention of the meaning of the word "sub-urban" -- an urban aesthetic without the benefits of actually living in a city. (Culture, diversity, environmentally friendly, tolerance, etc.) (Note -- fantastic article on the cover of the Metro Section today about NYC's ever-greening status. Relates to article I mentioned a little over a year ago, I think, from the New Yorker, arguing this idea.) If it's not in the middle of a walkable multi-use neighborhood, it looks ridiculous and stupid, to me at least. ACH suburbia. Niet. Yuck. Zombie Dogs. WHOA. From life to death to life again. WHOA. So it is real. Saturday - December 10, 2005The Party of Sam's Club[Updated,
Twice]
I do try to check in with David Brooks sometimes, because I think he has occasionally good advice for the Democratic party. However, in his latest column he offered some stinging but honest critiques of the current Republican party agenda, which, as he notes, is incredibly out of touch with its own base. He pointed to a recent article that ought to serve as a wake-up call, in his opinion, for the party, and sang the praises of the two young others' suggestions, saying "these writers, 26 and 25 years old, are closer to the future than the party leaders." Big words, indeed. So, being the policy wonk that I am, I ventured over and read the article he mentioned by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam from The Weekly Standard (can you believe it??), entitled "The Party of Sam's Club" -- and I've got to say, while I don't agree with some of their ideas, or, more accurately, the justification for some of their ideas, some of them are certainly bold, innovative, and appealing -- and others actually sound as though they were born out of liberal think-tank. Democrats: WAKE UP!! Some of the suggestions I liked: - Easing the burdens on working mothers, or women who have children and then want to return to work, but struggle to re-enter the market; (I feel less comfortable with the idea of paying couples to have kids and increase the family size, because I don't think it's environmentally wise, and it sounds...frightening to me, at least the way they describe it.) But their larger point, about crafting a pro-family economic policy, seems to make sense, in terms of the numbers they offer, especially for the working poor and even middle-class families.) - their health care program. Entirely. - helping the very poor, in a new welform-reform way. (I do pause to recall some negative things I've read about the "welfare to work" program.) - some of the tax things were kind of crazy. But interesting. And if the EITC, as they note, has indeed help take a dent out of child poverty, than I'm all for it. I'll update this again later, when I've more time. Actually, if you take a black marker to a print-out of this article, and simply cross it out whenever they use the word "liberal" or "Democrat" or "Howard Dean" (usually as a subject of sneering lampooning or snarky bully-like comments), it could be, with perhaps some of their tax cut suggestions, (like abolishing all taxes for incomes under $100,000...!! sounds a bit crazy to me) a great, responsive national agenda that would appeal to most everyone in the country, wingnuts excluded. (They should be excluded anyway.) Hm... UPDATE, 12/11: I've been thinking about some of these things. Especially the tax cuts (after reading about the Worldwide Flat Taxes idea in the NYTMag.) I think there are benefits to the flat tax, fundamentally because it rewards people who pursue more education (and thus who are able to get better jobs and get paid higher.) My problem, though, is that it obviously hits the poorer classes much harder. BUT -- if you had a reasonable cut-off point -- say, people making under (ohh, I don't really want to speculate, I'm not an economist) a certain amount just don't have to pay taxes at all -- that would be cool. It's more equal. In my mind, though, there would have to be a few very firm caveats in place in order for this to happen. A) The education system would have to be so equally excellent, that everyone, everywhere were allowed the exact same possibilities to succeed and move forward. (Hence my support for affirmative action -- but I actually think it should start much, much earlier. Kindergarten, nursery school. That's when things start getting stacked against you.) B) And this is where it gets tricky -- it would also require that there exist enough high paying jobs to enable upward mobility to occur. I don't know any data about turnovers or whatnot, perhaps also something to google, but. .... at the same time, part of me does believe in progressive taxation. If you have more, contribute more. It doesn't really contribute to solving the problem's cause, but at the same time... is this possible that it's true, this economic Darwinian system of capitalism? Oh who knows. I think people should be empowered as individuals, but I think the state can help out too. I don't think that is a conservative idea, or even a compassionate conservative idea. I think it's pragmatic, and it's flexible. If you need the help, we're here for you, if you don't, that's awesome, rock on. Like training wheels. Basically, I think that government gets a really bad reputation. When it's too big, it's bad, and when you try to slash it and drown it so it fits in a bathtub, that's not very nice either. Government is responsible for a lot of important and good things. It propels scientific research, our national infrastructure, our currency, our relations with others (and our safety as citizens, at home and abroad..) etc, etc. And as we are a big nation, our government should reflect that, in an equal proportion. Similarly, I think it would be a great thing if the government pioneered efforts in a few directions: 1) Civics and Basic American Rights/Laws/Government. Everyone should know their rights and the laws of this country. They should be hammered with this until they know it cold. Thus, no one can claim ignorance, but it strengthens pride in the uniqueness of our experiment and enhances the respect for the institutions we have built and participate in. 2) Financial literacy, fiscal responsibility. This should be mandatory. In such a capitalistic society, where the free market is king, (and when so many people are dangerously relying on credit to get by) there seem few things more important than learning how these things work. 3) Public heath, through education and programs. For so many reasons.. 4) A renewed commitment to the arts. I've seen a lot of books and articles about "psy-ops" of all stripes lately, some good and some bad. It's something I've long been interested in, and had many great conversations about. For example -- during the Cold War, a huge part of our efforts to combat the Soviets were the touting of our painters, and the shift of the international art world to NYC; the State Department used to send Dizzie Gillespie all over the world to play whenever a conflict came up in a country; etc. Instead of planting false stories, why don't we actually highlight good things this country, and send them abroad? Stop killing NEA funding because you don't like some of the artists' content. It's the freedom of expression that ultimately is the most important -- think of all those painters who were forced to paint pictures of Saddam Hussein in order to not be executed. Or this Iraqi boy band who was forced to write a pop song for Saddam Hussein. (WSJ Article.) Anyway, more thoughts from me later. I'm hungry. UPDATE, 12/26: Apparently, I'm not the only left-leaning person who thinks the Sam's Club article reads like a torn-out chapter from a liberal playbook. Scroll down to the Cage aux Folles bit. |