“Why the slow, angsty movie-music at the end? I thought someone in the Politburo had died.” Mickey Kaus on the spectacle at Mile High.
Nothing To Do with Religion? Now on exhibit in Italy is Martin Kippenberger’s “Zuerst die Fuesse,” a sculpture that depicts a frog being crucified.
The 1990 wooden sculpture shows the crucified frog nailed through the feet and hands like Jesus Christ. The frog, eyes popping and tongue sticking out, wears a loincloth and holds a mug of beer and an egg in its hands.
The Pope has called it blasphemous. But . . .
The museum said the 3-foot (1-meter) -tall sculpture has nothing to do with religion, but is an ironic self-portrait of the artist and an expression of his angst.
That’s rich. In an age when art historians and critics can find gender and racial themes lurking in most every work of art (see, e.g., Roger Kimball’s Rape of the Masters), they can no longer find a religious theme in a crucifixion.
The RNC Welcoming Committee. Authorities in the Twin Cities seized weapons and other devices of mayhem from anarchists who describe themselves as the “welcoming committee” for the RNC convention. They have enlisted the support of other anarchists groups across the country for the purpose of committing criminal acts to disrupt the convention. Someone commented on the story:
Anarchists sure have lots of committees.
Rooting for the Hurricane. The wind has been blowing in the Democrats direction ever since Katrina, when the incompetence of state and local officials was trumped by the incompetence of the White House communications director, Scott McClellan. Some, like former DNC chairman Don Fowler and propagandist Michael Moore, are now expressing giddiness over the prospect of another hurricane hitting New Orleans at the start of the Republican Convention.
August 31st, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics, Religion, Visual Arts |
one comment
Last year, a rather young bull, Junior, spent some quality time with my cows with predictable results. Junior then resumed his duties with his rightful owner. Our pasture is graced this year with Oscar, who dwarfs Junior and the 1300-lb. cows. Oscar seems like a very agreeable bull. He stepped off the trailer, ignoring me holding the gate, and ambled over to the cows.
Cows get acquainted pretty much the same way dogs do. (Imagine not having to buy dinner or engage in witty repartee.) Oscar paced the circumference of the pasture, taking inventory, and then bellowed his presence to anything for miles around that might be foolish enough to challenge his dominion.
So far, the goats and dogs come and go through that pasture undeterred by Oscar, and I venture in as necessary. Oscar is not terribly interested in any of us, although I remain wary enough not to walk out to the middle of the pasture and call him out.
Naturally an article on bullfighting caught my attention.
Bullfighting is an exquisite art – a three-act drama of form, grace, skill and brutality. One particular fight, between the matador known as El Cid and Borgoñés, a 4-year old bull, is described in detail by Alexander Fiske-Harrison in Prospect Magazine.
For a brief moment, following the increasing display of risk and skill in the veronicas, we are given the sight of the man, stationary, in the midst of a circling fury, wearing this great beast like a belt, the crowd cheering, until Borgoñés, driven by his own momentum out of the charge, is drawn to a halt by attempting to turn in a distance shorter than his own body length.
Fiske-Harrison contrasts the current crusade against bullfighting as concerned entirely with the welfare of the bull. In contrast, Pope Pius V’s edict of 1567 called for a ban on bullfighting for the benefit of the souls of those involved.
So what persuaded me to go to my first bullfight, also at Seville, some ten years ago when I was 21? Well, a love of art, an admiration for courage and a recognition of mortality and the grim realities of our dealings with animals. (I should add that I have seen bullfights which have horrified me, and ones which have left me asking, in Byron’s words, whether it is just that my “heart delights/In vengeance, gloating on another’s pain.”)
It’s a worthwhile read.
Just to stand in Oscar’s presence will give you an enormous respect for the animal and for the courage of the bullfighter. Fortunately, Oscar has an easier time than Borgoñés, and I have a far easier time than El Cid.
Photo by siyublog (Creative Commons)
August 30th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Ranching |
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Martinis are refreshingly bipartisan, but USA Today used the occasion of the Democratic Convention to showcase martinis with a liberal theme. Hopefully there will be a similar post next week with conservative martinis. Think of both events as opportunities to seek common ground.
Image by Ken30684 - Creative Commons
August 29th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Leisure |
one comment
I have four dogs, and I suspect one of them is a Democrat. Two Anatolian Shepherds guard the livestock – the law and order contingent – and a Rat Terrier, if he learns not to be so reckless around cars, will grow up to control vermin and warn of snakes in the grass.
The Border Collie is much smarter than the other dogs, but useless. Her instincts tell her to herd, but she doesn’t know how. She feels compelled to make an impact on the ranching operations even though she hasn’t the faintest idea what she’s doing. Her actions are well intentioned, but generally counter-productive.
Full disclosure: the dog pictured is not my dog. My dogs value their privacy, except for the Border Collie whose modelling rates are too high. But this is a dog that would look good on my front porch. It has the right combination of determination and bewilderment.
Which left me wondering . . . where is Obama’s dog? Politicians are supposed to have attractive wives and well-scrubbed kids, which Obama surely has, but a dog is obligatory. No president since Woodrow Wilson has been dogless.
Past presidents had pets that frequently seem fitting in a curious way: Howard Taft had a cow; Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce had no pets; and Andrew Johnson had mice!
McCain has dogs, but poor Obama has none. He promised his kids they could have a dog after the election. But Obama’s current lack of a dog could be used by McCain as further evidence of being unprepared. A dog in the future? More campaign promises.
As David Brooks said in today’s editorial, “Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.”
Obama would do well to get a dog now since he’s trailing in the polls among pet owners.
Update: “According to the Huffington Post, ‘the American Kennel Club® (AKC) announced today that the public has elected a Poodle as their breed of choice for the Obama family.’” As I said, fitting in a curious way.
Photo by monkeyc.net Creative Commons
August 29th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics, Ranching |
no comments
Give Clemson Professor Jonathan Beecher Field credit. He wants to know why plagiarism doesn’t matter. He works hard to explain to his students that plagiarism is a serious infraction, and his job is harder now that Joe Biden is on the Democratic ticket.
The kind of wholesale plagiarism Biden evidently committed, copying chunks of a law review article into a paper with his name on it, suggests an inclination toward the kind of malfeasance present in the Kinnock incident. In every class I teach, I spend time talking about citation, and why it is so important for scholarship. As part of this conversation, I emphasize that acknowledging sources is a condition of membership in the community of scholars: if scholars do not acknowledge sources, they do not belong in this community.
So far, so good. But then Field reprises the case of Michael Bellesiles and his book Arming America.
By way of illustration, I have sometimes shared the Emory University report on the conduct of former history professor Michael Bellesiles, who undermined a provocative and compelling argument about gun ownership in early America with gross violations of scholarly norms for citation. The report demonstrated serious concerns about his scholarship and led to his resignation. If Bellesiles had chosen a less contentious subject, he would not have had legions of NRA supporters going through his footnotes, and he might well still hold his tenured position at a prestigious university. However, he presented his research in sloppy and dishonest fashion, and he lost his job.
Thank God for the ever-vigilant NRA. Field veers off course here, insisting that Bellesiles had a “compelling argument” marred only by faulty citations, as though the gun nuts discredited Bellesiles on a mere technicality. George Will said this about the incident in Newsweek:
Bellesiles’s thesis is startling. It is that guns were not widely owned, or reliable enough to be important, at the time the Second Amendment was written. The implication is that the amendment should be read to protect only the collective rights of states, not the rights of individuals. The book pleased partisans of a cause popular in the liberal political culture of academia–gun control. Reviews were rapturous: “exhaustive research,” “intellectual rigor,” “inescapable policy implications,” “the NRA’s worst nightmare.”
Then people noticed inconsistencies, and
When Bellesiles’s evasive response led to more tugging on the threads of his argument, it unraveled. The unraveling revealed a pattern of gross misstatements of facts and unfounded conclusions. His errors are so consistently convenient for his thesis, it is difficult to believe that the explanation is mere sloppiness or incompetence. It looks like fraud.
Others reached the same conclusion:
Garry Wills, who had enthusiastically reviewed Arming America for the New York Times, later said, “I was took. The book is a fraud.” He also told an interviewer for C-SPAN that Bellesiles “claimed to have consulted archives he didn’t and he misrepresented those archives,” lamenting that Bellesiles did not have to do it, since he had good evidence for many of his claims.
This last bit is sophistry. Having evidence for some of the claims in a book doesn’t make a very good book, and it’s fair to conclude that Bellesiles would not have manufactured fraudulent data if his argument could be supported without it. But Field and Wills continue to defend the result of fraudulent research because they find the argument appealing. Fields concludes:
Bellesiles cheated, and he lost his job because of it, and in spite of an argument that continues to make sense.
How can the argument make sense if the data supporting it are fraudulent? Bellesiles’ conclusion is fruit of the poisonous tree.
A plagiarist takes credit for someone else’s work – misrepresenting the source. Bellesiles, however, did his own fabricating. His conclusion was therefore as tainted as the data supporting it. It was a lie, but a pretty lie that gun control advocates wanted to believe.
Field condemns the methods but lauds the result. I suspect he will present a more compelling case against academic dishonesty if he finds an illustration without that glaring inconsistency.
August 26th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Education, Politics |
no comments
What do New York, California, New Jersey, Michigan, and Massachusetts have in common? They top the list of worst states to do business in, according to a survey of business executives conducted by Development Counselors International. They are facing serious budget shortfalls. And they are, by and large, the bluest of the blue states.
Steven Malanga describes these anti-business states as awash in red ink.
The DCI study, coming as it did amidst growing talk of state fiscal crises around the country, is particularly revealing. Of the approximately $48 billion in accumulated budget shortfalls that the 29 states with projected deficits are facing, $33 billion, or two-thirds of the gap, is concentrated in those five states considered by corporate executives to be the least friendly to business.
The states rated most friendly to business – Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee – together account for only $4.1 billion of the total. These are all red states, although some are borderline red and the state governments of North Carolina and Tennessee are controlled by Democrats.
Malanga makes the point that the states facing the worst budget shortfalls are suffering from federal policies, but from their own. They have chased off their business base.
As the fiscal problems of some states increase, we are likely to hear more about how the federal government must bail them out. It’s the failings of the federal government (that is, the Bush administration), that are responsible for state budget woes, so the argument goes. But any look at the states with the biggest deficits reminds us that governors and legislatures are largely the authors of their own problems, and that the biggest trouble some of them seem to have is that their taxing and chronic overspending have made them toxic to the business community. Don’t ask the feds to fix that.
August 26th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics |
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There are suggestions that our Olympic team has more guts than our politicians. McClatchy notes:
First came the decision by U.S. team captains to pick runner Lopez Lomong, who was a Sudanese war refugee, to lead the U.S. delegation into the Aug. 8 opening ceremony as the team’s flag bearer.
Many interpreted Lomong’s selection as a dig at the Chinese government’s support of Sudan, which has armed militias that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country’s Darfur region.
On Friday night, the U.S. team entered the political fray again by choosing archer Khatuna Lorig, who was born in what is now the country of Georgia, to be the U.S. flag bearer in Sunday’s closing ceremony.
Lilliputin. Eamonn Fitzgerald has this:
Had to laugh upon reading at the weekend that Mikheil Saakashvili is credited with inventing the nickname “Lilliputin” for the Russian Prime Minister. It’s “an allusion to Mr Putin’s diminutive stature, in contrast to his own towering presence.”
Botox and Xerox. Robert Fulford reviews The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head (Yale University Press) by Raymond Tallis.
Faces, as Tallis sees them, are like texts, crammed with information. A friend of mine used to quote an old literary cliche, “Her face was a study.” In recent times, however, faces have changed, making them harder to read. We are developing a face for our era. Botox is one reason.
Botox relaxes facial muscles and makes possible a smoothness where creases might otherwise appear, revealing the face’s age. In return, Botox exacts a harsh payment. The user becomes relatively dull-looking, more like a copy than an original. Will we eventually speak of pre-Botox faces as artifacts in a once-loved but now abandoned style, like the Victorian novel?
Death of Critics. Norman Lebrecht says newspapers are cutting back on their coverage of classical music. Critics may be an endangered species. Newspapers are undergoing a paradigm shift, and it’s not surprising that the arts are getting short shrift, but Lebrecht places the blame primarily on the orchestras.
As editor, try explaining to your chief executive why you are holding a full staff job to report on an art that never makes news, an art that plays the same old music, year after year, with the same parade of expressionless faces on the platform. An art whose audience is greying and unattractive to advertisers. An art whose music director is an absentee European and whose few glamour soloists will only agree to talk about their new record or hair makeover.
August 24th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Music, Politics |
no comments
The Friday martini posts continue this week with another photo from Ken Johnson’s photographic series “Ode to the Martini.” This one, “Take It from the Top,” offers a birds-eye view.
Photo © Ken Johnson. Used by permission.
August 22nd, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Leisure |
no comments
The web site “Evil Scale.com” allows you to rate individuals on the good/evil scale. Of course, George Bush wins the evil prize going away, scoring a substantially more evil score than his closest competition, Saddam Hussein. Number 3 on the list is Ronald Reagan, so that should tell you all you need to know about who visits this site.
Honorable mentions go to Stalin, Hitler, Cheney, and Colin Powell. Powell beats out Jeffrey Dahmer, Josef Mengele, Idi Amin, and Vlad the Impaler. Charles Manson is sandwiched between Donald Rumsfeld and Mike Huckabee. Scooter Libby edges out Lee Harvey Oswald.
Obama tops out the most good list, just nudging out George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ghandi, and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Smokey the Bear beats Harriet Tubman, and Jack Kervorkian beats Santa Claus. Jesus Christ ranks a paltry 37th, scoring lower the Dwight Eisenhower and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Beatles beat God, Ron Paul tops JFK, and Gordon Lightfoot wins over the unfairly maligned Abominable Snowman.
Those who think our society has a problem distinguishing good and evil can find good anecdotal evidence here. Or maybe the problem is that kids need to turn off the computers and spend more time learning to play softball and musical instruments.
August 20th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Ammo, Leisure |
no comments
Charles Downey’s review at Ionarts of Jerry Springer: The Opera leaves me feeling just fine about missing it. Jerry Springer has famously hosted the worst of the trash talk television shows. Naturally, the opera found its share of critical acclaim.
“It’s filthy, it’s funny, it’s brilliantly original…
A THRILLING, TRULY GROUNDBREAKING SMASH.”
-The Daily Telegraph
“THERE’S NOTHING MORE ENTERTAINING TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE.”
-The Mail on Sunday
“Nothing more entertaining” is certainly a sad commentary. For Downey, the combination of debased Springer and exalted opera is “a marriage made in hell.”
Springer’s second act, which casts God, Jesus, Mary, and Satan as guests on an infernal edition of The Jerry Springer Show, has drawn protests of outrage from conservative Christian groups, something that has dogged the show in all of its subsequent openings. No doubt about it, Jerry Springer is foul-mouthed, outrageous, and blasphemous. As satire of Christianity, Springer is ham-handed, a blunt hammer instead of a scalpel. If the best satire knows its target, Springer is wide of the mark. For example, Jesus says, “Talk to the stigmata” as he shows his hand, but the stigmata are mystical wounds that other people receive in imitation of Jesus’ wounds – Jesus did not receive the stigmata. For a show that exults in deflating piety, the pious ending reconciling God and Satan with the platitude “There are no absolutes of good and evil” rang hypocritical.
No doubt, but hypocrisy seems like a flimsy stick to beat this opera with. The message that good and evil are fictitious and result merely from a misunderstanding – indeed a cosmic spat between God and Satan that man might mediate – surely deserves more robust criticism.
It is hard to satirize a bad joke like Jerry Springer, who lacks sufficient substance and seriousness to fuel a good satire. Downey argues that people should lighten up their criticism of the opera because the religious satire is lame. But I fail to see why satirizing something incompetently gives you a pass.
And his reference to protests by “conservative Christian groups” leaves me wondering where non-conservative Christians stand. Are they indifferent or supportive – or merely silent? Downey doesn’t defend the opera’s inane take on religion and gives it rather low marks musically, but he still seems to recommend it.
In the second act, the chorus and all the characters return to assist in the judgment of Jerry in hell. It would be too weighty a conclusion for such a grotesquely silly piece, except that, as noted above, it only becomes more irreverent and less actually about anything theological, philosophical, or serious. In that spirit, Jerry Springer: The Opera offers an evening of hilarity and groan-inducing one-liners (”I can’t go to hell! I’m Jewish!”). It will also certainly exceed your expectations as to how much of the book could possibly be taken up with naughty words.
If the opera is a “grotesquely silly piece” that fails as satire, fails musically, and serves merely as a vehicle for foul language, one wonders on what basis it can be summed up as “an evening of hilarity.”
August 20th, 2008
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Music |
no comments
