You Call This Art!

I read Philip Jenkins The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (Which I highly recommend). In it he talks about the obvious things, such as the editorials during the sex scandal and books like Hitler's Pope, and Papal Sin. What I found most interesting though was his discussion of truly offensive art. The obvious examples being the Sensation exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the infamous Piss Christ. What is so maddening about things like this is that if you argue that they are blasphemous, offensive, and qualify as what liberals would call "hate speech" we are told that we are the offensive and hateful ones. "How dare we Catholics complain about an artist right of free expression. How dare we be so hateful as to censor a voice of dissent." Never mind the fact that artist and curators do it so that the will create a scandal in order to call attention the worthless art, and thus send up the price of the work in question. We just can't win no matter how insipid and offensive the artwork. And when we do complain the media takes the side of the artist and then draws analogies to Madam Bovary and Ulysses (Nevermind the fact that those required real skill and art, whereas Piss Christ only required a jar, cross, urine and a willingness to offend.) Thinking about these things sometimes makes me glad that I live in a red state.

Scherlock Holmes Never had to Drive

I found out the other day that its not that good of an idea to smoke a pipe and drive at the same time. I was trying to change lanes and stamp my pipe in one continuous motion and then a bunch of ash flew up out of the pipe and into my eyes, blinding me for three or four seconds. I didn't kill any one, but if I was a more responsible person I would stop doing things like that.

Think Post-Modern

All of you who are planning on getting your PhD's or know some one who is, read this article. Its about who it we'll never be able to get jobs without selling out to the Liberal Man. Its a good thing I decided to write my dissertation on Derrida and not Aquinas.

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=56a4b06e77oshwaiq5psszuc2gti5neb

P & J Redux

If, on some off chance that you are reading this, I am sure you noticed my new links. I really excited that I got around to setting up links. After all its been about four or five months. I am also sure you noticed that if I linked to you, I probably didn't get your name right. I did this because the links are primarily for my own use. However, if you have not enjoyed the joys of NRO or Firsth Things, or the Ethics and Public Policy Center, then get of your arse and go to them. Right now P & J is you one stop link to all good things right and conservative.

$ 14,454.50 To Go

I sent out my first student loan payment today. Now I have $ 3.00 to my name, and one week until I get paid. I have no health insurance and I owe members of my family over a thousand dollars. I must say I am doing great in my first year of real life. I really hit the ground running.

Today I also received my alumni guide. If you haven't got one yet, it is a list of every alumni of our college with there contact info. In the back they list all the alumni by where they live. The States first then Canada, and so on. Well between Czech Republic and France is Deceased. I guess they had to put that group somewhere.

The Right Stuff

My bother is the biggest Bushie I know. He is one of those young libertarian-semi-social-conservative-non-religious-pro-defense kind of guys. He is also the kind of guy how would have pictures of Bush, Cheney, Reagan, and Nixon in his apartment. More or less he knows the history of the conservative movement but he is a little fuzzy on some of the ancient history (who isn't these days? I mean does any one really care if Robert Welch called Eisenhower a communist agent?) To expand his knowledge of the right I decided to get him the W F Buckly's novel, Getting It Right. The story is a classic boy, who happens to work for the John Birch Society, meets girl, who happens to work for Ayn Rand. Well After I bought it I thought about how little I know about that period, and I started to read it. The drama is alright, the boy-girl romance is natural and there are a lot of funny jokes at the expense of Ayn Rand. What does make to book so readable, however, is all the history of the republican party. It is amazing to think how different conservatism is now. And reading it I cannot help but think that I do not fit in with these old conservatives. Father Neuhaus always says, that he and many of the so-called neoconservatives never left the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party left them. After they fought for civil rights (and against such conservatives as Thormond, Buckley, Welch) the future neocons where marginal by Roe v. Wade.

Any way getting back to the book. It gives a lot of insight into a movement that looked remarkably like a communist student movement in 1880's Paris in its early days. It is amazing that the right got over its fear of reds, and support for segregation to become the main public force in the nation. There is also much information about the great figures of early conservatism, and sometimes contemporary conservatives. Buckley not only puts himself in to the novel, but also Whittaker Chambers, Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand, Robert Welch, Barry Goldwater, Ludwig von Mises all show up in the book in some way. And they show up in contexts not unlike this,

Only God could reproach Ayn Rand, and He does not exist. Aristotle might have tried it, but it would have been presumptuous, because Aristotle didn't get it all correct, wandering off into cosmology, inquiring into prime movers, etc., etc.

On Another Note ...

Who ever said that the theater is dead? I was looking through the New York Times this weekend, and only three quarters of all the plays on Broadway are based on movies. I mean tere is one based on the Birdcage, Dirty Dancing, the Godfather, Big, On the Waterfront, Ace Ventura Pet detective, Citizen Kane. Ok, some of those I made up, but come on its getting silly. There are plays based on Twelve Angry Men Beauty and the Beast, Monty Python and the holy Grail, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the list goes on. Of course this all because of the Poducers. Granted the play was funny, but it was not one of the all time great Broadway hits. It cannot even compare with Porgey and Bess, West Side Story, or Sweeny Todd. What is wrong with this culture?

On another note, and slightly related. David Mamet is considered Les infant terrible (I don't know if this spelling is right) of american theater, right. Every thing I here about his play is that they are dark, cynical, women bashing, dirty. But his movies, at least th ones I've seen, are all very good, and rather un-objectionable. I am talking about the Spanish Prisoner, Winslow Boy, and State and Main. Having only heard about his stage plays I'm a little puzzeled by all this.

On another note, to every one who was in my section last year, that is you Crashboxing, Lirripe (I think), ad al, On of our profs was lying. Not that I expect you to care much, but it is worth noting. He would always mention that Sartre thought that non-beng could be experienced, which on a superfical level is true, Sartre does think that. Now, I hate Sartre as much as the next guy, but we should at least find out what he is saying. He grants our prof that that would be absrd to experience every non-being, so what he does say, and out prof never mentioned (probalbly because he never bothered to check) is that out conciousness has to expect some being that is non-being, and thus we experience some non-being.(that is if I am gettin it right, but it is something like that.) So When Jean-Paul walks into a cafe expcting to meet Edmund and Werner and they are not there, Sartre Says that I do not look over the Cafe and make a mental acts about all the beings. Like "bertrand is not Edmund, Ludwig is not Werrner" and conclude the abscence of Edmund and Werner. Rather I have the Phenomina of their abscence.

Today I got my sisters Christmas prsent in the mail. Art: a New History, by Paul Johnson. I highly recomed this book, and I have bought two copies of it off Amazon and both where under $7.00.