Invisible Art, Invisible Brains

If this turns out to be a hoax, I apologize.

What are these people looking at?

A 27-year-old New York artist has invented something called "invisible art" and she is making millions selling it to people who absolutely must have it. 

A documentary team from the Canadian Broadcasting radio network traveled to Lana Newstrom's empty studio to learn more about her art that isn't there. 
"Just because you can't see anything, doesn't mean I didn't put hours of work into creating a particular piece," Newstrom told the CBC.  "Art is about imagination and that is what my work demands of the people interacting with it. You have to imagine a painting or sculpture is in front of you." 
The most amusing aspect of the story is the image of snobby art collectors walking through an empty studio studiously staring at blank walls with track lighting properly illuminating the nothingness on display. Some of the art afficianados actually stop and soak in the lack of art that is not hanging on the blank wall and tilt their heads in a deeply thoughtful way as if to project their profound understanding of the message sent by the brilliant young artist and her stunning ability to not create anything.  
Newstrom's agent, who is undoubtedly raking in a nice commission by his client's ability to not do anything, says, "When she describes what you can't see, you begin to realize why one of her invisible works can fetch upwards of a million dollars."
This story was not, we repeat, not published in The Onion. 

I wish I had the funds to hire a polling firm to be there every hour the gallery is open, and be able to demand that every person who walks through the door submit to the questionnaire that I get to design.  There will be a string of non-threatening, innocuous questions.  Then there will be these questions:

(#) Would you support tax-payer funding for this art through the NEA?

(#) Of all the pieces you have viewed here today, which one had the most impact on you, and why? Please be very specific.

(#) What policital party or philosophy of government would you describe yourself as being most aligned with?  Again, be very specific.

That Will Teach Him

Bitter abortion advocate demonstrates to Rush Limbaugh that no good deed goes unpunished

By Rosslyn Smith

Merritt Tierce, budding novelist, former executive director of a not for profit and, of course, like all under appreciated artistes, a former moonlighting waitress, thought the $2000 in tips from Rush Limbaugh on a couple of meals at a high end Dallas restaurant "felt like 'blood money." So she gave it to her charity: the Texas Equal Access  (TEA) Fund, a group that finances abortion for poor women. 
Irony seems to be completely lost on this woman.   I wonder if the concept was covered in the coursework when she got her MFA from the University of Iowa?  Of course, her first novel, which she is now promoting, is all about working in a restaurant.
Let me hazard as guess as to the tone of this work.  Since she looks like she is mad at the world, I bet her novel tells in great detail how the main character is mad at life in general and then beats the reader over the head with "the truth" about the high-end restaurant business.  She will then wonder why so few people bought her novel.   (Or came to her play, or listened to his music or bought the painting or sculpture, etc. etc etc.) 

The world of art is full of poseurs who routinely mistake progressive dogma for profound insight and garden variety experiences as penetrating metaphor.  Those few with genuine talent actually seldom tell the audience much of anything.  Instead, a real artist makes an audience feel the emotion as if it were their own.

Merritt Tierce, budding novelist, former executive director of a not for profit and, of course, like all under appreciated artistes, a former moonlighting waitress, thought the $2000 in tips from Rush Limbaugh on a couple of meals at a high end Dallas restaurant "felt like 'blood money." So she gave it to her charity: the Texas Equal Access  (TEA) Fund, a group that finances abortion for poor women. 
Irony seems to be completely lost on this woman.   I wonder if the concept was covered in the coursework when she got her MFA from the University of Iowa?
Of course, her first novel, which she is now promoting, is all about working in a restaurant.
Let me hazard as guess as to the tone of this work.  Since she looks like she is mad at the world, I bet her novel tells in great detail how the main character is mad at life in general and then beats the reader over the head with "the truth" about the high-end restaurant business.  She will then wonder why so few people bought her novel.   (Or came to her play, or listened to his music or bought the painting or sculpture, etc. etc etc.) 
The world of art is full of poseurs who routinely mistake progressive dogma for profound insight and garden variety experiences as penetrating metaphor.  Those few with genuine talent actually seldom tell the audience much of anything.  Instead, a real artist makes an audience feel the emotion as if it were their own.

So, let's think about this for a minute.  "Blood-money?"

From Wikipedia I found this:

Blood money may refer to:

• Blood money (restitution), money paid to the next of kin of a murder victim as a fine
• Thirty pieces of silver, in The New Testament, the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus
• Weregild, in English history, reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide or other wrongful death
• The money earned for contract killing

Which of these is Rush Limbaugh guilty of?  BTW - I'm not a big fan of Rush.  He would put me in the camp of people he makes fun of as KOOKS (Keepers Of Odd Knowledge Society). But yes, I've listened to him an awful lot in the past.  I do agree with him on some things, but he's not the focus of this post, she is.

And even if Rush were guilty of something worthy of referring to the tip as blood money, in what universe does it make sense to help insure the brutal murder of an innocent child in the womb as a way to atone for whatever sins, either perceived or real, may have been committed by him?

I'm sure it would have been unthinkable to give the money to a homeless shelter or a community food bank or something that actually gives aid and comfort to someone who is suffering.

Naaaahh!  Can't do that.

Progress in Venezuela

Back in the late 1990s when I was still living in Florida, I went to church with a family that had fled from Venezuela after Hugo Chavez had come to power.  They left a lot of extended family and friends behind and did their best to keep in touch. 

They were quite willing to talk about the horrific conditions of life down there. Terrible inflation, rampant and very blatant crime, thugs doing strong arm robberies in broad daylight, murder and mayhem.  A common denominator of the criminal thugs was that they not only supported Hugo Chavez, but they were his enforcers at the polling places. 

The immigrants were willing to admit that the things they saw in the SEIU here in America looked frighteningly close to what they left in Venezuela.  I say all that to introduce this from Joe Huffman's blog:

                               Quote of the Day
"We are building peace from within, and for that, you need disarmament.
Let us chase after the dream, after the utopia, the utopia of a Venezuela in peace." Nicolas Maduro      [the new dictator who replaced Hugo Chavez]
September 23, 2014

Venezuela’s Maduro launches $47M plan to disarm civilians
[How’s that dream chasing working out for the Marxists?]  -- Joe Huffman
Private gun ownership in Venezuela was banned in 2012. Yet the country has the second highest murder rate in the world.
Venezuela is also nearing default on its debt, the economy is a disaster, people can’t get toilet paper and many other basic goods, and now they want to spend tens of millions of dollars to “build dozens of new disarmament centers for civilians to surrender their weapons”.

So what happens when the powers that be decide to try that here in the U.S.?

Mind Over Matter

I have what is probably an incredibly high amount of disdain and derision for the field of psychology (and including psychiatry) as a whole.  Oh, I do know that there is mental illness and that some is organic and some is due to psychological trauma and that there is a need for professionals who can deal with such things.   But most of what is in the realm of medicine for the mind is just pure rubbish, because if you start from bad premises, everything that follows is sure to be stupid, insane, or both.

I post on this with some trepidation, because it is so easy to be misunderstood on this matter, no matter how much I try to be clear.  I've been teaching in enough different settings where in a group of people, some would simply not be able to comprehend what I was trying to get across, and not only I would be amazed at their inability to understand, but more than half the group as well would be puzzling over this. I have been very appreciative for such events, since, had the audience not been there, I might have questioned my own sanity or ability to relate certain concepts.

I started to post with some trepidation, but then remembered, "Hey, it's MY blog."

I would hope that if I ever needed to see a psychologist, I could find someone like Gagdad Bob, but that would truly be analogous to finding a needle in a haystack.  After reading this recent post, I just had to make my readers aware that there actually are intelligent people in the very soft "scientific" field of psychology. You don't always need a post-graduate education to appreciate all that he writes, so check out his archives.

Exponentially Wrong

The piece I'm about to fisk can be found here.  I'm only going to deal with the first two paragraphs, because that's all I need.  When you start with an incredibly flawed premise, your conclusions can only be madness.

Read the piece below and see if you recognize the error before I deal with it.

When we practice the privileges granted to us by our governing documents, in this case, the Bill of Rights and bearing arms, we enter into an implicit agreement with the Union to recognize and act according to the State's rules and regulations for the use and ownership of arms. And as we agree to those rules, so does the government agree to act responsibly on behalf of our collective well-being.
In this manner, our relationship with our nation mirrors our relationship with our parents; both our parents and our nation raise us; both provide for our welfare; both teach us values and ethics; both act on our behalf for our well-being. And thus should we regard our nation; as a parental figure to be a moral example, an ideal to respect and to obey. For, if the dynamics of our relationship with our parents are mirrored functionally by the dynamics of our relationship with our country, so too should the convictions and loyalties that characterize the former persist in the latter.

Let me just start with the words before the first comma.  Privileges?   Where did you get such an idea Mr. Lelonek?  Our founding documents don't even mention privileges.  It speaks of inalienable rights that come from God.  It speaks of the purpose of a righteous government being to secure and protect those rights and never abrogate them.  Therefore, we don't enter into any agreement whatsoever to agree to any rules the State might make in direct violation of our God-given rights.

Has the government violated the Constitution by passing laws that infringe on our rights?  Oh yes.  We have an outlaw government.  This is pretty much beyond any question for those of us who have read history and understand it.

It is bad enough that this condition exists today, but for someone to come along and try to interpret it 180 degrees out of phase is infuriating.

To read the records of the founding fathers as they argued and hammered out the Constitution, as well as from reading both the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, an intelligent human being understands that the founders understood government in all forms to be a necessary evil that must be chained down and guarded to keep it from doing the very things that you advocate in that tripe you call an opinion.  The Constitution was written to be the very set of chains that restrained government from being anything other than a servant to the people as sovereign individuals and the sovereign States who agreed to create the Federal government.

It was never intended for the government to see to any collective well being.  Any idea of a collective was diametrically opposite the goals of the founders.  Government was meant to stay the hell out of the way of individuals pursuing their own well being and happiness so long as they respected everyone else's rights to do the same.

To  draw an analogy to parenting in regard to government is outrageous.  I don't have enough words of contempt for such an idea.  Such is the language of totalitarian communist states such as North Korea, or Cuba.  Free people understand that human beings are flawed.  We understand that getting elected to office or being appointed to positions or getting hired as a bureaucrat does not bestow some super human understanding or intelligence for making better decisions in directing other people's lives.

In a more sensible time, it was understood that when a person reached the age to vote and be a responsible citizen, they would be capable of being a parent, not needing one.  It is not the job of government to provide me with welfare or anything else.  Even more important, it is not the job of government to take part of my life and liberty in the form of the fruit of my labor and my time in order to provide things for other people.

If you are genuinely ignorant of the true meaning of the founding documents, Mr. Lelonek, I suggest you get schooled on the matter.  If you can't comprehend the writings of the men who composed those documents over 200 years ago, then I suggest some courses at Hillsdale College in Michigan.  They specialize in teaching exactly what the founders were trying to and did accomplish and exactly why.

If you really do know the history and the meaning of the founding documents, then you are a most egregious liar and you would make the most perfect example of someone who deserves to be stripped naked, slathered with tar and dusted with feathers.  Then you need to be dropped off in one of the countries that attempts to govern according to the concepts that you espouse.
There are plenty of such places.  Please take as many other child-like folks with you who don't have the grown-up thinking and maturity to handle freedom and live in any of the countries with nanny-state government.

Let them tell you what is safe to drive, eat, and talk about.  Let them dictate to you what lightbulbs to use, whether or not you can pack your child's lunch for school, who you can associate with, how much money you should be allowed to make.  Go ahead, there's nothing stopping you.

We grown-ups who have worked hard and made good choices would like to be left alone.  We know how to handle sharp objects and things that go bang.  We've even been known to create fire on a regular basis and cook our own food.  Lot's of us actually can do math at levels high enough to balance multiple checking accounts.

Take you and your immature friends and find yourself a parent style government someplace else.  Leave us alone.

Hat tip to Joe Huffman.

I'm Almost Speechless

What happens when classical education, reason, and logic are no longer required subjects in school and the leftist moonbats are in charge of government education?

You get this:

They Admit It

Those of us who have been defending the Second Amendment for all these years have always said it wasn't about hunting, and it was more than just self defense.  It is about defending against a tyrannical government that wants to control every aspect of your life in the name of "Progress."   Progressive, Socialist, Democrat; it's all the same thing.  And every once in a while, like Obama did with Joe the plumber, they slip up and tell you what they really believe.

Hat tip to Eternity Road and the Curmudgeon Emeritus for this delicious tidbit:

There's a new slander in town, and it's likely to find favor among the enemies of freedom:

Recognize Insurrectionism as a threat to the entire progressive movement. Too many political progressives assume that the gun rights movement can be co-opted or simply ignored. Progressives fail to understand that the Insurrectionist idea is part and parcel of a broader reactionary worldview. Unless progressives recognize that the Insurrectionist premise of the modern gun rights movement is fundamentally hostile to the progressive project and its values, the "conservative" movement will use gun rights as a building block for organizing and propagandizing.

Applause to the esteemed PolyKahr for the citation. He comments as follows:

So, finally, after eight decades of this stuff, they finally admit it. Gun control has been framed as a crime control method. When that didn't work, we were told that we needed more of it. When that didn't work, we were told that it was because other States hadn't implemented sufficiently restrictive laws. When some States passed shall issue concealed carry, and crime rates went down, they fought similar laws in other States tooth and nail. Now the gun grabbers are left with no real arguments, their ideas having been defeated on both principled and practical grounds. Now, the truth finally comes out-our guns do help us prevent tyranny from taking hold, thus interfering with the Progressive agenda.

Indeed. The Founding Fathers knew that full well. It's one of the pitiful few of their insights that a large majority of Americans have managed to retain.

But don't misunderstand your Curmudgeon: That a leftist author should have admitted it in print is ammunition for us, and not merely in arguing for the retention of our right to keep and bear arms. It makes plain the root of their hostility to an armed -- and therefore self-sufficient and free -- populace.

Please spread this around...and keep your powder dry.        

Thank you, Professor Poretto