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Fiddling while London burns

You think Hillary cries like a girl? Brit dhimmi transvestite Grayson Perry (above) -- AKA Claire -- best known for his ceramics and cross-dressing, runs and hides when the going gets tough (see below for details). Perry won the UKs Turner Prize in 2003 "Not for what she/he calls the 'banal violence' depicted on his vases - which up the ante in the 'taboo factor' stakes - but for the pink genital bows of his/Claire'€™s dress," according to BBC London.

"For me, dressing up when I go out is a political act," prattles transvestite potter Grayson Perry in "Why Men Wear Frocks," a "witty yet frank and revealing [UK Channel 4] look at what drives the compulsion many men feel to wear women's clothing." Perry is one of those "groundbreaking" artists who has been "heralded for his controversial explorations of religious imagery, which include a vase entitled 'Transvestite Brides of Christ,'" writes PJM editor David J. Rusin. But there is a black hole in the heart of the rarefied world of contemporary British art, explains Rusin, who names Perry "the ideal poster boy -- or perhaps poster girl" for "the preemptive surrender of public freedoms in the name of appeasing the continent’s restive Muslim underclass." Let's set the scene with a few exerpts from that Channel 4 interview:

There's still the basic misconceptions about trannies, that they're gay or freaks or whatever. And there probably are gays, and freaks, among trannies, but no more than any other section of the male population' . . .

I'm not expecting everyone to dress up like me, because I adopt quite an extreme style. But I'm kind of saying that if I can do this, it's okay to do what you want to do.

But I think transvestism is a symptom of sexism and lack of tolerance. If the intolerance disappears, and there wasn't this sexism that insisted that men behave in a certain 'male' way, then transvestism would dry up, to an extent. It would still be around, but it would be a lot less common, I think.

"Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth" by JMW Turner, exhibited 1842. (Oil on canvas. Tate Collection) "It is famously said that Turner conceived this image while lashed to the mast of a ship during an actual storm at sea. This seems to be nothing more than fiction, but the story has endured as a way of demonstrating Turner’s full-blooded engagement with the world around him" according to the Tate, an ironic contrast with the weak-kneed disengagement from the world around them on the part of contemporary Turner Prize winners like Grayson Perry (top photo), the self-absorbed "tranny" iconoclast whose iconoclasm bows down in dhimmitude to Islamicist threats.

Even as he postures for his peers with protests of persecution by traditional British society [Do they still have that? --ed], the artist knowingly avoids confronting the real source of sexism and lack of tolerance in his own backyard. PJMs Rusin explains:

“I’ve censored myself,” Perry told the Times, admitting that he treads lightly around radical Islam. “With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time.” Self-censorship thus boils down to self-preservation. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”

Dr. Sanity might diagnose displacement, the "separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening." And yet, if the Times is to be believed, artists like Perry "are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock." We're shocked, all right, at the dhimmitudinous cowering of self-proclaimed seekers of wisdom and truth. The "regurgitating regurgitations" of the Whitney Biennial on this side of the pond come to mind. How did a proud tradition of artistic engagement with the world come down to this? PajamasXpress blogger Roger Kimball of Roger's Rules has some thoughts. Struck by "the prominence of the word 'change' in the [current presidential] campaign, he ponders the "liberal obsession with change":

One important progenitor is the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill. Mill was an extraordinary and multifaceted figure, but for the catechism of modern liberalism the Mill that matters is the Mill of On Liberty (1859) . . . a masterpiece of liberal polemic. Its core ideas are as the air we breathe: unnoticed because ubiquitous.

Mill’s arguments and pronouncements about man as a “progressive being,” the extent of individual autonomy, the limits of acceptable moral and legal censure, the importance of innovation and (perhaps his most famous phrase) “experiments in living” are all familiar to the point of invisibility. Likewise his corollary insistence on the poverty of custom, prejudice, and tradition . . .

Throughout history, Mill argues, the authors of such innovations have been objects of ridicule, persecution, and oppression; they have been ignored, silenced, exiled, imprisoned, even killed. But (Mill continues) we owe every step of progress, intellectual as well as moral, to the daring of innovators.

"But the success of Mill’s teaching in the court of public sentiment says nothing about the cogency of his arguments," notes Kimball, quoting the philosopher David Stone:

In the intellectual and moral dissolution of the West in the twentieth century, every step has depended on conservatives being disarmed, at some critical point, by the [They all laughed at Christopher] Columbus argument; by revolutionaries claiming that any resistance made to them is only another instance of that undeserved hostility which beneficial innovators have so regularly met with in the past.

Artists like Grayson Perry are the effete heirs of that liberal polemic, grown intellectually soft and lazy in the absence of any serious challenge to their comfortable echo chamber of anti-establishment preening, fiddling while London burns.

Update: Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insantities, now open for business, is the perfect antidote to intellectual softness and laziness.

"The improbable is now possible"

"Today is Primary Day, and our momentum has hit New Hampshire," emails a breathless Michelle Obama (we put our name on her hubby's mailing list to keep an eye on what the other side is up to). To liven things up, we tried substituting what's really happening on the ground (red type) for the vapid, empty phrase du jour, "change," in her boilerplate message:

Thousands of people are realizing that fundamental change stopping the Clinton juggernaut is within reach. The improbable is now possible.

My husband is a special leader. He has an amazing ability to bring people to the table and create real change entice them to abandon Hillary.

But he is the first to admit that this is bigger than him. Americans are ready for change an end to the hegemony of the Clinton machine and ready to work together to make it happen. It's humbling and inspiring, but more than anything, it's an awakening for each one of us.

It's a wonderful thing to see what's happening here in New Hampshire.

Indeed. Not that we'd ever vote for a leftie like Obama, of course. As our imail correspondent writes, "Obama scares me to death, but let me have this one day of 'payback is a bitch, huh, Hillary?'" Thomas Sowell explains:

By far the best presentation as a candidate, among all the candidates in both parties, is that of Barack Obama. But if he actually believes even half of the irresponsible nonsense he talks, he would be an utter disaster in the White House.

Among the Democrats, the choice between John Edwards and Barack Obama depends on whether you prefer glib demagoguery in its plain vanilla form or spiced with a little style and color.

The choice between both of them and Hillary Clinton depends on whether you prefer male or female demagoguery.

Exactly. And speaking of demagoguery, you're probably aware that all the candidates on the left side of the aisle are hiding their heads in the sand and pretending, against all evidence, that General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy -- the surge -- in Iraq isn't working. Opinion Journal has the gory details:

Barack Obama is of a sudden the front-runner, so his view of the surge merits the closest look. His first assertion echoed what has become a standard line by the war's opponents, that "we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence." What can this possibly mean? In more than six years there hasn't been one successful terrorist attack on the U.S., even as places elsewhere were hit or actively targeted.

Then Senator Obama placidly said that the Sunnis in Anbar Province began to help the U.S."after the Democrats were elected in 2006." What's more, the Democrats' victory showed them they were "going to be left very vulnerable to the Shias." This obviously means the Democrats would abandon them.

But the Sunni Awakening, as it is called, with its fall in bloodshed, occurred only after the Anbar Sunnis were convinced that the U.S. troops would not abandon them to al Qaeda in Iraq. Sunni sheiks have said explicitly it was the new U.S. policy of sustaining the offensive against AQI that made it possible for them to resist the jihadists. The U.S. military has supported the spread of these "awakening councils" in other areas of Iraq. It is navel-gazing in the extreme for Mr. Obama to suggest U.S. Congressional elections caused this turn.

Well, that's what politicians do. Blame opponents when things go wrong and take credit when things go right. We googled one of Obama's foreign policy advisers we'd seen on Fox yesterday, Pulitzer Prizewinner Samantha Power of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, to try to divine her boss's "thinking" and found her otherwise thoughtful and helpful analysis of "Our War on Terror" -- published in the NYT at the end of July as the surge was starting to show positive results -- laced with reflexive anti-Bush sentiment. Even as she praises General Petraeus and the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, she can't bring herself to give the President credit for having chosen the General to carry out the surge. An excerpt to give you the flavor:

But criticizing the calamities of the last six years of American foreign policy has become all too easy. And it does not itself improve our approach to combating terrorist threats that do in fact loom large -- larger, in fact, because of Bush’s mistakes. The challenge now is to accept that just because George W. Bush hyped the threat does not mean the threat should be played down. Rather, we must urgently set about reversing the harm done to the nation’s standing ['guess she missed what the WSJ recently called the "new generation of European leaders clamoring to make friends with America"] and security by simultaneously reasserting the moral difference between the United States and Islamic terrorists and by developing a 21st-century toolbox to minimize actual terrorist threats . . .

The fundamental premise of the manual is that the key to successful counterinsurgency is protecting civilians. The manual notes: “An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of 50 more insurgents.” It suggests that force size be calculated in relation not to the enemy, but to inhabitants (a minimum of 20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents). It emphasizes the necessity of coordination with beefed-up civilian agencies, which are needed to take on reconstruction and development tasks . . .

The Bush administration’s unwillingness to admit failure causes it to cling to a flawed approach rather than revisit its premises, adopt a new strategy or experiment with new tactics.

Once you get past the Bush bashing, we're on solid ground with Powers's analysis. Obama could do worse, although he could do better. We would recommend Bill Whittle's latest, BDS-free tour de force, "Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture":

General Petraeus is not fighting the last war; he is fighting the next one. He did not arrive there and just hope for the best. He observed. He oriented. He decided. And he acted. And then he observed again to see what effect he had. And again. And again.

This is not firepower. This is not attrition. This is, rather, an intelligent, delicate, sophisticated, maneuver-based strategy. A light, but sometimes deadly touch. Fingertip control. Water flowing downhill, into the cracks which our enemy cannot fill.

As Michelle Obama said in her fundraising letter, "the improbable is now possible."

This just in (8:15 p.m.): Fox News projects John McCain will win the New Hampshire primary. Bill Kristol credits McCain's steadfast support of the war and the success of the surge.

Update: Whoops!

Update II: "Hillary Clinton won last night by putting together the voting coalition that has held Democratic frontrunners in good stead for 75 years."

Hillary's Complaint

As her poll numbers tanked, Hillary "choked up responding to one woman's question about how she stays 'upbeat and so wonderful.'" "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political, it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it," she said. Authentic emotion, or has Mrs. Clinton been "taking weeping lessons" from her husband?" as our sis suggests.  A body-language expert on The O'Reilly Factor is saying that while anyone can fake tears, "she does have some of the telltale signs of emotion. She probably really is rather angry about what she thinks are the wrongs of the country." Not to mention the wrongs of a fickle electorate infatuated with the dashing new kid on the block.

"There is something missing: she is competent and tough but she does not inspire," blogs the BBCs new News North America Editor, Justin Webb, delivering a devastating diagnosis of Hillary's Complaint, even as Drudge headlines "TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGN" and the candidate herself gets weepy. The Anchoress dares speak of "the seeming end of the Clinton stranglehold on American politics," while Blue Crab Boulevard smells "a Carvillian rat." But enough about Hillary. Let's talk about Justin Webb, "one of the freest thinkers within BBC News," according to a The Guardian interview [via EURSOC]:

He arrived in Washington as radio correspondent in 2002 and has an eyebrow-raising ardour for America, rarely found at the BBC . . .

While many Britons shudder at American displays of national pride and the fact that the stars and stripes hangs in every municipal building and on millions of porches too, Webb is entirely at ease with the notion. "I go out on a limb here," he says. "I'm a real admirer of American patriotism. It occasionally plainly leads them down terrible dark alleys and sometimes leads us to laugh at them, but I love the way their patriotism genuinely binds together small communities into the wider nation . . .

During his stint as Washington correspondent, Webb began to have serious misgivings about the way in which British reporters - himself included - were covering America.

Gradually, he began to air the issue. "I became very interested in this idea that we were selling ourselves and America short," he says. "And in the great clash of ideas around the world, I don't think the US always gets credit for providing the cultural and physical underpinning that allows all the rest of us to have all the arguments that we have."

Don't tell the Democrats. They're sticking with their tired mantra that "the world" hates us, and it's you-know-who's fault.

Update (next morning): "Fake or heartfelt?" asks Steve Doucy of Fox & Friends, inviting viewers to email their opinion. It looks like we are in the majority -- 60 to 30 -- who believe her tears were real. Alisyn Camerota seems surprised that Hillary would tear up in response to a softball question, but that's just the point. As we emailed:

I think It was the softball question itself that set off the tearing up. No one ever says anything nice about her, so when the questioner called her wonderful, she was caught emotionally off guard.

"You see, no one ever called me darling before."

"At least a historic cultural moment and maybe a political one"

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies. Sunset from the front porch of Chelsea-by-the-Sea this afternoon with Bunker Hill monument in the distance.

What is the point of being a Democrat? we asked rhetorically three years back in the context of the lack of coherent ideas on the left side of the aisle. We haven't noticed any coherent ideas in the interim but totally agree with the Wall Street Journal's joyous assessment of the recent shake up:

Iowa's caucus-goers shook up the conventions of American politics Thursday night, and to our mind mostly to the good. Barack Obama's convincing Democratic triumph, based on a huge increase in Iowa voter turnout, is at least a historic cultural moment and maybe a political one. Mike Huckabee's Republican victory probably has less long-term meaning but also has some salutary effects.

"I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey told the New York TImes nearly twenty years ago. "Ailey integrated his company to counter the 'reverse chauvinism in being an all-black anything,'" notes Thomas F. DeFrantz, author of Dancing Revelations. "Early performances of [Ailey's signature work] 'Revelations' established his company as "the foremost dance interpreter of African-American experience." (Paul Kolnik photo of Renee Robinson in "Revelations")

"But Mr. Obama is the first serious African-American candidate who has explicitly avoided race-specific appeals," says the WSJ:

Like Catholicism to Jack Kennedy, Mr. Obama's race is part of his political character but doesn't define it. His success marks a watershed in American political history . . .

The Illinois Senator's performance is also welcome as a sign that most Democrats want to "move on," as some of them like to say, from the Clinton era. Bill Clinton has described his wife Hillary's campaign as a case of "back to the future," even as she too has claimed to be an agent of change. But inevitably, if she were the nominee, the baggage of their earlier co-Presidency would attend her campaign and might help defeat her in November.

"Mr. Obama has often sounded naive in the extreme in discussing Iraq, Iran and the overall war on terror, and Mrs. Clinton can point out that Republicans are sure to make that argument in the autumn. Mr. Obama's other potential weakness in November is his orthodox policy liberalism," adds the WSJ. That's surely our own sticking point, but at this point, ABH -- anybody but Hillary -- floats our boat:

She: I was delighted to read, over at Lucianne, that Hillary got booed at the RAT dinner in NH.

We: Yes. Tuck is even starting to feel sorry for her. She and all things Clinton are SO YESTERDAY.

She: I hope the Big Mo lasts, God forgive me. Shadenfreude has its place.

We: We've earned it with all the toe curlng and skin crawling we've endured. It's lovely to see them devour their own. The fact that Obama is BLACK makes it extra tricky for her to criticize him.

She: GAK!!! Feel sorry for her? Maybe that's what they are hoping for? DON'T get sucked into THAT Clintonesque miasma.

We: That was what got her the Senator's seat, you may recall.

She: They'll try anything, of course. I just HOPE that maybe this time . . .

We: It really IS time to moveon.org.

She: Yes, and I think he's lame, and would be just like Jimmy Carter in taking over the presidency, and YET. Seeing the Clintons going down in flames will energize this Republican.

Update: We love Laura Lee's take:

No, I would never vote for Barack Obama. He is a Democrat and I don’t agree with his policies or his politics. But I can admire his gumption and his Humphrey Bogart-like delivery of his speeches. I think he is doing the Democrat Party a favor by helping to unweave the Clinton web over all things Democrat.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Mecca Roni, Manila Fudge and Malta Milkballs

Our Friday Puzzle Dates with Tuck rise and fall on the quality of the WSJs Crosswords. They've been pretty mediocre of late, but today's "International Foodfest," with its clever interplay of world capitals with favorite foods, was  A-1.

Mecca Roni, Manila Fudge and Malta Milkballs were some of the answers to "International Foodfest," the WSJ's online crossword puzzle this day that prompted Tuck and ourselves to award this week's offering an unprecedented solid A. Usually of late they rate a B- at best. This one tickled our funny bone and prompted a friendly competition between the two of us to get the most answers to the key clues. While we did get two of the big across answers, Tuck got the first -- key to the theme -- and the majority of the rest. We concede defeat. With defeats like that, who needs victory?

Behind a smokescreen of environmental concern

Nothing beats Baby Cakes backlit by the sun. All majesty and splendor and pink ears.

"But why worry about making a product so good people feel they have to have it, when you can instead get the government to tell them they have no choice?" asks WSJ editorial board member Brian M. Carney rhetorically in his must-read "Bye Bye Lightbulb," a window into the way Congress and the president run mercantilistic interference for chosen clients behind a smokescreen of environmental concern:

OK, they did not exactly ban them. But the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush [blogged here] sets energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs that traditional incandescent bulbs cannot meet.

Spiral-type compact fluorescent lamp. "Many CFLs are designed to replace an incandescent lamp and can fit in the existing light fixtures formerly used for incandescents," according to Wikipedia.

As we blogged last April on what we called "the spectacle of our fellow Americans congratulating themselves for replacing light bulbs":

Glenn Reynolds had the last word on the virtues of CFLs [compact fluorescent lamps] months ago when he noted that low-energy bulbs were already making inroads driven by market forces.

It appears, however, that the powers that be and the lobbyists who enable them can't wait for the invisible hand to deliver the goods. Carney continues cynically:

Now, I'm sure that Philips and GE and Sylvania all want to make the world a better place and so on. But if they can do so while at the same time getting the government to force their customers to pay 10 times as much for their products, well . . . did they mention that they're making the world a better place? The light bulb that costs 10 times as much does, it is true, last four times as long. But if you're a lightbulb maker, that's a pretty good trade.

If you're a consumer, you have to decide that for yourself. Except that, after the ban, you won't be allowed to any more. You just got traded up, forcibly, to a "better" product.

The halogen spotlight in the kitchen combines with late-afternoon light streaming in the window to bring out the peaches-and-cream loveliness of all that is Tiny.

Creeping nanny statism and cryptic subsidization of major manufacturers -- a marriage made in Beltway Hell.

Update: Major species subsidization under way at Friday Ark #172 at Modulator.

Update II: Goomp in the comments:

I think Brian Carney misses the real force behind the move to CFL light bulbs. While I have no doubt the manufacturers are pleased with the laws mandating their use, the real driving force is the "I want to feel important and noble" urges of environmental nutcakes whom lawmakers wish to accommodate.

Exactly. That would be Schopenhauer's informational and reputational "cascades" of sheeplike belief formation that cause flat-earthers to crowd the cultural ether in every era.

Update: Maggie's Farm links.

Speaking sense to nonsense

 
It might have been brunch at the Ritz in our salad days, but nowadays the perfect New Year's Day breakfast for us is homemade Eggs Bennie -- in the kitchen for Tuck, above, with the latest issue of Road & Track -- or computerside in the studio for ourselves. There are a zillion secret recipes out there for Hollandaise, but we like our own Heavenly Hollandaise best: Bring the water in a double boiler to the boil and turn off the heat. Whip up two yolks with a coupla squeezes of lemon in the top of the boiler and add 3/4 cup butter at room temperature by the tablespoonsful, whisking to blend. 'Makes enough for Eggs Benedict for two. It doesn't get any better.

"But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah," writes John Tierney in his latest NYT Science Times shout into the wind of "popular wisdom" regarding man-made global warming [AKA anthropogenic climate change]:

When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

"I didn't realize the sailors threw Jonah overboard as the cause of their troubles," we imailed our sis this afternoon [our Unitarian upbringing was strong on the wonders of nature but weak on scripture]:

We: Bush's Fault™ comes to mind.
She: A story as old as time. Look how they treated Moses.
We: Can you say JESUS!? He was despised . . . rejected. It's wonderful to have someone like Tierney at the Times speaking sense to nonsense.

More words of wisdom from Tierney:

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels . . .

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

Woohoo. We've been saying as much from our snail blogging days in the 90's on down. Nice to have John Tierney on our side.