Friday, February 17, 2012

pot-shots

The Cranberries are back. I always liked them.

Everybody's a critic. And to po-mo art critics everyone (else) is a hypocrite too.  Ann Althouse has a piece on her blog somewhat critical of Seattle's The Stranger's art critic. My response to that was: "When I see Jenny Graves write articles like this about Maplethorpe or Basquiat then I'll know that the po-mo artsy fartsy critics are serious about their 'insights'. Until then she should piss off. When has art had to made by perfect human beings? Has it ever?" Not bloody likely.


Seth Casteel's images of dogs diving underwater to fetch balls are both terrifying and bewitching. Twenty pic photo blog slideshow.

Right-wing cultural warriors should grow some balls or else STFU. Today's example: John Derbyshire. Not that what Derb says isn't true, but I am shocked that he's shocked. When wasn't it like this? It's just that in the digital age it's so  much easier for people to vent, taunt, flaunt, tease, and otherwise show what irritating half-wits they are.


So why did the USSR break-up? One academic paper on the SSRN says, to paraphrase, "diversity equals disintegration for nation states".  I hope so myself.