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March 30, 2006March 30, 2006

“…but is it art?”

First, a taste of Kipling, then a less-than-vitriolic rant.

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Edenâ€™s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, â€œItâ€™s pretty, but is it Art ?â€

In an age when “expression” is a catchall for so-called “art” and non-speech grunts, groans squeals and inarticulate scribblings, I think Kipling’s Devil asks the right question to start talking about what is so very wrong about “art”â€”graphic, musical, literary, dramatic, etc.â€”today and a bit of what that says about our society in general.

In “The Conundrum of the Workshops, Kipling outlined a feel for creative endeavor… and how critics kill creativity. And he had his “Devil” ask the question so asked by critics of kipling’s dayâ€”often critics of his poetryâ€”qho sought to belittle efforts of others with creativity the critics usually lacked themselves: It’s pretty, but is it art?

But Kipling’s devil can’t ask that of rap “music” (or much other popular music today) or of defacing of nature with great swaths of fabris and calling it “art” or of “serious” literature (or “serious” music for that matter) or darned near anything from Hollyweird, because almost none of it even passes the “pretty” test. Almost all of it is ugly, base, venal, stupid crap.

Holly Lisle’s disquisition (OK, rant) on How to Write Suckitudinous Fiction is enough to dispense with most pretentiously “artful” literature.

…the quest for good fiction is not the only way. There is … another path. A dark path. And it is a path rich in tradition and esteemed by many. It is the Path of Suckitude.

Not all bad fiction is Suckitudinous. Some of it is simply bad — written by people who are completely tone-deaf to the language, blind to character and motivation, and incompetent with conflict.

Unlike bad fiction, Suckitudinous Fiction takes a dedication to the fine art of sucking that, if pursued with sufficiently rabid fanaticism, can win Pulitzers. (Yes, I think an inordinate number of recent Pulitzer-prize-winning novels suck. Hugely.)

Yeh, Read The Whole Thing…

Some of what Holly Lisle says there can be directly applied to Hollyweird and other purveyors of fecal matter* in place of food for the soul. As for the rest, let me rearticulate: if it ain’t at least pretty and/or well-made, crafted with care and thought and heart, it ain’t art.

Most pop music fails in all of that. Sloppily-written, poorly-performed crap is fit only for sloppy-thinking people with lead-for-ears hearing.

Oh. What am I thinking? I just described most people I know.

If you can discern pitches and keep a steady beat (at the minimum), try this: go to a high school choir concert, listen to one (if you can stomach it) episode of American Idol. Try to count the number of people performing who have good pitch recognition and an ability to stay within an established tonality, who can actually make rythmic sense as well. You will probably not have to use all the fingers of even one hand.

Disheartening.

And that’s just performers. “Songwriters” who write lyrics that are nonsense, tuneheisters who, well, have no sense of musical teleology, arrangers who lack the ability to, well, write and instrumentalists who (apparently) have no idea there are human voices in the mix abound, as well.

Move from amateur venues (where it’s easy to hear why 10 40 crap isn’t heard by consumers for the crap it is) and listen (if you have the ability to actually hear) to top 40 crap for a while. If you can stand it. Some will be good. Scratch that. Very few will be good.

And that’s just accounting for basic musicalityâ€”the ability to reproduce harmonious and sensible sounds. What’s worse is the underlying ethos, or rather what the underlying ethos lacks.

Continue reading ““…but is it art?””

March 30, 2006

Stop the ACLU: a little history lesson

A History Lesson On The ACLU
from Gribbit. See the rest in followup posts at Stop the ACLU.

I researched the Congressional Record dated Wednesday, September 20, 1961. Very important information relating to the ACLU and it’s Communist/Socialist ambitions.

Dr. Fredrick Schwartz, executive director of the International Christian Anticommunism Crusade, “Communist Legal Subversion,” page 75, House Committee on Un-American Activities:

“Any attempt to judge the influence of Communists by their numbers is like trying to determine the validity of the hull of a boat by relating the area of the holes to the area which is sound. One hole can sink a ship. Communism is the theory of the disciplined of few controlling and directing the rest. One person in a sensitive position can control and manipulate thousands of others.”

FBI Director, J. Edger Hoover called Communists, “Masters of Deceit”. He continues, “Fronts probably represent the party’s (communist) most successful tactic in capturing non-Communist support. Like mass agitation and infiltration, fronts espouse the deceptive party line (hence the word “front”), while actually advancing the real party line. In this way the party is able to influence thousands of non-Communists, collecting large sums of money, and reach the minds, pens, and tongues of many high-ranking and distinguished individuals. Moreover, fronts are excellent fields for party recruitment.” The FBI director, people!

And how does this tie into the ACLU? I’m getting to that. The two co-founders of the American Civil Liberties Union are Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastwood, both confessed socialists. Roger Baldwin was on the record of over 100 Communist front affiliations. In an article that he wrote for “Soviet Russia Today”(September 1934), “When the power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatsoever.” He goes on to say, “The class struggle is the central conflict of the world, all others are coincidental.” He also wrote in a book commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Harvard graduating class of 1905 (in 1935), “I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produce wealth: Communism is the goal.”

Dr. Harry Ward, the first chairman of the ACLU, was linked to over 200 front affiliations of the Communist Party. And was the chairman of one of the largest front organizations in this country, “The American League for Peace and Democracy.” Which was placed on a list of subversive organizations by the Attorney General of The United States on June 1, 1948. Dr. Ward authored two pro-Soviet books, “Soviet Democracy” and “Soviet Spirit”, which garnered him an investigation by the California State Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities. The Committee stated on page 246 of their report, “The Communist affiliation of Dr. Harry F. Ward is indicative of the Communist sympathies of the members and sponsors of the ‘Friends of the Soviet Union.'”

Since this history is far reaching, I will continue this subject in tomorrow’s main posting. I don’t wish to overwhelm my readers with too much information. But should you wish to read up on this subject further, you can read the entire Congressional Record for September 20, 1961, by clicking on the title of this [article]. It is rather eye opening.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay or Gribbit. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 180 blogs already on-board

March 29, 2006

Another Reason It’s Time For The Fair Tax

By Doug Patton, courtesy of GOPUSA.com
March 27, 2006

As April 15th approaches, millions of us are again poring over receipts, records and other information relevant to our federal income taxes. After getting everything in order, we will be forced by the complexity of the tax code to take it all to an accountant or other tax professional, who will spend a few very expensive hours working through a process our own government doesn’t even understand much of the time. Finally, our tax preparer will place in front of us a stack of papers, some of which we will be expected to sign.

Now, do you read every page in that stack, or do you simply place your signature, as I do, on the lines indicated by this individual in whom you have placed so much trust? Millions of us do it every year. But what if among those papers was a consent form to sell your personal information to third parties to market their products and services to you?

This is the convoluted reasoning of the Internal Revenue Service, where career bureaucrats believe that such conduct should be allowed. In fact, the IRS is proposing new rules that would permit tax preparers to sell your private financial information, right up to and including your actual tax return itself, to marketers and data brokers.

Currently, selling client information to third parties for marketing purposes is prohibited. That would change, however, under the proposed rule revision. And since this policy could only benefit the person buying or selling your information, with no imaginable benefit to you, the motivation to obtain permission by any deceptive means necessary seems extremely high. Incredibly, according to a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, IRS officials characterize these changes as “housecleaning measures needed to update regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically.”

Had enough? There is a solution.

The time has come for Americans to demand that our elected representatives come to grips with the fact that the current federal income tax code is broken and cannot be fixed.

Continue reading “Another Reason It’s Time For The Fair Tax”

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