10 April 2001
So, now for thoughts on political matters.
- Mayor's "Decency Panel" -- some people have made a stink on all sides of this
issue. To give a very small background, in the last couple years the Brooklyn
Museum of Art has had pieces of artwork which were involved in (pretty
much) fabricated controversy. The first piece was a black madonna-figure painted in
an African style, with pictures of uteruses flying about like little glittery
butterflies. Oh yeah, and there was preserved elephant dung stuck to the painting
as well. The second piece was a picture in which the photographer restaged Da
Vinci's Last Supper, with herself as an athletic, nude Christ in the middle, and
black men as the Apostles.
I've seen both pictures, and I must wonder why this has gotten so much heat compared
to "Piss Christ", which can barely raise a hackle in New York. Still,
"anti-Catholic" is a popular rallying cry in NYC.
So anyway, this wouldn't really be news, except the city owns the building the
Brooklyn Museum of Art is in, and Giuliani tried to make noises about cutting
funding, kicking the museum out, etc. etc. In this latest move, he's decided to
impanel a "decency commission" to determine some kind of community standards to be
imposed on city-funded arts institutions.
Well, let's see.. who is on this commission? Why, Giuliani's own divorce lawyer. I
don't think I need to go down the rest of the list. One of the "artists" on the
board is the wife of a Republican state senator. This is just one of the many
people who are basically being called to a sinecure -- the less the commission does,
the more successful it will be.
I don't care what people say about the need for decency, respect for others in art,
etc. The Catholic Church is big. The Catholic Church is old. If it cannot
withstand the mosquito-bites of self-promoting people, then it has been dead for
some time and any amount of legislative protection won't revive it. Yes, there are
anti-Catholic themes all over the place, but I bet one can find some anti-Catholic
paintings from the time of the Protestant Reformation. I don't see anybody going
into the Metropolitan Museum of Art demanding that propagandistic Renaissance art be
torn down because it offends their delicate sensibilities.
- Spy plane in Hainan. So a Chinese plane and pilot have been lost, and an American
reconnaissance plane has landed on Chinese territory and the crew is basically being
held by China. Ok, I want to know why at this late date is any government bitching
about spying? If you're a small country, and can't afford one's own intelligence
agency, much less a counter-intelligence division, I can see complaining about the
unevenness of the situation. For crying out loud, are we to believe that China
isn't keeping close watch on events in America in many different ways? Are we to
believe that China cannot handle the burden of being spied upon?
China likes to promote its sovereignty over areas that noone else in the world
agrees with; if all the other nations indicate that one's airspace and/or
territorial waters ends 12 miles out from the border, you cannot simply state you
own everything 200 miles out into the water, because there's no reason for anybody
to follow your dictates.
I have no trouble with intelligence gathering. The legitimate action of the Chinese
government would have been to question the crew of the plane, realize when the
crewmember would answer no further questions, return the people to the U.S., and
then keep the plane for their own research purposes. They're being dumb by hanging
on to the crew of the plane -- unless they really do want an antagonistic America on
their case. If they had simply returned the people and kept the plane, all moral
indignation would be gone on the American side; sure, politicians would still
bluster about getting American property back, but the plane looked pretty unflyable
last time I checked and whatever the crew did not damage is pretty much legitimately
the property of the Chinese government. If you decide to spy on other countries, if
they get a hold of your spying equipment it takes some pretty big balls to ask for
the equipment back.
- "Faith-based" funding for... whatever. Just plain old bad idea. Why should
churches, synagogues, mosques, Christian Science Reading Rooms, whatever get money
in a way different from any other nonprofit organization (though, as we know, many
churches aren't exactly not-for-profit (see Scientology))? I just don't see
it. It's a bad idea for government, and it's a horrible idea for churches. Not
only can "faith-based" services being funded provide an excuse for government to cut
general social services even more, government funding of church activities give
congregants an excuse not to give their own money or time to an endeavor.
- Tax cuts. Stu just finished doing the taxes for us, and I've got to say I'm tired
of all this shit. I would be totally willing to forgo a talk of tax cuts if they
could just implement a simplified tax form - not just the federal government, but
=everybody=. Sure, my sister would be out of a job (or maybe not - if one makes
money, one still has to keep track of income sources and expenditures), but my head
wouldn't swim every time I see that sheet. And remember =I= didn't do the taxes --
Stuart did. Still, I have little hope for seeing a tiny bit of a tax cut, and
forget a retroactive one. I need to make some real money somehow.