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As to the pollution problem, as long as exciting propaganda about “global heating” is given more attention in the public media than matter of fact descriptions of what is really happening, that is, that we are constantly improving in this respect, the blame and the responsibility will constantly be foisted onto the federal government, which should have nothing to do with it, because once the federal foot steps into the industrial terrain, it drowns in the quicksand of its own ignorance and arrogance, and makes a fine mess for us, the taxpayers, to dig ourselves out of.
Now, as to the endangerment of the integrity of the arts by federal subsidy, what Egypt has to do with it, I can’t imagine. Does Mr. Bird believe for one minute that the Pharaohs event pretended to govern by the consent of the governed? Or the rulers of ancient Greece? These were governments operated by men who called themselves gods, which ideas are occasionally showing up in Washington, but I am not in favor of them.
As to art commissioned by the Church, I am all in favor of it. Nevertheless, should I refuse to pay for it, my pastor, my bishop, and my Pope, however much annoyed with me, can not put me behind bars; the IRS can.
When I said what I did about integrity, I wasn’t indulging in airy generalities. I was talking about a specific situation.
In Chicago, several years ago, a group of people, enraged by an exhibition, marched into the place where it was held, removed it from the wall where it hung, and took it I know not where, nor do I know what has happened to it since. Were there protests? Oh, yes, sort of.
It took the threat of losing federal money because of the Serrano and Mapplethorpe exhibitions to get the self-styled artistic community marching out into the streets, collecting money (ah there! So it can be done privately), generally whooping it up in the streets and in editorial columns everywhere.
After all, it was only in Chicago, it was only in an art school, the artist was only a student. The artistic community should have been out in droves to protect that student’s right to his own vision of reality, puerile as it was, but there wasn’t a drove in sight.
Of course, it might not have been just the money. It probably helped that the exhibition offended left liberal Democrats and not conservative Republicans. I can imagine the “artistic” reaction if Jesse Helms had made the slightest gesture toward touching the Serrano work, never mind in Chicago. In Livengood, Alaska, say. The uproar would have been heard in Key West. At high tide. During a hurricane. You want to talk wet?
EDITH POND
Sperryville
93.8%