ANOTHER THEORY SHOT DOWN. Perhaps anticipating that news of the opening grosses for Fahrenheit 9/11 might leave their readership demoralized, the folks at OpinionJournal today supply some soothing pseudo-science to assure the faithful of liberalism's oncoming demise. The idea in Larry L. Eastland's bizarre piece is that the Democratic Party is aborting itself out of existence. He says that liberals have more abortions than conservatives ("The more ideologically Democratic the voters are... the more abortions they have"), and since liberals are likely to spawn liberals, abortions are wiping out future Democratic voters -- in fact, Eastland believes these Missing Voters (yes, the concept is so scientific it rates Initial Caps) turned the tide in the 2000 Presidential Election, and underlines his point with charts tracking the speculated voting patterns of the MVs.

Believe it or not, Eastland's case, despite its highly scientific page layout and capitalization, is not airtight.

First, there's the idea that liberals breed little liberals and conservatives breed little conservatives. Eastland says children "tend to have the same political views as their family." If that were so, then prior to the Roe boom in Missing Voters, wouldn't the left-right division in the electorate have remained more or less constant? Also, I've been hearing for years from right-wing youth recruiters that the young folk have been going GOP because it's smarter, it's hipper, you get better coupons, etc. That's been a big youth-recuiting strategy for these guys. Is Mr. Eastland sure he wants to go with biological determinism on this one? It sends a mixed message.

Neither am I very sure about that polling methodology:

...Wirthlin Worldwide was commissioned to ask 2,000 respondents in a stratified random sample of adults the following question: "As far as you know, has anyone close to you had an abortion?" The emphasis here was on "close to you" in order to bring to mind only those people inside the respondents' circle of socio-demographically homogeneous family and friends.

People do lie about these things, you know. Say you're a Kansas Republican in good standing and you do know someone who (probably in great secrecy and shame, given the cultural environment) had an abortion; might you not tend to compartmentalize such a piece of knowledge sufficiently that you wouldn't admit it even to a pollster? Whereas we liberals might be more likely to boast of it: Oh, yeah, everyone I know has had at least three. We have abortions all the time. And anal sex. Can you put that down on the form somewhere?

Most importantly, though, think about the potential voters that were aborted. Had they been brought to term, they would at best have been but grudgingly accepted, and in many cases just plain unwanted. Many would have grown up under a cloud of insecurity and self-loathing, and so would have tried especially hard to do the correct thing, to conform, to be part of the crowd rather than the outcasts they secretly felt themselves to be.

Isn't that how we get Republicans in the first place?

MOVIE NIGHT. Saw Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight. Somewhere in this shining land, no doubt, someone is disputing the precise dates and conditions of the bin Laden family's post-9/11 flights, etc. Which reminds me of the prologue to Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, in which Jeane Kirkpatrick, pressed to review Franken's book, blasts the premise on the grounds that no weight figures are provided to support it.

Since the film was made by an artist and a polemicist, rather than a propagandist, the real theme is not Let's Get Rid of Bush Now (though that is a pleasing corollary) but How Disinformation Works, with the Bush Administration as an appalling object lesson. Someone else could have used the Administrations of Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, William Henry Harrison et alia, as their lesson. Unfortunately for the other team, the artists mostly swing our way, while the propagandists mostly swing theirs. That's just the way it goes.

The flim was okey-dokey, and the little Brooklyn theatre where I saw it was packed, with a huge line waiting outside for the next show -- the Manhattan theatres had sold out hours earlier. I have no idea what police estimates will show, of course, and any box-office figures supplied by evil Hollywood are naturally suspect, and no doubt Professor Reynolds will mention contervailing demonstrations that prove the American people are still with the President on this one. I can only tell you what I saw.

UPDATE. I think the movie is pretty good, but if films were judged, as some have suggested people should be, by their enemies, then Fahrenheit 9/11 would be Citizen Kane: Both Roger L. Simon ("excrescence") and Andrew Sullivan ("vile, hateful propaganda") have condemned it without (by their own admissions) even seeing it.

GOLDBERG'S ANALYTICAL METHOD EXPLAINED:

MY EXASPERATION [Jonah Goldberg]
I woke up this morning thinking I was being too strident in my post about the Times review. After all, I was working on little sleep, a bit of grog and I'd spent a chunk of the day reading the book. So maybe I was too hopped-up. But no, think I'll let it stand.

Posted at 06:59 AM

(See also here and here.)

No wonder conservatives have no respect for the arts. Because they don't put any effort into their writing, they think it must be this easy for everyone.

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS. Values scold Daniel Henninger thinks the recent rash of beheadings in Saudi Arabia "pose a political problem for John Kerry" because Bush calls the beheaders "evil" at every (media) opportunity, whereas the lily-livered Purple Heart awardee Kerry speaks only of ways to bring peace, and thereby fewer beheadings, to the area, which is apparently neither the manly nor the American way to do things:

Conservatives do believe in evil, and liberals either no longer do or they don't wish to allow the idea of evil to be explicit in our politics. I would guess that Mr. Hertzberg's view is shared by most of the people working on John Kerry's campaign. They would never ask Mr. Kerry to say in public that the beheadings are "evil." Or if he did, it would be merely as a tactical concession for the moment to the "moral vocabulary" of the world inhabited by the sort of people who support George Bush.

If only Jimmy Carter had thought of this in 1980! In the midst of the hostage crisis, he could have been trained to clench his fists and roar, in the manner of Donald Pleasance in the first "Halloween" movie, that the Ayatollah Khomeni was "toe-tally eee-vil!" Then the American people might have thought: well, he sure has made a mess of things, but at least he speaks our moral vocabulary!

"Moral vocabulary" seems in this usage to be the equivalent of "paternoster" or "mumbo-jumbo": words meant to chase away fear in the teeth of disaster. Might Henninger have written "marketing vocabulary," and been mistranscribed?

THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM. Crazy Jesus Lady wrings a few more laughs out of the Reagan funeral. I've never before heard anyone make reference to Former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's "still-saucy or potentially saucy eyes." I can only imagine what the long version of that reminiscence was like. Hopefully when CJL passes they'll crack open her Virgin Mary statue like a piñata and find it stuffed with Lynne Cheney style bodice-ripping stories starring a cadaverous public servant with fire, or at least sauce, in her eyes.

We also get to see CJL imagine herself in mortal peril again. The first such incident I noticed was when she saw two turbaned men taking pictures of St. Pat's, and made a promise (alas, unfulfilled) that the next time this happened she would be "tackling them and screaming for help." In the present case, she had better reason to worry, if U.S. Capitol personnel were indeed screaming "Run for your lives!" It turned out a false alarm, thank goodness, but even fake crises come with life lessons in Noonanland. "This is when a generational transfer of power occurred within my family. My son turned to me and in a tone both soft and commanding he said, 'Mom: Move it.'" Strong men are always coming to the rescue of the Crazy Jesus Lady, but it is touching that in this case it was not Reagan or John Wayne but a presumably real member of her own family who undistressed the damsel and was rewarded for his firmness with "a Japanese beer." (Manhood rites have deteriorated a bit since I was a boy.)

No personal attacks this time, but all in all a fun read.

LONG GONE LONESOME. The Hank Williams doc on PBS was pretty good. They focused on old-timers, mostly surviving Drifting Cowboys, so I didn’t have to hear Bono or somebody like that talk about how fantastic and seminal Hank was.

I can’t be neutral on Hank Williams. In every band I’ve ever played in, I endeavored to get at least one of his songs into our repertoire -- even if only in a horrible grinding noise version. In a bar band I played with a million years ago, we'd stretch out "Wedding Bells" and "Jambalaya" to kill time in our night-long sets, and they were always a blessed relief for us and for the audience. I’d rather listen to Hank's worst songs than most other people’s best songs. Hell, I even like the songs with Audrey in them.

I’m amazed and delighted that Billie Jean Horton is still around. After her death-truncated marriage to Hank, she hooked up with Johnny Horton, and he died young, too, in 1960. She had been a singer, and charted with "Ocean of Tears" in 1960. She looked splendidly old-fashioned, with her flame-red dyed hair and heavy face powder.

I already knew about his back, and his shady homelife growing up, and the Louisiana Hayride and the Opry, and Audrey and the toll of the road and his feeling like he was being "sliced up like baloney" for sale in those awful last years. So I didn’t learn much new, except what sort of fellows he hung out with, and the surviving Drifting Cowboys seemed like the same sort of fellows you see in the background of any country band photograph from the 50s: raw and good-humored and happy to be dressed up nice and doing just what they liked to do. It wasn’t new things I was looking for, anyway. There were several clips of Hank singing his songs, some of the familiar, all of them wonderful. There were two real money shots. One was his duet with Anita Carter on "I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love With You." It was like slow lightning -- tender and sexy and strong enough to tear you out of yourself. The other was a slightly rote performance of "Cold, Cold Heart," a song he introduced as the one that had best kept him and the boys "in beans and biscuits." Hank alternated between a heartfelt expression appropriate to the song and a flickering stage smile that seemed alternately show-biz smug and ineffably sad.

MADE FOR EACH OTHER. Peggy Noonan's Reagan funeral coverage contained a strange, hard swipe at some of her former White House speechwriting colleagues ("wrote the same speech over and over... I think he spent the rest of his time getting haircuts," "National Hack Memorial," "malignant leprechaun," etc). I have been directed (thanks, Bill) to a hostile response to Noonan by one Jack Wheeler ("cheap, inexcusable," "For all her self-promotion, the facts are that she never wrote many major presidential speeches and had quite limited access to the president," "she was never part of the team," etc).

Wheeler is a true find, with a fascinating backstory: according to his bio, "He has retraced Hannibal’s route over the Alps with elephants;  led numerous expeditions in Central Asia, Tibet, Africa, the Amazon and elsewhere, including 18 expeditions to the North Pole;  and has been listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for the first free fall sky-dive in history at the North Pole." His fullsome reaction to Noonan, whom he once called his "friend," is not surprising once you realize that he reacts rather intemperately to women he doesn't like. In an article about Janet Reno called "America's Saddam?" he says that "the depravity of Waco" will, "Unless expunged through public revulsion of Janet Reno... remain an ineradicable stain on America's soul." On Hillary Clinton: "There is no lie she won't tell, no friend she won't destroy, no pledge she won't break, no slander she won't spread, no political dirty trick she won't employ in order to reside in the White House again, this time as the POTUS." Of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, top of the Abu Ghraib chain of command, he writes that her failure to respond to (unmade) calls to resign proves that "She has taken them like a woman -- whining, making excuses, and complaining that it’s not her fault, that she’s being 'scapegoated.'"

Given his disdain for "the current hysteria over the 'abuse of Iraqi prisoners," it is hard to see why resignation would be the manly course of action. Maybe it's the vitamins; in his spare time, Wheeler stumps for Life Enhancement pills. In this service he authored an odd piece in which he included, with evident approval, this quote from LE icon Sandy Shaw:

I think that as a whole, women in general tend to vote for people who promise to take care of them. They seem to have an assumption of helplessness that may lie in a genetic tendency to produce less or be less sensitive to noradrenaline. For example, look at the Republicans' problems with the so-called 'soccer moms' who are upset that government programs may be taken away. They are unwilling to say, 'I can handle my situation and don't need some government handout.' Just look around -- how many women do you see fighting the system and being truly politically incorrect? We need a lot more women like Margaret Thatcher or Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth [R-ID], but unfortunately they are rare.

Wheeler also approves of Mrs. Thatcher, presumably because she hasn't done anything to piss him off yet.

We can see that Wheeler would make a formidable nemesis for the Crazy Jesus Lady. I only hope they draw this thing out.

ALL MY FAVORITE CARTOON CHARACTERS COME TO LIFE! Lileks works himself into a lather over Opus the Penguin, though he's "reasonably sure" Berkeley Breathed isn't an anti-Semite. Plus: evil & duplicity from Entertainment Weekly, tensor lamps. "I haven't edited this at all," says Lileks. That's a relief.

"Ol' Blood 'n' Guts" Peters says we are worthless and weak for allowing Al-Jazeera to broadcast, especially since the TV station single-handedly defeated us at Fallujah. (Surely you remember the shock-troops of Arab cameraman filming bombed civilian homes, which our G.I.s were forced to view while strapped to chairs with their eyelids peeled back by John Kerry.) The General explains why this "freedom of speech" thing of which you civilians are so inexplicably fond "doesn't export well" outside the Anglophone world: for one thing, in the U.S. of A., "we have libel and hate-crime laws that work." (That's one of the interesting things about hate-crime laws; while a lot of their backers are gentle folk who think they're outlawing racism, others are of the General's sort: people who will clutch at any excuse to punish not only deeds, but thoughts and words as well.)

Meanwhile Professor Reynolds says he's working really hard, contrary to what his frequent posts in the middle of workdays might imply, and shows us a picture of his car in the faculty parking lot as proof. Save it for the tenure committee, Professor. (Hey, I don't see a datestamp...)

Is the moon full or something?

BUGGING OUT. "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters points the way to disengagement. While "We must remain ferociously aggressive in Iraq and around the globe," the General writes,

If our troops in Iraq are stymied by a web of political deals and need to ask, "Mother, may I?" before confronting terrorists, they'll be condemned to lethal inactivity — turned into targets with bound hands. Morale will plummet. And their lives will be wasted...

We owe Baghdad nothing. Nothing. We've already given Iraq an unprecedented chance to build a humane society and a decent government. If, despite our sacrifices, the Iraqis revert to greed, bigotry and tribalism, we'll need to face the reality of yet another homemade Arab failure and "stand not upon the order of [our] going, but go"...

...if the Iraqis lack the guts to stand up for their own freedom, we needn't hang around to watch as the country bleeds to death, unwilling to apply its own tourniquet.

The General is famously outspoken, but I wouldn't be surprised if his opinions here turned out to be the cutting edge of the new reality. After June 30 we will of course still have a lot of troops in Iraq, but already we see signs that the democratization phase of the enterprise is getting less of our direct attention than did the deSaddamification phase. Of course we are less attentive to Afghanistan than before, too, and things are evolving in some interesting ways there as well.

I suspect the Administration is eager to leave Iraq, and will get less shy about showing it.

RAISON D'CROIRE. You know, I hate to "support the side," I really do. I hate to go to events like this one, where I'm surrounded by people who, on some prosaic level, agree with me, because my natural distrust of humanity makes me feel as if the cause must be tainted because I agree with it.

Much of the time all that keeps me convinced of my politics is the obvious inanity of the people on the other side. (No link needed; that's what this whole site is about.)

But often I am encouraged by guys who obviously know what they're talking about, and talk about it extremely well. Here's a good one from Kurt Vonnegut that you might have seen before.

I have seen other writers from the WWII Generation, like Vidal and Mailer, denigrated by young right-wing functionaries who would not, in a just universe, be allowed to clean their blotters. But Vonnegut's piece is pretty well disseminated, and if you haven't had the pleasure, you might get a look at it before the rabble hoots it down.

I know a large part of the conservative argument is that the dumb guys know more than the smart guys. Don't you believe it. Read the stuff, use your brains, and see where it takes you. That is, to use an old discredited term, a sufficiently revolutionary act to turn things around.

UPDATE. There seems to be some misunderstanding, so let me make plain that my inability to feel trust or give comradeship in a good cause is something I regret, and to whatever extent I compare myself to the people doing the good grunt work of getting Kerry elected, the comparison is meant to be unflattering to me.

INTERLUDE. Saw a little TV last night. Method Man & Red is, from the five minutes I could bear to watch, an unholy union of Malcolm in the Middle and Birth of a Nation.

Speaking of jokes about how white people have names like "Lenny" and black people have names like "Carl," I also watched some of Last Comic Standing. There were lots of inserts of celebrity judges Drew Carey, Jay Mohr, etc., laughing like hyenas at the rather dull comedians. Believe me, this show is much funnier if you can convince yourself that they're actually laughing at old Flintstones episodes, or footage of the Nuremberg Trials.

A PERFECT SPECIMEN. Longtime readers of this site know that I like to follow the "liberal friends" schtick, whereby a conservative tells how he made his lefty acquaintances look stupid at some social occasion or other. The veracity of such anecdotes is in every instance questionable (see the aforelinked examples and judge for yourself whether they are consonant with normal human behavior) but their utility as parables is self-evident. Take this new example from the comments section of some imbecilic "Christian Nation" screed at OpinionJournal:

I was the recent lone conservative at dinner with seven Bush-loathing liberals, who respect me even while not understanding my views, and this topic came up, America and Christianity. Since President Bush was outvoted seven to one over dinner, who were his supporters and why?

I explained that the U.S. was a Christian country, by numbers, as your author states, and by the Judeo-Christian humanistic view of individual freedoms, and that W was a Christian, even if of the born-again variety. The diners had never quite thought of this, and were stopped for a while, although momentum kept them loathing nonetheless.

This anecdote offers evidence, however poorly expressed and suspect, of classic liberal shortcomings, such as their failure to "understand" realities self-evident to the Elect, and their obstinancy in the face of even such brilliant counter-arguments as the author has here mustered.

I still wonder: why do these liberals keep inviting these conservatives to parties? To shoot intruders, perhaps, or to tell racist jokes when things get a little slow.

BURDEN OF DREAMS. Thus sprach Tacitus (scroll to June 14, "assumed elision" -- Tac has encrypted his permalinks and I don't have a Turing Machine):

With all respect to those who operated on a thesis of Administration incompetence from day one, most of them have all the rational quality of the Randy Quaid character from ID4: just because an alien invasion did finally happen doesn't mean you're no longer a nutcake. You're just a very lucky nutcake. And you will be tomorrow. Rational, sane people could and did believe that the occupation would be pursued along rational, sane lines. I'm among them, and I see no reason to apologize for it. We were wrong, of course, but if you think that invalidates our judgment for the rest of time, well, think again...

Remember that, sons of Lenin: even when you're right, you're wrong. Or nuts. Or something.

Actually I know how he feels. During the Reagan years, I saw that the country was turning into a nuthouse in which money-worship unhinged my fellow-citizens sufficiently that, like medieval peasants, they became awestruck at the very presence of riches and even ceased to recall that some, at least, of that money had once been available for their own use. This madness never entirely passed, as many aspects of our hellish present condition -- in which Middle Easterners we once paid off to fight proxy wars on our behalf have become our most dangerous enemies, and people eat worms on TV for money -- stem directly from it.

I never doubted that it was my country, not me, that was going nuts. So I can imagine how it must be for Tacitus. Now he's talking about abolishing the Department of Education -- something even Reagan couldn't do. Similarly, I dream of a world where abortions, teenage group sex, and blasphemy are mandatory. I suppose we'll both fall a little short. If you have a dream, any dream, you are sometimes going to sound like a visionary, which is to say, like a fucking nut. I know I do; but I am surrounded by a warm and loving community that enables my ravings with praise, as others might throw dollars into a cockfighting pit, and this makes things a little easier. Tacitus has his own readers, and whatever military operation he keeps slipping off to assist (I like to think he's on a top-secret mission to develop Captain Shotover's mind ray).

In the end age (in my case, senility) will bring the wisdom that heat-sinks all emotional power surges, and we will relax, he in his armory, I in my charity hospital, and watch with equanimity the world growing madder and madder.

HEH INDEED. I thought the Lakers were supposed to have won by now. What do you mean, there's no more games?

At least Roger L. Simon doesn't have to feel sorry for Larry Brown anymore.

And, Roger, for once I agree with you: I would definitely like to see Bush "be like Kobe," at least in this instance.

I will now devote the remainder of my summer (and fall, too, if needed) to growing my hair like Ben Wallace.

FUN WITH WORDS. Frozen, batter-dipped french fries are a fresh vegetable, says George Chartier, a spokesman for the USDS's Agricultural Marketing Service (per USA Today), and Federal District Judge Richard Schell of Beaumont, Texas agrees.

This is not (despite Julia's headline) another ketchup-as-vegetable school-lunch tsimmis. The ruling does not apply to nutritional standards. It's meant to fulfill some Soviet-style scheme to place Tater Tots and such like under the authority of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA), which, the USDA says, "prohibits unfair and fraudulent practices and provides a means of enforcing contracts. Under the PACA, anyone buying or selling commercial quantities of fruit and vegetables must be licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Unfortunately, according to USA Today, this change in status has fucked with the Fleming Companies' Chapter 11 filing. Because the deep-fried 'n' breaded goodies Fleming distributed to supermarkets are now, voila, fresh vegetables, under PACA Fleming must pay back every bit of what they owe on said commodities, instead than whatever fraction the bankruptcy court would have allowed.

I'd say this is a reminder of the profound unfairness of life, but who the hell needs to be reminded?

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, NEW-STYLEE. A perfectly reasonable objection, and good for her, from Michele Catalano, to a new Hollywood blacklist (yes, in so many words) proposed by some guy. "What a soundly terrible idea," she says. "It mocks everything America is about, as well as gives credence to the left's mantra that conservatives and/or Republicans want to crush dissent and block free speech."

As you might imagine, though, some of the comments are hilarious. Here's my personal "Courage of His Convictions" nominee:

There are some actors and directors whose work I simply won't patronize. Michael Moore, Robert Altman, Alec Baldwin, and a few others are on the "won't see no matter what" list, and Viggo Mortenson is on the "won't see except for LoTR" list.

Second place winner: "Like, Robert Altman's a gibbering moron through and through, but I really like the old Combat television show, and I plan on buying the season sets on DVD. I'll probably skip his commentaries, though."

The guy behind AllahPundit writes in with this:

Let me make one more point, Michele. I'm sure you realize that there are more than a few employers in and around New York City who would pass you over for a job because of the political opinions you've expressed on ASV. In my case, I realize it well enough to leave "Allah" off my resume. So you and I, for all intents and purposes, are on an informal, unwritten blacklist maintained by leftist business owners.

So that's why no one puts BLOGGER (11/01-present): Numchuck.com, a journal of random thoughts on terrorism and Buffy ('A must read!' -- Clayton Cramer) on their resumes -- to keep under the radar of those evil hippies who run corporations! We've all been in those interviews, haven't we:

LEFTIST BUSINESS OWNER: As you know, young man, the purpose of Greenbelt Securities is to redistribute our clients' wealth to the black, Latino, and trangendered community.

FREEDOM-LOVING BLOGGER DESPERATE FOR WORK: C-count me in, comrade! More power to the people.

LEFTIST BUSINESS OWNER: (narrowing his eyes) Your voice... I've heard it before... yes... in a .wav file distributed by the Central Committee! (Stands, points, makes 70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers noise.)

Some responses, however, are downright spooky:

If I misuse my Second Amendment rights I LOSE THEM. If I drive irresponsibly, I LOSE THAT RIGHT. Same with every other right Americans have... except one. That one, you can abuse and misuse and willingly use as a tool to damage your country and endanger your fellow citizens- with no comebacks at all, and people will line up around the block to defend your ability to do so.

What do you call a right with no responsibility attached?

The First Amendment.

(Insert Dragnet theme here.)

I suggest these guys use their time more constructively.

ANOTHER MYSTERY SOLVED. I finally figured out that Day by Day comic strip: it's Mallard Fillmore for people who spend more that $30 a year on hair conditioner.

Two reasons to never see it again.

WHAT'S OPERA, DOC? Terry Teachout's OpinionJournal complaint against the Ground Zero arts companies selections pretends to be a righteous jeremiad against "culture by committee." The recent theatre, dance, and museum choices are "modest and safe" and "very, very small," says Teachout, when the committee, had they any guts, could have made "the boldest possible declaration of faith in the power and glory of Western culture" by including Teachout's favored candidate, the New York City Opera. "What a disappointment," he cries, rending his garment. "What a wasted opportunity."

Now, any critic whose candidate fails to receive its piece of the funded pie is entitled to a good huff. But c'mon, doc: an opera company?

Don't get me wrong (especially you, Sasha). I respect opera (more by breach than observance) and take Teachout's word that City Opera is a good pick. But let's not kid ourselves: the Ground Zero selections were never going to be about grandeur -- not even the fake grandeur of the hideous neoWTC building design. They were picked for their potential appeal to the area's prime constituencies: tourists and yuppies.

As John Rockwell observes in the Times:

...the very name of the body that made these choices — a "development corporation" — indicates the true rationale behind its selection, and behind the decision to involve arts organizations in the first place. The winners were picked not because anyone gave first thought to their worthiness as art, but because they represented a canny mix of institutions likely to make downtown a better place to live and do business.

The selections are modest because that is what the punters will pay for. The Freedom Center is an unknown quantity, and the Drawing Center unknown, alas, to me; but the Signature, best known for its one-playwright-a-season schtick, and the Joyce are solid and reasonably popular art-brands that will edify without scaring anyone. They are perfectly suitable for Mr. and Mrs. (or Mr. and Mr.) New York Striver who, after a hard week of shuffling papers, don't mind dropping a few bills for the quality art these vendors provide, any more than they would mind dropping a few bills at Dean & Deluca, Kenneth Cole, or Design Within Reach. The stuff goes down easy and has the smell of quality.

You don't even have to know much about art to patronize these establishments. The Signature is practically a missionary enterprise, reviving and (where needed) resuscitating moribund reputations. If they're doing a whole year of this Maria Irene Fornes, well then, honey, she must be damn good.

Museums have the advantage of sitting perfectly still for gawkers from Iowa to tromp through. What they'll see at the Drawing Center will probably be good draughtsmanship at least, and you don't have to be Bernard Berenson to appreciate that. As to the Freedom Museum, well, one can only imagine. They'll clean up in "Remember 9/11" hanky sales alone.

One might wonder how a modern dance company would be more pleasing to the constituents than an opera company. The answer is simple: bodies. Now, maybe you watch dance entirely, and chastely, for love of technique. And maybe old Uncle Roy watches women's gymnastics events on TV because he admires athleticism in all its forms. Please. As a tired businessman observed years ago (in the presence of my friend Bob Schaffer) at some spectacular gyrations in a Pina Bausch performance, "Now that's what I like to see -- bottoms up!"

Art can be grand, but it doesn't have to be, and hardly ever is. If the voice of God comes to Ground Zero, chances are it will be in a much different form than opera. Sorry, doc. The people, through their elected time-servers and jobsworths, have spoken!

AN OLD PRO SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE. They unveiled the Clintons' portraits at the White House today, and there was a rather playful ceremony with Bush and Bubba doing some of their lighter material. I note that Clinton worked this into his remarks:

This is a great country.Politics is noble work.... yesterday, I said, "You know, Most the people I've known in this business, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, were good people, honest people, and they did what they thought was right. And I hope that I'll live long enough to see American politics return to vigorous debates where we argue who's right and wrong, not who's good and bad."

Regular readers of this site will know that's not how I operate, but I'm not running for anything. John Kerry is, and I hope he was was paying attention. There are worse guys to take rhetorical tips from.

PRO-DEATH REPUBLICAN. It's rare indeed (or should I say "heh indeed") when I admit a debt of gratitude to the Ole Perfesser over t' the U of Tenn. But one of his posts has alerted me to an entertaining character named Clayton Cramer.

The Perfesser, it seems, had written a TCS piece about his desire to have his life extended to infinity and beyond via government-funded research -- said moneys to be taken, one imagines, from boondoggles like Workmen's Compensation. But let us move on -- the Perfesser's own lunacy is a tired subject.

Cramer argues that life is not worth extending. Now, this is a defensible position based on an understanding of human nature. But Cramer doesn't want a shorter life on valid Motorhead "Ace of Spades" grounds ("That's the way I like it baby/I don't want to live forever") -- he wants it because kids today are having all kinds of deviant sex, probably because they can't easily buy guns, thanks to "smart, arrogant, and immoral" judges. And it's only going to get worse:

When I was growing up, there was drug abuse. There were orgies and other forms of casual sex, where people were just used, and feelings got hurt. But that was largely high school and college, not junior high and upper grades of elementary school. I am not sure that I want to live another hundred years, and see the evil that will become the norm.

Perhaps Cramer would be less exercised if the target demographic for orgies were trending older rather than younger. But that seems unlikely. Note the world-weariness of his opening remarks:

When I was 23, I got married. We drove away from the church in our 1979 Pontiac Grand Am for our honeymoon... It is 24 years later, and I am still married to that same woman. Life was fresh and new, full of optimism and hopes.

As you get older, your high hopes and ambitions inevitably collapse around you. The wonders of travel turn into a series of disappointments. Your high hopes for your children come crashing down, especially when you discover the moral ugliness of the culture in which you are raising them.

That paragraph break seems awkward, and I like to think that, in an early draft, two sentences in Cramer's middle section were inverted:

Life was fresh and new, full of optimism and hopes. It is 24 years later, and I am still married to that same woman. As you get older, your high hopes and ambitions inevitably collapse around you.

Doesn't that sound more natural? Then Cramer weeps over the tedium of having to work for a living:

The job that you enjoyed at 23, and 25, and even 28, by 35 or 40 has lost its luster. You do it because you need the money to pay your bills.

People working to make money to live! Forbid it, almighty God! Yet the thought of changing jobs also terrifies Cramer: "Imagine having to do a career change 30 or 40 times over a lifetime! No thank you!" Actually, that's called the New Economy, or the Old Poverty, and millions of us are stuck in it. Maybe we should all just kill ourselves. Between the orgies and the careers, what's left for us?

How did I miss this guy before?