Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Not Descanso Gardens...

.... maybe, but OUR garden.












A bit smaller in scale, of course. Including the fish! But not too shabby, all the same... And then there are these...


... BOYS DOING MEN'S WORK

Seriously... I have been counting scandals. I think they result for the most part from people, from the president on down, being unqualified for their jobs. They're boys doing men's work. They should not be holding the high offices they hold. They lack the maturity of perspective, let alone compassion. I look at Bush, I look at Cheney, I look at Gonzales... I see grown-up little boys. They think politics is a win-lose game. They think government is evil. How did we end up like this?

My own partial list of scandals would include:

the Iraq war scandal
the returning veterans scandal
the Walter Reed scandal
the failed intelligence scandal
the misused intelligence scandal
the scandal of endless untruths
the Valerie Plame scandal
the Pat Tillman scandal
the health care scandal
the Enron scandal
the Tom Delay scandal
the attendant lobbying and corruption scandals
the firing of federal prosecutors scandal
the lying Attorney General scandal
the mismanagement of the Justice Department scandal
the mismanagement of the Defense Department scandal
the cronyism scandal
the Hurricane Katrina scandal
the new David Stockman scandal
the 2000 election scandal
the 2004 election scandal
the voter exclusion scandal
the War on Drugs scandal
the prison overpopulation scandal
the scandalous neglect of education
the scandalous neglect of health care
the scandalous neglect of the environment
the scandalous neglect of science

Please, add your own scandals... Feel free. I'm headed back to the garden.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good list. Unfortunately, they are men, rotten in values in a party touting values. But, the worst crimes of our time lie squarely on the shoulders of most Americans, who allow this to continue, day after agonizing day. There is but a miniscule cry of outrage or indignation.

You do well, English country gentleman, to seek refuge in your beautiful gardens. Nature never fails one. It alone, is not an illusion, the bedrock of man's spirit.

It is interesting to me, how a study of art is in essence a study of the history of man. Example:

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/frontpage.asp

... the Ethiopian dispensation in Christianity is a singular one. Ethiopians converted early to Christianity, in the third century with Constantine.

Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, was giving a lecture at the opening of "Ethiopian Art from the Walters Art Museum" at the Museum of Biblical Art on 61st and Broadway last Thursday.....Vikan pointed out the image of Jesus was marked by two contrapuntal discontinuities in Western Art: stasis and rapid change. Jesus, imaged as the Lamb of God and the Suffering Servants, covered with sores, outside the gates of Rome, for the first six centuries of the Common Era, was suddenly transformed into a sexy, if removed, man.....

You asked for ideas on art? Number one question: is it sexy or removed?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pictorial, up against something very ugly... wonder how they sleep nights...

Anonymous said...

I'd add at least one more: the "Take a Loyalty Oath or Lose Your Job" scandal at the Dept of Fish & Wildlife.

They call him James Ure said...

What a beautiful space. So refreshing and renewing.