An old TV show called “Perry Mason” set the tone.  A taut three-act play which culminated each week with justice prevailing as the real guilty party to a crime (invariably murder), confessed tearfully on the stand during an incisive cross-exam by the intrepid Raymond Burr.  Grim, post-trial quips, cue that stirring theme, and the public can rest easy as the scales of Justice are once again set right on their gimbals.

Fast forward to today, with such shows dominating the TV viewing audience.  “CSI” (and its many incarnations), “Law & Order” (and its many incarnations), and a myriad of homicide and courtroom dramas have conditioned us all to a few extremely misleading and dangerous mandates regarding the quest for justice.   There is an ever-growing and alarming trend in this society.  With such an increase in daily TV viewing, coupled with more and more reality-TV afoot…it is becoming more and more difficult for people to discern reality from fiction.

Thanks to television, we now have the following rules for court justice:

1)    As in a TV drama, the first and most obvious suspect NEVER is ultimately the guilty party.

2)    It’s always the one you least suspect.

3)    Police, with their erroneous and suspicious motivations, are never on target with their investigation. (more…)

Nothing is free.  You pay a price for everything.  Anything of value is worth working for.

These are the values my father tried to beat into my thick skull…with varying degrees of success.   Once, still in high school, I approached him on a Saturday night and in my nicest tone, asked for some spending money to go to a concert with my buds.  As he pulled a twenty from his wallet he gave me a wry smile.  “I’m not sure I’m doing you any favors handing you this.”

It was years later that those words settled upon me with their full import.   What was my motivation to work if I had somebody who would hand it to me for free?  By my not planning ahead…and earning the money myself, even before I needed it…I was retarding my independence, my self-respect, and my development as a man.

When I became a man, I put away childish things. 

And childish notions.  Our nation, under the direction of a Leftist administration and abetted by a ‘progressive’ media, is awash in entitlement philosophy.  More and more Americans are looking for their ‘benefits’.   More and more feel entitled to what others earn.  More and more seem happy to sit in the wagon and complain to those who aren’t pulling it fast enough.

For some time now I’ve made a decent living in front of a camera; delivering lines others wrote, hitting my marks without bumping into the furniture or drooling on my shoes.  It’s not rocket science, but still, it’s not that easy, either.  (The drooling part, not the rest.)  Many of us in Hollywood feel that since they pay us so well to do something so relatively easy, that we owe it to ourselves, and to the world, to ‘give back’.  Many of us, with that artificial sense of self-importance that comes with being in the movies or on television, feel we are poised and even obligated to ‘weigh in’ on important issues of national or geo-political nature.

(more…)

Ed. Note: This post was supposed to include a new Gray Graham song but unfortunately editorial (that would be me) screwed up and it didn’t. Good news? We will have more Graham-goodness later in week WITH the tune. My apologies to Gary and those readers confused by this, but it’s still a damn fine standalone editorial. And to answer a commenter’s question, no I wasn’t drinking, just careless. — JN

So I’ve been plinking around at my main hobby – music – for years.  Just playing for my own amusement, or so it started out.   Now I’ve got a band, we sound pretty good, we gig around town sometimes… (played for the wounded warriors’ Ride-2-Recovery event in Ventura, and we’re playing two gigs for the “Republican Party Animals” – one at the end of May and another in June)… and between that and film and TV assignments, I keep fairly busy.

Flashback to the last presidential campaign, 2007.   I meet a bunch of conservatives in Hollywood.  Who knew?!   In liberal Hollywood, there are actually a bunch of folks who work in the film industry and think a lot like I do.  Limited government, more personal freedom, individual responsibility, yada yada.  I’d been a conservative for some time but the risks to our nation now seem much more pronounced and pressing than at any other time in my life.

And the primary threat I see is not from without – but from within.

—–

(more…)

The Left is so fond of exhorting their opponents to ‘compromise’.  The trouble is, the Left each year moves further and further to the left – pulling that center-point of compromise further and further left.  Compromise with totalitarian ideals smacks of surrender.  Neville Chamberlain made a deal with the devil — and the world was no better for it.

Youthful Flashback:  My dad holding a $20 bill in his hand… he hesitates and looks at me.   First year of college, I was heading off to Hollywood with some pals for a concert and I had asking him if I could have some spending cash. 

“I’m not sure I’m doing you a favor giving you this,” he said with a faint crinkle in his eye.  I just made a clever joke and thanked him and was off for rock’n’roll heaven.   Years later, it came to me what he was saying.  Had I planned ahead and worked and earned the twenty bucks I’d have been further on up the road of becoming a man.  I would have developed a greater sense of independence, capability and competence; and I would have foreshortened greatly my prolonged adolescence.  (Some say extreeeemely prolonged.)

We do our kids no favors when we fail to teach them that if they want something, they need to get their butts in gear and go earn it.  And I think we’re losing that in our country.  I see our greater national malaise as being symptomatic of this failure.  We have failed to instill the basic work ethic in a large segment of our society.  Rather than gazing upon the frontier of their future with an eager lust of conquest and adventure…an ardent desire to become something exceptional, to produce great things… too many look out and see only a land of great abundance — to which they are entitled.    And the cause of that entitlement is for no reason other than that they breathe air.

It’s an easy seduction, the Entitlement Riff.  This is America, the land of Freedom.  I can do what I want.  I can acquire what I want.  I’m an American.  Therefore, I should have what I want.  And I will vote into office anyone who promises me that if they’re elected to public office, then I will get what I want.   And anyone who disagrees is a greedy, racist, Republican bigot homophobe.

(No, I’ve never worked for the New York Times but thanks for asking.)

(more…)

When I was a little kid, I was nutso for war movies.  Guadalcanal Diaries.  None But the Brave. The Longest Day.  Combat.  The Battle of the Bulge.  I would sit and watch them with my web belt and canteen, Army surplus WWII helmet and clutching my plastic Mattel Thompson .45 sub gun close, ready to step through the TV and into the battle should they need me.  My imagination took me too far off shores and continents to the meat-grinder war theaters of our nation’s past.  

I’d organize the neighborhood kids into a platoon, and at night, guided by our coded flashlight signals, we’d sneak out our windows for ‘midnight maneuvers’.   Many an enemy mailbox was destroyed by cherry bomb.  By day, we’d bravely assault enemy strongholds of hapless neighbors’ rose bushes, doghouses or Volkswagen’s.  I always lead the charge, throwing dirt clod grenades and, leaping up, charging, blasting roll caps from my Thompson in a mad suicide sprint, firing wildly, taking hits from heavy imaginary enemy fire and always, gravely wounded, staggering forward to claim victory for the Allied troops.  Trampled roses, filthy cars and busted mailboxes were a small price to pay for freedom and the American way of life. (Yeah, I got in trouble.   A lot.) 

John Wayne, Anthony Quinn, Robert Mitchum…these guys taught me about valor and grace under fire.  But they weren’t my heroes – the men they were playing were my heroes.   Our little after-school war games were just a young boy’s way of paying them honor.  (more…)

Am I the only one who feels like yanking my teeth out with needle nose pliers when he hears questions about what the ‘Tea Party’ is up to?  What candidate they’ll promote, which direction they’ll move next, and how the ‘Tea Party will influence upcoming election?  Am I the only one?   Okay, let’s clear this up – (unless of course I’ve taken too many rim shots to the head and have simply lost my mind, but)… there is no ‘Tea Party.’

It is not a political party.  Tea Parties are political gatherings in which concerned and outraged American citizens express their outrage at government spending and crippling legislation and reaffirm collectively their devotion to American Constitutional values.

But there is no Tea Party, there is no Conservative Party, and there is no Liberal Party.  We have basically a two-party political system, the Democrats and the Republicans.  All other ‘parties’ act as spoilers in political elections.  Third party candidates end up swaying election results as to hurt the very people they were hoping to help: themselves.  They split the vote.  Witness two past presidential election votes in which Ross Perot split the Republican vote, awarding both elections to the Democrat, Bill Clinton.  Ralph Nader has been a thorn in the Democrats’ side with his Green Party…or is it the Peace & Freedom Party…or was it the Nutjobs & Pudwhacks for Mindless Change Party, I don’t remember.  Anyway… There is no Tea ‘Party’.

But there is a Libertarian Party. (more…)

Okay, that ices it.  I was going to keep quiet about this.  But they’ve gone and done it now.  For roughly thirty years I’ve been a member of the Screen Actors Guild.  I remember back when it was rumored that you couldn’t get an agent unless you were in SAG.  And if you didn’t have a SAG-franchised agent you couldn’t work.  Only problem was – you had to get an acting job to get into SAG.  But you couldn’t get and acting gig unless you were already in SAG.  Thank God I’d seen the movie ‘CATCH 22’…or the whole thing might not have made any sense to me.

Fortunately, they had a provision around all that, the Taft-Hartley act.  If you could talk some producer into hiring you, even though you weren’t yet SAG, you could work.  The producer paid some sort of stipend fine (something like $100) and you sign a thing saying you’re joining SAG and you got your card – and everyone was happy.   Back then the one-time payment to join was $365 – for me at the time, a small fortune.  (I understand the entry fee is in the thousands now.) 

I remember when I got my SAG card in the mail, after I’d gone through the above-mentioned calisthenics.  I was ecstatic.  This, then, was corroborating proof that I was indeed a professional Actor, capital-A.  I had arrived and the world was about to be turned on its ear.  Look out, here’s Gary Graham coming to Hollywood to rip it up!

Well, I’ll leave it to the historians to determine the degree to which I’ve ‘ripped it up’, but that began my long association with the venerable Screen Actors Guild.  And initially – I loved it.  I voted in the elections.  I read the high-quality full-color-glossy monthly newsletter.  I followed union politics, strike votes, no-strike votes… and of the attendant in-fighting.   I was an actor’s union wonk.

So…why, 20 years later, would I quit SAG? (more…)

I was maybe eight or nine when my sisters, brother and I watched this every single night for a week.  Stations did that back then.  Call it cheap baby-sitting.  But we were riveted.  I’d never seen a man dance like that.  Especially a man I’d seen so many times as a tough-guy gangster type.  I think it was my first notion of…”Oh yeah…he’s an actor.”

—–

Watching it again, lo these many years later, I was struck by several new observations.  First – what a patriot George M. Cohan was!  (And, as is common knowledge, so was Cagney.)   Though Cohan maintained, “I was a good Democrat even [as a child]”… he didn’t feel the modern leftist compulsion to extend the sympathetic lilt of empathy towards one’s avowed enemies.  He knew which side he was on – and said so, in no unequivocal terms. 

Cohan wasn’t politically correct — he and his family put on Minstrel shows!  Innocent, good-natured entertainment back then, offending no one, delighting all; black, white or variegated paisley.  It wasn’t until the class-envy of Marxist political correctness that we insisted on being horrified by such a thing.  (more…)

Here’s my response to Stephen Colbert’s ‘Take Our Jobs!’ challenge that asks Americans to do the work illegals now do…  

One grows weary of having to repeat the same defense of our immigration laws, (indeed, the defense of our entire American way of life). But, for those who either have short memories, or, rather than pay attention in high school, preferred to gaze idly out the window during U.S. History class — or are just woefully and irretrievably short of clue…let’s review. 

We are a nation of LAWS.  The so-called ‘undocumented immigrants’ are, in fact, ILLEGAL ALIENS…and every one of them is breaking Federal Law being in this country without having gone through existing proper, legal channels to acquire documentation in order to come into and remain inside our country.  

Our desire to be able to buy low-cost produce is among the weakest of arguments for open borders and/or amnesty. These concerns are trumped by our societal attempt to shun anarchy and remain a republic, maintain our designation as ‘a nation of laws’, as well by a growing concern for national security … but I digress.  Back to undocumented field workers.   (more…)

“Am I being black-listed?”

The agent across the desk laughed.  “Black-listed??  Ha ha …what… ‘Are you now or have you ever been a communist?’  Come on.  I mean …I know you probably shoot your mouth off about politics a little too much, but, still…”

But the Actor stared back.  His once-commanding gaze could use some sleep — or at least, some peaceful sleep.  Being an actor in Hollywood, he’d gotten used to going long dry spells between jobs; but never this long.  ‘Oh, the business is in a slump, it’s the economic downturn’, they all say.  (And when have ‘they’ ever been wrong?)  But the Actor had been around a long time and he’d heard the ‘business-in-a-slump, economic-downturn’ diagnosis repeated far too many times to really let it get him down; or let it keep him down, anyway.

But now…it seemed like something else.  This was different.

Lately, these past few years, the Actor, after having seen his once ‘up-and-comer’ status flare briefly as the new ‘It’ guy and having starred in a string of B+ action movies and a few short-lived TV series, had seen his career languish on ‘Thousand-Meeting Island’ only to glide past ‘Audition Mambo’ and settle eventually and almost imperceptibly into the maudlin malaise of the ‘also-rans’.  The river of scripts that once flowed to his door had become a creek, then a small stream, and finally a mere trickle.   New lines now appeared on his face with such alarming frequency it was now well late into the afternoon that he even ventured a side-glance at a mirror.   (more…)

[I gave an abbreviated version of this speech at a Tea-Party in Lake Forrest, California yesterday.]

It’s so nice to be back in Orange County where I grew up.  And it’s great to be surrounded by all of my fellow racist-extremist-morons.  Oh, you didn’t hear?  That’s how the mainstream media is labeling all of us T-party participants. 

It was a bit of a surprise to find out I was a racist-extremist-moron, as I try to deal with all my fellow humans with courtesy and respect.  But if I disagree with a president of mixed race, I am a racist?  Got it.  He’s half-black and half-white…and I’m white… Not sure exactly how that works…especially since one of my most oft-quoted heroes was a Black man.  I harken to the words of Dr. King in supporting a color-blind society.  A person being ‘judged by the content of his character rather that the color of his skin’ type of thing.

And I did pretty well in school, went to college, I try to stay up on current events, I read voraciously and have published a book and written over forty articles that have been published on the Internet, so it surprised me to find out I’m a moron. 

And…like all of you ‘morons’, I believe in the American Constitution.  I believe brilliant minds put it together with built-in limits of power that were meant to safe-guard the sorts of abuses we now see coming at us on a daily basis in Washington, D.C.  (more…)

But it was a bad night for Liberty.

Oh man.  I didn’t want to write a blog today.  Damn those Dems.  (And a special F-U to you twits who voted them in.)   A bad night for Liberty.

But it was a good night for Chicago politics.  It’s nice to know some things never change; that back-room arm-twisting, extortion, blackmail, bribes, and pay-offs can still work wonders when applied judiciously by Leftists Speakers of the House, Presidents (and their hatchet men), and Senate leaders.   Even ‘principled’ Democrats like pro-life Rep Bart Stupak folded like a proud jellyfish. (Any stupidly spineless act of Congress will henceforth be regarded as “a Stupak” as in, “Looks like those idiots on The Hill pulled another Stupak!”)

Yes, Lady Liberty took a serious kick in the teeth last night.  The health care bill will put one-sixth of the U.S. economy in the hands of the federal government.   But even worse than assisting further in the bankrupting of our economy, our freedoms are now seriously diminished. 

We Americans became considerably less free last night. (more…)

UPDATED: February 18th, 2010 — 6:58 pm

The following interview contains misleading, erroneous, and/or fraudulent claims.  The subject of the interview, Scott Witt, has come under massive scrutiny by the Special Forces community and has been revealed to not be a member of that vaunted, tight-knit group, as he claims.  Adding to the heinous nature of this deception is that it is couched in the humanitarian effort to aid the people of Haiti – a matter that is near and dear to my heart.

I offer now my sincerest apology for having become the conduit for this ruse of Mr. Witt’s, (for which I alone take blame for not vetting him properly), and reaffirm my deep respect and admiration for all the true brave warriors who serve and have served our country.

I have recently become aware of The Stolen Valor Act, and of the pathetic presence of many ‘false heroes’, poseurs and impostors out there; attempting to steal for themselves some of the valor and honor that members of our Special Forces have so valiantly and courageously earned.

I truly find this despicable – and vow to join with members of this elite branch of the service, active or retired, who seek to expose, uncover and/or prosecute those who would fraudulently lay claim to a real soldier’s honor.

– Gary Graham, Feb. 18, 2010

—–END UPDATE

While in the process of raising funds to help shuttle doctors, nurses and medical supplies to Haiti, I hooked up with my friend director/producer Jeff Chamberlain.  Sharing my interest in humanitarian concerns, and aware of my recent trip to Haiti with AirLift Haiti founder, Eric Haymes, Jeff introduced me to former Special Forces soldier Scott Witt. Scott had formed a rather amazing group of former spec-ops servicemen called Dark Horse Tactical.   These guys had had a rather remarkable experience helping out in the Katrina disaster – and now were trying to get ‘tent cities’ built in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Jeff, Eric, and I had several conference calls to brainstorm the idea with Scott.   And in an interest to see if Air Lift Haiti could partner up in a common-cause joint venture, I sat Scott down and talked to him about his plan to deliver immediate help and aid to the earthquake-ravaged people of Haiti.

Gary Graham – Scott, tell me about your background and how it lead to your group, Dark Horse.

Scott Witt – Well, to tell you of my background is to tell you what Dark Horse is.  Dark Horse was a call sign – it was my personal call sign, back in the day of my special forces [work].

GG – When was that, when did you serve?

SW – Everything I did in special forces was ‘black ops’.  I first joined the Rangers back in 1987 and I was only with the Rangers for a year when I decided to join what was called ‘the Cherokee’ at that time.  They were a mixture of special forces.   It was not just Rangers, it was Navy SEALs, it was Marines, it was everyone.  And they’d take the best of the best…and create one unit.  And that unit answered only to the Pentagon.  And from that point forward, all we did was black ops.  Nothing we ever did could be talked about from that point forward. (more…)

The piercing roar of the C-17 jet engines rattled my skull as it went to full throttle and lifted off into the amber sky back towards Miami.   The awesome machine had just delivered its precious payload of relief supplies to the earthquake-ravaged people of Haiti.  

On the tarmac of the Port-au-Prince airport I stood beside the 737 jet that Eric Haymes had donated for the relief effort through his Air Lift Haiti organization.  He’d just delivered a bunch of medical professionals who were there to relieve another bunch of medical workers, some of whom had been there for weeks.  

The sight at the airport was not to be believed.  The activity…the sense of urgency…the cooperation — amazing.  It was organization without organization.  Someone would yell “Hey over here — unload!”   And a hundred people would move en masse forming an impromptu ‘bucket brigade’ line — and within a half-hour tons of desperately needed supplies were off-loaded from a jet’s underside.  With little spoken except for whoops of exhilaration.   The mood on the tarmac…a mixture of selfless abandon, determined purpose…and yes, love.  For a longtime skeptic of basic human nature…it was cathartic…and beautiful.  (more…)

President George W. Bush left office a year ago today.  The occasion was marked for me, not so much as the grand event of inaugurating our first black President, as it was a societal harbinger of ominous times ahead.  Mr. Bush congratulated Mr. Obama warmly, embracing him with the camaraderie reserved for that elite membership of U.S. presidents.  The accompanying catcalls and boo’s cast a pall upon what was heretofore a somber, and joyous occasion; but now colored a sick patina as the true vitriol and hateful venom rose with cruel and vindictive openness.  The taunting jeers, the rude remarks, the derision of contempt.  Well…there goes the neighborhood, I thought to myself.

It seemed that occasion marked another milestone in America:   the death of class.

And long before the new politics of Chicago-style thuggery became evident in the new administration, I was appalled at the sheer intensity of hatred for President Bush.   Bush Derangement Syndrome became a pandemic.  I was expecting the CDC to announce immediate inoculation centers opening up to stem the outbreak.  Bush bashing became our new favorite national pastime, celebrated in the press and codified on college campuses everywhere. (more…)

On this, the one-year anniversary of Big Hollywood, it is fitting that ‘One Pissed Off Dude’ should mark it with a proper lambasting of one of America’s favorite films ever: “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  I’ve intentionally held off until after the holidays.  I didn’t want to be a Grinch Who Attempted to Steal Christmas…or a Scrooge Who Wallowed in Contrariness… or worse, a Reid-Pelosi Christmas Eve Douchebag.

I am a huge fan of Frank Capra.   And whereas it pains me to do so, I must call a proper spade a spade.  In my (what I presume will be ‘lonely’) opinion…this single movie has done more to undermine  America than any other in memory. 

And yes, I realize I’m about to infuriate both the Left and the Right… Christians and Atheists… Socialists and the ACLU… Jimmy Stewart fans, movie buffs, my entire readership, and my mother…but I have to say it:  There is an insidious lie placed smack dab within the heart of this otherwise exquisite movie.  And the strange thing is – along with hundreds of millions of people worldwide — it is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  And therein lies the rub. 

The most dangerous and injurious of falsehoods is the one that is shuffled in with the Truth. (more…)

He who defines the rules controls the game.   And we’re letting them define the rules.

Jobs.  Health care.  Economic justice.  Working families.  Income redistribution.  Fairness.

Words mean things.  Very specific things.  We on the Right tend to forget that.  By following the lead from the Left, we abdicate our arguments without even knowing it.  By using their terms, and in so doing, tacitly allowing their outrageous assertions to stand unchallenged, we surrender ground – one step, one phrase, one election at a time.

We are told the main issue on Americans’ minds in these perilous economic times, is ‘Jobs’.  The main problem is putting people back to work, dontcha know.  ‘Creating more jobs’.  And of course, this is a classic example of the cart before the horse.  It’s a tried-and-true ploy of the Collectivist to frame the problem as that which affects ‘the masses’ alongside the solution, which involves the central government.  (The people need jobs!   We’ve got to create more jobs!)   As if…in a free republic the purpose of government is to provide each citizen with a job.  As if…a job is merely this mystical anomaly that suddenly appears by fiat of a benevolent and elegant president.  As if…the very economic policies of the new administration aren’t doing everything they can to retard the growth of the economy and hence hamper and defeat the expansion of the work force.  As if…it’s not the stifling regulation, punitive taxation, and restriction of movement on business that prevents business from hiring new employees. (more…)

I awoke this morning with a splitting headache.  As I staggered to the bathroom I blew past the mirror without a glance, fearful of the report.  I hadn’t felt this awful since I can’t remember when.  Though memory eluded me as to the details, I was certain that I had tied on the Mother of All Benders.  As I stared blearily into the commode bowl, I studied it disinterestedly for any and all evidence my stomach contents may have divulged as to just what the hell had happened the previous night.   

Nothing came to me but more questions.  Satisfied that no further gastric contributions could tell the tale, I rose from the bathroom floor, shrugged unconvincingly and hit the flusher.   What a perfect way to end unseemly encounters.  Flush them. 

I proceeded to weave an unsteady trail down the hallway in the general direction of a coffee pot.  My daughter had arisen before me and FOX News was already drifting in from the other room; Bill Hemmer recounting the latest on the decision to move the admitted 911 terrorists to NYC for trial. 

And then it struck me like a wet trout.  (more…)

Nancy Pelosi, having renamed the Public Option, the ‘Consumer Option,’ triumphantly trotted out this morning the Hose version of the Health Care Reform Bill, now called The Affordable American Health Care Bill.   (“Affordable” – what does that mean, exactly?  Affordable to whom?)   But then Steny Hoyer proclaimed the process of crafting the bill the most open, transparent process he’s seen in over thirty years in Congress. (Really??)   And finally, the President followed up on Teleprompters to announce that finally we have a bill that will cover the 36 million uninsured, not cost the taxpayers anything extra, improve the quality of our health-care system, and bring down the costs of health care.  Speaker Pelosi assured us that this bill represents the principles of  “…opportunity, choice, competition, and innovation.”

How can you tell when they’re lying?    Their lips are moving.

They think you’re stupid.   It’s understandable that they should think that, because though they may on occasion listen to you, they never really hear you.  Hence, the only frame of reference for feedback on their incredibly absurd redistributive ideas, tax-and-spend proposals and unprecedented treasury-busting health care take-over bills…comes from their own constituents, the Democrats.  Whoops and hollers, cheers and laughter, nods, smiles, enthusiastic ‘yes-we-cans!’… as they serve up yet another heaping portion of socialist slop you’ll be expected to grab your ankles and pay for.  They think you’re stupid.

As the entire Democratic Party has now been fully commandeered by the hard Left, I wrestle daily with the following quandary:  Are they evil?  Or merely dense?  (more…)

This stuff doesn’t happen on its own.  Somebody must create it.  Art is the product of conscious action.  But art cannot be considered ‘art’…until it is named.  It must be called ‘art.’  And it seems today that regardless of the number of dissenters from that designation, if one person decides that something is art – it’s art, dammit.  End of discussion.  For to impugn its veracity would be to malign someone’s character.  It might even get you called ‘racist.’ To tell an artist that what he or she has produced is not ‘art’ would be spewing hate speech just as though you’d burned a cross on their lawn or dipped a crucifix in urine.  (Oh wait…that’s been done.  And come to think of it…that was called art.   Ahhh…I am beginning to see many disparities and conflicts in the rational line here.)

Help me along — I am apparently a bit slow.  Something is ‘art’ if the ‘artist’ says it is art.  Even if the viewer of said art is highly offended and appalled by this so-called art.  Then it’s his or her problem… get over it…go back to Wasilla and blow up a moose. 

But should you dare suggest that it might not be the best use of public funds to bankroll exhibitions that the majority of Americans consider to be highly offensive and even pornographic —  well…then you obviously must be a hate-filled, intolerant, racist homophobe, and you are to be minimalized as a right-wing fringe kook.  (more…)