Thanksgiving in New York: ogling the Guggenheim

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I’m in New York for Thanksgiving, and yesterday I visited the Guggenheim.

The nice thing about the Guggenheim is that even when the exhibits are awful the Frank Lloyd Wright building is still fun:

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And in this case the exhibit was exceedingly awful, a less disgusting but annoyingly vapid and coy version of the off-putting experience I wrote about here, in which the notion of art had pretty much degenerated into posturing and ironic messages.

This time, instead of cut-up cow body parts and elephant dung Madonnas, we had cowboys and Marlboro men, naughty nurse book covers, framed autographed photos of Hollywood stars and also-rans, and enormous single-color canvasses with Henny Youngman-type jokes marching across their centers in large black letters.

This is the work of Richard Prince, intended as some sort of wry postmodern commentary on America and its values; I think it’s mostly a sad commentary on the postmodern death of art. Fortunately, off to the side in the smaller and more conventionally-shaped galleries of the museum there was an exhibit of older art; containing a fair amount of Kandinsky, Chagall, and Picasso, as well as a few Cezannes and Gauguins and other painters of that era.

Compared to the abominations that filled the main downward-spiraling (in more ways than one) body of the museum, these works—once so scandalous and revolutionary themselves—represented a calm oasis, a return to painterly values such as color and form, harmony and light, and—dare I say it?—beauty. They seemed nearly as ancient and classic as the Parthenon, as accessible as Norman Rockwell.

Two familiar Picassos were there that I’d studied in college art history courses, although I’d never seen them in person before. Like many Picassos, they are exceedingly different in style from each other—indeed, if one didn’t know how protean Picasso was as a painter, one would swear they’d been created by two different artists.

One was entitled “Woman Ironing.” It’s from his blue period; a somber and nearly monochrome representation of a worn and weary woman hard at work:

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The other was “Woman with Yellow Hair,” a portrait of one of Picasso’s myriad mistresses, full of sensual curves and rich glowing colors, languid and relaxed:

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The two were not close together, but they were in the same gallery, and as I happened to glance from one to the other I could not help but notice what I’d never noticed before: the similarity of their poses, although the dramatically different works were painted nearly thirty years apart.

Just look at the sharp bend of the heads and the nearly horizontal angle of the profiles, and the way the left shoulder is emphasized. Despite the different feel and tone of each painting, there’s a leitmotif that runs through them and unites them. Perhaps it’s a certain proportion or grace that Picasso intuitively sensed—much like the Golden Ratio—without knowing how or why. Or perhaps he just likes the pose.

The catalog for the Prince exhibit was in the museum store, to the tune of sixty big ones. My advice is to save your money.

How do you vet a stringer?

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A stringer is a freelance journalist or photographer paid by the piece. A controversial and commonplace use of stringers today is in hot spots around the world; stringers go where Western journalists fear (or are unable) to tread. This means that many stringers are nationals of third-world countries where bloody conflicts are endemic and where “insurgents” are active and violent players.

The vast majority of these stringers are probably professionals who are as objective as the Westerners who hire them (although in some cases, that’s not saying much). But I think it’s no accident that two of most controversial stories surfacing recently about truth in journalism involve stringers; the temptation for insurgents to infiltrate the Western media and control its propaganda must be very great indeed.

The first of these cases is of course the Mohammed al Durah affair (for background, see links on my right sidebar under “Paris and France2 trial”). Although French/Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin is the figure we’ve heard most about in connection with it, the original al Durah evidence rests almost solely on one foundation—the word of Palestinian stringer-photographer Talal about what he was seeing and the contents of his videotape, as relayed to and relied on by his boss and co-worker, Charles Enderlin, who was nowhere near the scene but trusted Talal (for more on the subject, see this and this).

The second such incident is the case of Bilal Hussein, an AP stringer-photographer in Iraq who has been arrested and charged with being a terrorist operative there. Enderlin relied on the veracity of Talal, and has defended him to this day. And the AP is defending Hussein.

This is hardly surprising. In fact, it is to be expected. News agencies and journalists who employ stringers must consider them trustworthy before they hire them. Then, over time, they get to know them well, and probably to rely on and trust them even more. In the case of Enderlin and Talal, for example, they had been working together for about twelve years at the time of the al Durah incident, more than enough time for Enderlin to know him well and to feel very secure in relying on Talal’s veracity.

If in fact these two stringers—Talal and Hussein—were essentially con artists and propagandists, this would be a tough thing for the agencies hiring them to know in advance. How does one vet a stringer? Credentials and a sixth sense, as one does with any hire. But con artists (and terrorist confederates working for Western papers, somewhat like spies) are notoriously difficult to spot. They are good at what they do, which is to earn the trust of others and dispel any suspicions.

So when accusations surface in these cases, the employers and colleagues almost always say (or think) some version of the following:, “But I know him. I’ve known him for years. I’ve met his wife, eaten dinner at his house…” Although journalists are supposed to be skeptics, there’s a lack of understanding of the modus operandi of the con or the spy within the camp. In addition, there’s also the hubris of thinking that one knows, one can tell, one is wise, one is perceptive enough to spot the double agent con—and journalists (especially famous ones such as Enderlin) are certainly no slackers in the hubris department.

If stringers are to continue to be used so often in those strife-torn areas of the world rife insurgencies and terrorism, it behooves their bosses to vet them most carefully, and to continue to cross-check their work as long as they are employed.

I can just hear the cries of “racism” now. But this has nothing to do with racism; I would say the same if these conditions held true in any country or culture on the globe. Nor is the phenomenon limited to stringers, or native journalists in war-torn countries, as the Stephen Glass story demonstrates only too well. Cons and fabricators tend to be very likable, as was Glass, who ingratiated himself with virtually the entire New Republic staff, and was hotly defended by them past the point where his lies should have been glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes not clouded by affection and trust.

There’s no question that the temptation for terrorist sympathizers to infiltrate the ranks of journalistic stringers is very great, and that they can be very skillful once there. Press agencies and newspapers that make use of them need to be far more alert and aware of the associated risks than they have thus far shown themselves to be, and to protect themselves—and the public—accordingly.

Democrats: see no evil, see no good

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Michael Goodwin points out that, in their latest debates, the Democratic candidates seem to be “sleepwalking through history” about the war on terror:

What was once a bipartisan concern about the new phenomenon of lethal nonstate actors such as Al Qaeda has been reduced to denunciations of waterboarding and attacks on the Patriot Act.

The article is illustrated with a cartoon of Hillary, Edwards, and Obama as the three willfully evil-denying monkeys:

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This seems accurate as far as it goes. But it strikes me that the Democratic candidates—and many of the Democrats in Congress—paradoxically see almost nothing but evil in today’s Iraq. As Goodwin points out:

The one mention of the troop “surge” came from New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. He declared it “is not working,” no matter what the facts say, and Obama made a similar point without using the word.

And, of course, there’s the Congressional Democratic leaders’ continuing determination to defund the war unless they’re able to dictate a withdrawal timetable. And this despite the fact that even newspapers such as the NY Times are now regularly publishing tentatively optimistic articles such as this one, entitled “Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves” (yes, I know it’s full of “well, but’s” and “on the other hand’s”—but still, it manages to grudgingly spotlight recent improvements).

That cartoon of the three candidates could serve just as well if the sight they were denying was the good done in Iraq, rather than the evil of the terrorist threat. There are two common threads here: the first is denial itself, and the second is refusal to give President Bush and the Republicans any credit whatsoever for their successes.

Christopher Hitchens also writes about the Democrats and Iraq, noting:

What worries me about the reaction of liberals and Democrats is not the skepticism [about recent positive developments in Iraq]…but the dank and sinister impression they give that the worse the tidings, the better they would be pleased.

It does sometimes appear to be that way. Politicians’ self-centered concerns with their own electability would tend to make it painfully difficult for them to credit the opposition with policy successes, even those good for the nation as a whole.

But I’m afraid there’s more to it than that for those on the hard Left. Not all liberals, and certainly not all Democrats, qualify as being on the Left, of course. But the base to which the Party increasingly genuflects appears increasingly Leftist in sympathies and composition.

Here’s the type of thing many Leftists say—and believe. I bring you exhibit A, journalist John Pilger, speaking about Iraq in an interview on Dec 31, 2003 with the generally Left-leaning news organization Democracy Now:

I think the resistance in Iraq is incredibly important for all of us. I think that we depend on the resistance to win so that other countries might not be attacked, so that our world in a sense becomes more secure. Now, I don’t like resistances that produce the kind of terrible civilian atrocities that this one has, but that is true of all of the resistances. This one is a resistance against a rapacious power, that if it is not stopped in Iraq will go on as we now know to North Korea where Mr. Cheney and others are just chomping at the bit to have a crack at that country. So, what the outcome of this resistance is terribly important for the rest of the world, I think if the United States’ military machine and the Bush administration can suffer—well, the let’s say, quote, defeat, unquote, because it was never a complete defeat in Vietnam—but if they suffer something like that in Iraq.

The Left wants a defeat for the US in Iraq and a triumph for the Iraqi resistance, in order that the US will be weakened worldwide. And the Left doesn’t really care what the nature of that so-called “resistance” is, even if it’s a viciously totalitarian fundamentalist Islamic group such as al Qaeda, who would just as soon behead Pilger himself and all his cronies if they weren’t so very useful to them. As long as the “resistance” in Iraq is against the US, Bush, and Cheney, that’s enough to make Pilger and company embrace murderous thugs who would stomp on all human rights—and certainly on anything we know as liberalism, classical and/or modern-day—if they had their way.

Yes, I know that the Democratic candidates don’t share Pilger’s extreme anti-American stance. But unfortunately their party has too many people who do. And, unfortunately, I could rewrite Pilger’s statement from the Democratic candidates’ point of view and it might go something like this:

I think that we depend on the resistance to win so that we can be elected. Now, we don’t like resistances that produce the kind of terrible civilian atrocities that this one has, but that is true of all of the resistances. This one is a resistance against a policy begun by our enemy, Bush. So, the outcome of this resistance is terribly important for our electability, if the United States’ military machine and the Bush administration can suffer something like the Vietnam defeat in Iraq.

Note that on one point I give Pilger more credit than I do the Democratic candidates: curiously enough, he puts defeat in Vietnam in quotes. PIlger may recognize that the US “defeat” there was at least partly self-inflicted, caused by both military and political restraints, including the propaganda work of the Left itself. I’m not so sure today’s Democratic candidates would recognize that fact.

Parents and homework wars, now—and then

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This article at American Thinker describes growing protests by parents, who maintain their kids are overburdened and stressed out by too much homework. Author Charles J. Sykes takes issue, though, citing research to the contrary:

…a study by the Brookings Institution found that the great majority of students at all grade levels now spend less than an hour a day studying, or about a quarter of the time they spend text messaging things like “NMHJC” (Not Much Here, Just Chilling) to one another.

Sykes thinks many parents today are “obsessively involved, overprotective, indulgent moms and dads who have bubble-wrapped their children on the assumption that they are so frail and easily bruised that they must at all costs be protected against the symptoms of life, including, apparently, homework.”

He may have something there, although I also agree that certain homework assignments—usually the most infuriating ones, like dioramas, which I remember detesting as a child—are pointless and time-consuming “busywork” exercises.

The Sykes article brings back memories; I actually did have a fair amount of homework (yeah, I know, you’re weeping for me). And although this was in what were then called “gifted” and/or “honors” classes, I wasn’t in some private school, nor even a public school in a ritzy suburb. I attended public schools from kindergarten through high school in a relatively blue collar area of New York, and from about fifth grade on I recall having between three and four hours of take-home assignments a night. Continue reading →

Things I’m tired of…

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve got a busy day today, so I will be uncharacteristically (and perhaps thankfully?) brief.

Things I’m tired of:

(1) the 2008 election

(2) me saying I’m tired of the 2008 election

(3) the fact that every time I see the word “Clinton” in the ubiquitous articles about the 2008 election, I immediately think “Bill” and not “Hillary” (call me sexist if you want, but old habits die hard)

(4) the debates

Come to think of it, maybe it’s just one thing I’m tired of…

But bloggers don’t get to be tired. There’s no tiredness in blogging:

A walk in the park, sans pigeons

The New Neo Posted on by

I was in Chicago last weekend, staying in the Hyde Park area, along Lake Shore Drive. Lake Michigan is extraordinary, looking for all the world like the ocean, complete with whitecaps on a windy day and what appear to be ocean liners on the distant horizon.

All in all, a fine place to walk. But as I was moving along at my usual clip (four miles an hour, more or less) I saw the following startling sight:

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“What’s that?” you ask.

Here, come a little closer:

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They were hard to see at first, green on green. Not the sort of bird we’re used to in a climate as extreme in winter as Chicago or New England—or most of the United States, for that matter. Continue reading →

Tale of the tape: al Durah

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the old tried and true method pioneered by Richard Nixon and his trusty secretary Rose Mary Woods: if there’s incriminating evidence, erase the tape and hope for the best.

Richard Landes reports that Charles Enderlin has cut several minutes of the videotape that purports to show what happened to Mohammed al Durah on the fateful day in September of 2000 at the Netzarim junction.

In fact, only one minute of the tape as shown has any footage of al Durah at all, according to Nidra Poller, despite cameraman Talal’s original assertion that he shot a full 27 minutes of the boy and his father. Continue reading →

Politicial theater left and right

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Reader Chris White comments sarcastically on yesterday’s thread:

And the other big fault of Democrats in Congress is ”¦ they’re being politicians. Of course, there are no politicians on the right. On the right there are only pure patriots who would never, ever, make speeches or pass legislation they know will be vetoed to make a political point or pander to their base. Did someone mention a bridge in Brooklyn they wanted to sell to me in a previous post? I think I could buy it and make a tidy sum flipping it to anyone who believes that, oh let’s say Trent Lott or Newt Gingrich, would never stoop to political theater.

In this case I happen to agree with Chris White. I’ve referred to Gingrich’s hubris before, in a post (like yesterday’s, the one that prompted Chris White’s observation) about the current crop of Democrats and their antiwar machinations in Congress. Here’s the quote:

….[that’s] the sort of narrow thinking characteristic of political strategists in general: they often can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s the sort of attitude that sunk the supposed mandate that Newt Gingrich and company thought they had back in the mid-90s, a kind of puffed-up hubris-by-election that tends to short-circuit whatever lingering common sense those in politics might retain.

Politicians do not have fragile egos; anyone with that particular affliction either does not enter the political fray, or leaves it early. But that means that politicians are very susceptible to thinking they have a greater mandate and greater power than they actually have.

I was a Democrat in the 90s, when Gingrich and company forced the government shutdown because they lacked the requisite votes to override a Presidential veto. I disliked the tactic then, and what’s more, I dislike it now, even in retrospect, and despite the fact that I’m no longer a member of the Democratic Party.

I don’t expect politicians on either side to ignore their manifold opportunities to take the low road and use whatever tools of power they can grab and manipulate. I’m not that naive. On the other hand, I’d rather have such a fight occur over government spending in general—which was the substance of the Gingrich move—than over defunding the military in the middle of a war that is going well, and that is vital to our present security, whatever may be the controversy over its launching.

Congressional motives: let’s not forget revenge—on Bush

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I’ve written a great many posts on the tireless efforts of Democrats in this Congress to stop the Iraq War in the face of the fact that they simply don’t have the votes necessary to override Bush’s vetoes. I’ve described their exertions variously as politically motivated wishful thinking, as theater, and as an overcalculation of their own strength, among other things.

And those efforts are continuing, despite strong evidence of improvement in Iraq and increased optimism about the prospects there for the future.

Why is Congress so stuck on pursuing a strategy that seems likely to come back and bite them? I wrote here that I see it as a combination of antiwar sentiment, placating the Democratic base in order to encourage all-important campaign contributions, and a frantic race against the clock inspired by the need to wipe the slate clean of the messiness of Iraq before what they assume will be a 2008 Democratic victory.

But I forgot another important reason. Perhaps, for some, it’s even the most important one: Bush-hatred, and the related desire to thwart him. Continue reading →

A little traveling music….

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I’ve got a travel day today, returning from a visit with relatives in Chicago over the long weekend, reacquainting myself with a city I once lived in but haven’t seen for almost four decades. I’d heard there were various changes there—all for the better—and that seems true. Plan to write about some of them—but for now, I’m airport-bound.