mondrian’s neon fantod

Lou Dobbs says things you don’t want to hear:

We all have to acknowledge that our problems were in part brought on by the failure of our government to regulate the institutions and markets that are now in crisis. The irresponsible fiscal policies of the past decade have led to a national debt that amounts to $9 trillion. The irresponsible so-called free trade policies of Democratic and Republican administrations over the past three decades have produced a trade debt that now amounts to more than $6 trillion, and that debt is rising faster than our national debt. All of which is contributing to the plunge in the value of the U.S. dollar.

At precisely the point in our history in which this nation has become ever more dependent on foreign producers for everything from clothing to computers to technology to energy, our weakened dollar is making the price of an ever-increasing number of imported goods even more expensive.

Open your ears a little wider.

Jim Norris, homesteader, Pie Town, New Mexico (LOC)

Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress has started posting pictures from their archives to Flickr. That is seriously cool. And in case you missed it, NPR covered it this morning on Morning Edition.

And it’s that coverage that lead to this post. Specifically, I got ragingly ticked when I heard the smarmy woman from Flickr prattle on about how having these photos mixed in with snapshots of the new baby or your drunk friends “breaks down that idea that museums are something special, and authoritative and, you know, important, you know?”

No, I don’t know. Museums are special, authoritative and important. That’s part of their magic.

I’m all the fuck for celebrating the majesty of the “common man.” Let’s come together as a people and a world. Let’s do away with aristocracies and classes and all that shit. Or, to quote Oklahoma:

I’d like to teach you all a little sayin’
And learn the words by heart the way you should
I don’t say I’m no better than anybody else,
But I’ll be damned if I ain’t jist as good!

But let’s not try to insist that a blurry picture of my fat ass on vacation is the moral, artistic or any equivalent of the fucking Mona Lisa. Or any other stuff that hangs in a museum.

Technology, and the whole web2.0 thing (blogs, flickr, etc.) especially, should never be thought of as a way to bring {newspapers/museums/politics/whatthefuckever} down to the level of the “common man.” Instead, these things should be thought of as a way of elevating the experiences of the “common man” to the level of {significance/art/cultural impact/whatthefuckever} as the things covered by those institutions.

It’s a subtle difference, I admit. But the main point is, humanity should always strive to move upward towards greatness rather than to deny greatness and drag it through the gutter. Egalitarianism should be about raising, not lowering. All men were created equal not by stripping everyone of rights but by ensuring that those rights were applied to everyone, even the “common man.”

In the end, it’s all well and good to speak of “leveling the playing field” - let’s just not insist on making everyone equally ugly when we can focus instead on making everyone beautiful.

I think I might have been less galled if today weren’t Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Or, well, Mithras, actually. Let’s give him back his birthday, ok?

And in that dream I had a vision. A vision of the future of food. Ladies and gentlemen of Austin (and other places, maybe, if you’re lucky) I present the ideal breakfast: Katz-Gill’s Sausage & Gravy Latkes!

Of course, the restaurant requires at least two kitchens and two dining areas, but hey, it’s a small price to pay to get two great tastes that go great together working hand in hand.

Oh yes. It’s Feelies time!

Gerry Todd would live this:

post-punk.com’s Classic Post-Punk Music Videos.

Expect individual videos to be posted here as time goes by. And maybe sooner.

I saw The Police. 24 years and 1 week after the last time I saw them. And you know what? They still rocked all these years later. And most importantly, they had me screaming like a loon when they sandwiched “Regatta de Blanc” inside “Can’t Stand Losing You” near the end of the show. Rock & Roll is fun.

Setlist
Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking On The Moon
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down (You Make The Best Of What’s Still Around)
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Truth Hits Everybody
Hole In My Life (Hit The Road, Jack)
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Can’t Stand Losing You/Regatta de Blanc
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take

They appear to be done with North America, where most of my loyal readers reside. But if they wind up playing near you, you really should go see them. They still have it.