Becoming Somebody

If the United States wants to piss and moan about Iran being an evil state, it should do so because its government still forces its citizens to do things like this, not because it gets off on smack talking Israel and wants to develop a nuclear-energy policy.

Gay Iranian Wins UK Asylum Fight, from CNN.com:

LONDON, England — Britain has granted asylum to Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian student who faced deportation from the United Kingdom and feared execution in Iran for being homosexual, officials confirmed Tuesday. […]

Kazemi, 19, moved to London to study English in 2004 but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.

Fearing the same fate, he applied for asylum in Britain but was denied in 2007.

The office of Simon Hughes, the member of parliament who took up Kazemi’s cause, said the Home Office has granted Kazemi leave for five years.

Why doesn’t President Bush, or any other politician regardless of party affiliation, stand up for this kind of injustice in Iran? Why is empty rhetorical bombast and nuclear energy a greater threat to the civilized world than a government that unapologetically hangs people because of their sexual orientations? It’s nice to know where our priorities lie.

If anyone needs more evidence proving John McCain is a weak, slithering reptile willing to trade his principles to win over the neoconservative, war-mongering base of the Republican electorate, a two-year-old video has surfaced of McCain expressing his willingness to sit down with leaders of Hamas in order to broker peace between Palestine and Israel. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is what the Republicans would call “flip-flopping.”

You see, now that he has chosen to creep through the diplomatic muck heretofore inhabited by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, all in a cheap attempt to rouse fear and garner votes at the expense of America’s welfare, McCain has spent the last month berating Barack Obama for saying the exact same thing he said to Sky News two years ago. I can’t wait until I get to be so old that I no longer hold myself accountable for past statements.

Watch video:

Click here to read James P. Rubin’s op-ed in The Washington Post, calling out McCain’s Hamas hypocrisy.

Click here to read McCain’s new, hypocritcal stance on diplomacy with Hamas, straight from the decrepit, senile reptile’s mouth.

Shortly after I posted the update to my post on President Bush’s ignorant invocation of Nazi appeasement when speaking about Barack Obama and the willingness of other Democrats to engage in diplomacy with Iran and other groups whom Bush and his cronies have chosen to ignore, weakening our national security in the process, Chris Matthews laid a beat down on conservative radio stooge Kevin James, who, like most conservatives, has no idea what appeasement means. Well done, Chris. Well done.

Watch video:

At this point, after seven and a half years of repeated foreign policy blunders, half-truths and misstatements, it is hard to believe George W. Bush continues to provide new and glaring examples of his diplomatic ineptitude. Speaking earlier today in Israel, Bush likened Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers, because the likely Democratic presidential nominee has said he favors “tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions” to the deaf ears, blind eyes, and military bravado of Bush, John McCain, and the other right-wing savages whose lust for Middle Eastern blood and oil seems impossible to satisfy.

While no one has been more front and center than Obama in the recent debate over whether or not the U.S. should talk with nations with whom it disagrees, Bush did not name Obama explicitly. The president chose instead to lavish his smear on all those who prefer diplomacy to war, people like Jimmy Carter, former CENTCOM commander Admiral William J. Fallon (who “resigned his post” in March after publicly criticizing the administration’s position on Iran), and the great majority of Americans who are sick and tired of watching their sons and daughters return home in metal boxes, stuffed in the hull of a transport plane, for no good reason. But the president’s implication was nevertheless clear.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals,” Bush said in a speech before Israel’s parliament, “as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”

“We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

I would like to know which history Bush is studying here, because diplomacy has been proven to work time and again throughout our history. Need we remind Bush that the world was spared a nuclear disaster because John Kennedy and his administration were open to discussions with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during the most hostile moments of the Cuban missile crisis? Hell, even Richard Nixon, with his black soul and paranoid dementia, visited Mao’s China in 1972, helping to normalize relations and, perhaps, extinguish an international fire before it sparked.

Bush hides behind the dubious claim that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. But regardless of what the president thinks, Iran is a sovereign nation, not a terrorist organization, and it should be treated and dealt with as such. By treating Iran (and Syria and Lebanon) like dirt on his boots, imposing sanctions and choking civil discourse, Bush has done nothing but fuel the sentiment that has led many in the Middle East to sympathize with and support in elections groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The only way to stem the tide is to treat these nations firmly, but with dignity as well.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, apparently among the other appeasers, has also called for increased dialog between the U.S. and Iran. “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage … and then sit down and talk with them,” Gates said yesterday. “If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.” Gates, apparently, has spent a bit more time than his boss studying international relations.

But Bush’s misunderstanding of history doesn’t end with his brushing off of the effectiveness of diplomacy. Comparing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler, and Iran to Nazi Germany, is so inaccurate it would have been met with laughter had Bush made the juxtaposition in any other country but Israel. It is undeniable that Ahmadinejad spews anti-Semetic, anti-Zionist rhetoric at every turn. However, neither his political nor his military power is anywhere close to that which Hitler accrued in the latter half of the 1930s. Ahmadinejad’s call to “wipe Israel off the map” has all the practical force of a left hook from a geriatric amputee. It is nothing more than rhetorical posturing from an insecure little man without the faculties to otherwise lead his nation. Rather than dignifying the remarks by taking them seriously, as Bush apparently does, they should be ignored and ridiculed by civilized members of the global community.

And this is perhaps the most egregious of Bush’s many miscalculations vis-à-vis Iran. By acknowledging Ahmadinejad, the president gives him more authority than he would have otherwise. What Bush and his minions fail to realize is that Ahmadinejad no more speaks for his people than Bush does for his. Both men have seen their approval ratings dip to near record lows as they speak more and more radically, growing more and more out of touch with reality, threatening the peace and prosperity of their nations.

Like Bush, Ahmadinejad’s core support comes from lower income, less educated, and more religiously radical citizens who are more susceptible to fear tactics and rallying cries for the expansion of nationalist interests at any cost. These groups, as they grow more afraid and deeper into economic and social despair, become more willing to accept the idea that their enemies lie overseas, rather than within their borders, remaining blind to the fact that their own governments are manipulating the truth and preventing real progress by not focusing on the true cause of their problems: a stunted economy, the misappropriation of resources, too little focus on education and social welfare programs, things that limit the ability of people to rise out of their poverty and achieve better lives for themselves and their families.

Bush views himself, and in turn all heads of state, including Ahmadinejad, as the infallible mouthpiece of his country, despite the factual inaccuracy of this delusion. He also chooses to see only the worst in everyone else, their most divisive and cynical elements that are easily exploited and frightened into submission. The fact remains, however, that people simply want peace. They want economic security. They want access to education for their children. And they want these things whether they live in D.C. or Tehran or Kabul or Baghdad. No amount of chest thumping from seedy, evil leaders can change that fact.

Bush’s actions, a cheap, inaccurate fear card only he would play, are unfit for the office of the presidency, not the first time he has disgraced the position. Time and again, he proves himself nothing more than a snake-oil salesmen, using lies and empty propaganda to pitch gullible or willingly misguided people the poison that will ultimately kill them. And he does it so easily, a mischievous glint in his eyes, his mouth a twisted grin, a telltale sign revealing a seemingly logical impossibility: He truly believes his own misguided venom. I would love to spend a day inhabiting such a fairytale. If only the consequences weren’t so dire.

* * *

Update (Thursday, 4:45 p.m. ET): For the record, for those who were unsure, I looked up appeasement and found a practical, working definition: “the policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. Usually it means giving in to demands of an aggressor in order to avoid war.”

Diplomacy is defined as: “the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace-making, trade, war, economics and culture.”

If appeasement means passively giving into the demands of an aggressor, and diplomacy means actively negotiating to achieve a mutual benefit, how, then, are the two terms synonymous, as President Bush suggested in his brainless comments?

I’ll answer that question. They aren’t. The man is just a manipulative scumbag, a complete idiot, and a degenerate, lowlife piece of trash, the worst kind of politician that has ever existed and likely ever will.

A few nuggets — with my own commentary added — from the Financial Times, in a story about Barack Obama’s inability to win votes in West Virginia because, in essence, he is intelligent and black (click here to read the full story):

1. “If [Obama] is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40- year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”

Well, Missy, I think you just helped explain why your state has the lowest college graduation rate in the country. If you are one of the people responsible for educating children, then it’s pretty clear the poor tykes in your care have an uphill climb ahead of them.

What about “ordinary Americans” doesn’t Barack Obama understand, Missy? What is an “ordinary American” anyway? Something tells me, according to your narrow, redneck mind, “ordinary Americans” must believe in God, own at least three guns, be unable to read words of more than three syllables, and religiously TiVo episodes of “American Idol” and “Cops.” And what does understanding “ordinary Americans” have to do with carrying out an effective foreign policy or fixing a broken economy?

2. None of the 22 Democrats interviewed by the Financial Times at the Clinton rally would commit themselves to voting for Mr. Obama if he became the nominee, and half said they definitely would not. … Most people questioned said they mistrusted Mr. Obama because of doubts about his patriotism and “values,” stemming from his cosmopolitan background, his exotic name and the controversy surrounding “anti-American” sermons by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Several people said they believed he was a Muslim — an unfounded rumour that has circulated on the internet for months — despite the contradiction with his 20-year membership of Mr. Wright’s church in Chicago.

Where to begin breaking down the stupidity in this passage? Let me start with this whole notion of patriotism. Here’s the thing: You can’t measure it. You can’t prove that someone is more patriotic than someone else. Questioning someone’s patriotism in the Bush-Cheney era has become this generation’s version of McCarthyism. It’s a bogus slur without any base, and anyone with half a brain knows it — which explains why West Virginians are so preoccupied with it. My hope is that history will one day show today’s Middle-American, flag-waving faux-patriots to be nothing but ignorant pawns used by crooked politicians as a means to their evil end, that they did more harm to this nation than those of us who truly cared about the ideals outlined in the Constitution, things have nothing to do with lapel pins and Bibles.

I would also like to ask people in West Virginia which of Obama’s “values” they doubt. If recent political history is an indicator, I would guess that these include, but are not limited to, his valuing of fairness and equality (he doesn’t think homosexuals are minstrels of Satan actively working to destroy this Christian nation); his valuing of a woman’s right to make medical decisions and the importance of privacy between a doctor and a patient (he’s pro-choice); his valuing of generosity (he’s a liberal, after all, which is just a dirty euphemism for someone who wants to use tax money to help poor people do stuff, like send their kids to good schools and see a doctor when they’re sick); his valuing of not killing people for no reason (he was against the Iraq War). I could go on, because I’m sure there are many other objectionable values flowing through Obama’s heart, but I’m more interested in hearing how John McCain and Hillary Clinton’s “values” trump Obama’s.

Moving on to Obama’s cosmopolitan background. I didn’t know that not knowing your father; being raised by a single mother who used food stamps to put dinner on the table; moving all over the world as a child, even living in a place like Indonesia; working your ass off in the classroom to get scholarships to college and law school — the only way you could otherwise afford it; and passing up corporate jobs and tons of cash to work as a community organizer in the inner city constituted a cosmopolitan background.

Next on the list: his exotic name. Huh? You have doubts about his exotic name? Are you serious, West Virginia?

I’m passing on the Reverend Wright thing because it’s such a tired issue. At this point, there’s nothing you can say to convince a stupid person that the things Wright said, at worst, are just as atrocious as some of the hateful rhetoric spewed by white Christian clerics (see: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, the pope). The bottom line is that all religious leaders are batshit insane, and their comments should be treated as such.

Finally, West Virginia, repeat after me: Barack Obama is not a Muslim. If you hate him for belonging to a Christian church pastored by an “anti-American,” then how can you also hate him for being a non-Christian, which he would have to be if he were a Muslim?

And, for the record, who gives a shit if he was Muslim, you racist, xenophobic assholes? Not all Muslims are terrorists hellbent on killing innocent people. I think you’re confusing Muslims with evangelical Christian presidents from Texas. Zing! Gotcha, West Virginia!

3. Josh Fry, a 24-year-old ambulance driver from Williamson, insisted he was not racist but said he would feel more comfortable with Mr. McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, in the White House. “I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president,” he said.

Oh, Josh Fry. You are my favorite of them all. Please know, Josh Fry, that as I sit here in my ivory tower, in this bastion of sin I call home, where I live out of wedlock with a woman and wipe my ass with the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Revelations while silently worshiping my college diploma, I am not just listening to NPR, reading The New York Times, and using my elitist Mac laptop to instant message with an openly and unashamedly gay friend. No, Josh Fry, that is certainly not all I do here. You see, I am also wishing for your death and the death of all people who think and speak like you. You are what make this country an awful and embarrassing place, and things would be so much better if you simply didn’t exist.

And another thing, Josh Fry. Not only are you racist, you’re also a Nazi. When you say that you want a “full-blooded American” to be president, you are saying that only pure, white people should be guaranteed the rights and freedoms of this country. Well here’s a little newsflash, Josh Fry: I guarantee, if we did a genealogical examination of both you and Barack Obama, we’d see that your “full-blooded American” status is about the same as that of the guy with brown skin and a silly name. Seeing as how this country was founded by immigrants who killed, raped, and pillaged their way from sea to shining sea, I think it’s safe to assume there aren’t too many “full-blooded Americans” out there. Besides, even if there were, they’d be too busy to be president. They have casinos to run, after all.

I mentioned in a post last week that the current debate raging between the three remaining presidential candidates over whether a summer moratorium on the federal gas tax, and the particular caveats in the enactment of that moratorium, is the only interesting, substantive policy question to arise since the Iraq War troop surge. I then derided people for focusing on bullshit, tangential issues instead of this far more important matter.

Of course, like a true political blogger, I fell victim to the very social plague I railed against, skipping right past the substance while taking great pride in pointing out how everyone around me was a big moron. Well, as it turns out, I am the moron. Shame on me for being so hypocritical. Allow me to rectify the situation now.

The federal government, as everyone knows, taxes gasoline at a rate of 18.4 cents per gallon. The government uses revenue from the tax to pay for the building and repairing of roads and bridges and other things of somewhat high-level importance. For all intents and purposes, it’s a pretty good tax. The public pays into a system and is rewarded with improvements to the services provided to them by their government. If all tax spending worked as efficiently and transparently as in this particular case, I think it’s fair to suggest people would stop bitching so much about paying taxes and be glad their money was being used to provide them with things they need and want, but I digress.

Somewhere along the way, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and the people who advise them got the idea that cutting the federal gas tax during peak summer driving months would be a good idea. In reality, though, it is completely asinine. And it’s not just a little asinine. It’s so asinine, in fact, not a single economist backs either McCain’s or Clinton’s plans — this at a time when you can get a so-called credible expert to support even the most egregious falsehood (see: the build-up to the invasion of Iraq).

To be clear, Barack Obama is the only reasonable one of the bunch. He has called out the gas-tax holiday for exactly what it is — a cheap political ploy that panders to voters but does nothing to help them. Of course, by once again treating the American people like adults capable of understanding the long-term benefits of not cutting a tax, Obama is taking a huge political gamble. The American people are notorious buffoons and suckers for the promise of extra cash.

McCain and Clinton, on the other hand, continue to talk to voters like they’re grubby, money-loving children and, as such, have slightly different versions of the plan. McCain’s proposal, as you’d expect, is the more ass backward of the two, at least on paper. The very senior Senator from Arizona wants to cut the tax without compensating for it, something most experts agree would cost the country the money it needs to maintain its infrastructure. Countless construction jobs would be lost, bridges and roads would continue to crumble, the economy would slip further into recession.

Now, I’ve come to expect such half-assed schemes from McCain, because, well, he’s not very bright. Unfortunately, bravery and the ability to withstand years of torture don’t counteract the effects of aging on the mind. He’s simply lost, like grandpa, full of piss and vinegar and crazy ideas, not to be trusted with anything more important than keeping the crystal stocked with rock candy.

But Clinton, for all her flaws, of which I humbly believe there are many, is usually a bit sharper, especially on more complex issues like this one. Her plan also calls for the temporary suspension of the federal gas tax, but unlike McCain she proposes to pay for the holiday — that makes it sound so fun — with a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies. The windfall profits tax would charge oil companies a 50 percent tax on profits exceeding a certain dollar amount, something they can certainly afford considering how much money they’ve made in recent years.

There is only one problem with this idea: The windfall profits tax doesn’t exist and has little chance of getting passed by a legislative branch as inept and dysfunctional as this one. Even if Congress could get its shit together, I think it will take a bit longer than the month or two between now and the time when Hillary wants our little vaycay to begin. Throw in the fact that any increase in taxes on oil companies will likely be passed on to the consumer, thanks to our wonderful free-market capitalist system, and Clinton’s plan starts to sound even dumber than McCain’s.

For the faithful who still choose to believe in either McCain’s ill-conceived economic lunacy or Clinton’s adventures in a legislative fantasy land, perhaps because the hope of thirty extra bucks is just too enticing, there are more reasons why the gas-tax holiday makes no sense whatsoever.

First, there is nothing at all to suggest that gas-station owners will pass the tax cut onto consumers. This type of trickle-down economics never reaches the customer. We’ve seen it time and again since Reagan first introduced this mind-bogglingly stupid theory. Those at the top of the pyramid drown in excess profit and those at the bottom continue to struggle. The most likely scenario would see those who own gas stations reducing prices at the pump only slightly, while pocketing the difference saved by the repeal of the tax.

Following the money, then, thanks to the consumer frenzy likely to ensue once the “holiday” is announced, it becomes more and more clear that the oil companies would benefit most. The best either plan does to ensure that prices are set fairly is to “monitor for manipulation,” an empty, unenforceable promise from Clinton.

More importantly, though, the gas-tax holiday does absolutely nothing to get at the root cause of the ridiculous spikes in prices. In fact, it would make the problem worse.

Getting rid of the federal gas tax would only encourage people to drive more, increasing the demand for gasoline, which is already in short supply. Therefore, as any high-school economics student knows, the underlying cost of gasoline will only increase. The only way to keep things stable is to increase both supply and demand at the same rate. Unfortunately, McCain and Clinton don’t seem to be thinking that far ahead.

Increasing the demand for gas would also hinder the progress made by technology companies working to increase fuel-efficiency standards or the use of alternative fuels. The environment simply cannot take the postponement of these advancements.

Gas prices have surged for numerous reasons too complex for me understand or attempt to articulate, but these reasons are directly related to broader issues like the war in Iraq, the weakening of the U.S. dollar, and the increase in the number of oil companies owned by foreign states, namely those controlled by Venezuela and its America-hating president Hugo Chavez.

The issue has deep geopolitical roots that require long-term solutions and big-picture thinking. Attempted fixes involving anything less, like this ridiculous gas-tax holiday, simply miss the point, ignore the real problems, and dupe the public in as transparent and shameless a way as we are ever likely to see.

This just in from the department of Way To Go Morons:

U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list (click here for full story)

WASHINGTON — Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation “embarrassing,” and some members of Congress vow to fix it.

The requirement applies to former South African leader Mandela and other members of South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC), the once-banned anti-Apartheid organization. In the 1970s and ’80s, the ANC was officially designated a terrorist group by the country’s ruling white minority. Other countries, including the United States, followed suit. … Read more

If this doesn’t prove once and for all how retarded the United States’ use of the global terrorist list is, I don’t know what does. The government uses the terrorist designation as a geopolitical tool, one designed to appease our allies of the time and/or swing public opinion to gain support for global trade or military objectives that would be unpopular if citizens were given the complete truth. When will the facade of American moral superiority — something this nation’s elected officials have brandished like a golden phallus at a whore house since the defeat of the Nazis in WWII — finally crumble so we can begin to move toward a greater sense of truth, dignity, peace, and freedom in the world. Once again, the government has made me embarrassed of my country.

Turns out all us hasty bloggers were had. Aliza Shvarts didn’t actually impregnate herself and then induce a bunch of miscarriages, all for the sake of art. I must admit that I’m sort of disappointed that it’s not real. It’s a lot less provocative now. At the very least, when we all thought it was legit, it was something to talk about. Now it’s just a weird performance piece with some fake blood and staged events caught on video. Fucking artists.

A student’s stunning claims of repeatedly artificially inseminating herself and then taking drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project aren’t true, Yale University said Thursday night.

The student, art major Aliza Shvarts, told several high-level Yale officials that she did not do the things she said she did in constructing the exhibit, according to the Ivy League university’s strongly worded statement sent to FOXNews.com.

“The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” said Helaine S. Klasky, associate dean and vice president for public affairs at Yale. “Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials.”

“She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art,” Klasky said in the statement. […]

The timing of Klasky’s statement — more than 10 hours after the school paper published the story, which was picked up by several Web news outlets — indicated that Yale officials had taken Shvarts’ claims seriously enough to launch a full-scale investigation.

“Her art project includes visual representations,” Klasky wrote. “[Shvarts] stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. … Had these acts been real they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.”

The stomach-turning display will be showcased next week — complete with depictions of blood samples and videos purporting to be from the terminated pregnancies. … Click here for the full story

Shvarts’ project may ultimately provide greater commentary on the speed of the modern news cycle than it will on her intended topic. Kudos, I guess, to the artist for doing her thing, though it bugs me when people lie to the press — even a student paper — in order to advertise themselves. Normally I’d have something to say about reporters not doing their jobs, but, with something like this, Shvarts was really the only source. As long as she was saying it was real, there’s not much a reporter could do. Once again: Fucking artists.

Thanks to my kid sister for sending the update, by the way.

Every now and again, the art world wakes from its hazy fog of pretentious, postmodern self-importance and forces something provocative on the populace. Of course, most normal people would rather wedge hot, metallic spars into their eyes than voluntarily attend an art show, especially a postmodern one. But most normal people are stupid and boring, and artists love to prove this by fucking with the minds of the Average Joe and Jane, who are predictably dumbfounded by, let’s say, a Jesus painting smeared in elephant dung or a mason jar filled with a preserved pig fetus. I mean, really. How does anyone not get it?

Personally, I don’t mind being lumped in with the stupid and boring on these matters because, as pretentious an self-important as I pretend to be, I’m really just a wiseass with no self-esteem and nothing better to do than make fun of people and things I don’t like, usually doing so with veiled literary references and pop-culture satires. It doesn’t really matter to me on which side of the fence I happen to fall. But, while I think a good number of postmodernists are bat-shit insane, I have to give the accomplished artist his or her due for taking a chance and encouraging discourse, even if I don’t get it or think it’s just sort of dumb and uninteresting.

However, there are other times when these nut jobs get carried away in their self-professed genius and distract from the social and/or political discourse they are trying to encourage. And that leads me to Aliza Shvarts, a Yale University art student whose senior art project is not just nutty but downright damaging to an important movement, perhaps doing more to set it back than any recent court decision, depending on how far the media decides to carry the story. You see, Shvarts’ little project, which debuts next Tuesday, is “a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.¹”

The goal of the project, according to statements made by the artist to the Yale Daily News, is to encourage discussion on the relationship between art and the human body. This is a worthwhile conversation to have, especially in a high-level academic setting like Yale, but the method here is a little off the beaten path, to the say the least.

I’m going to leave out whether or not I think this project is in good taste, is unethical or amoral, is an indication of some deep-rooted psychological issue in the bowels of Shvarts’ blackened soul, or any other taste-based critique of the young artist and her work. Rather, the more important issue here is the socio-political implications of this project on the greater pro-choice/pro-life battle, which is surely going to lurk its way into popular conversation now that Baron Von Pontiff and his team of child-raping aides has hijacked the cities and airwaves of this once-great secular nation.

Perhaps it is youthful naiveté that makes Shvarts believe the topic her project will provoke involves the relationship between biology and art. But anyone with even the faintest whiff of life experience can see the way this will play out in the public forum. Every pro-life yahoo tuned to Fox News will have a field day shouting about the ways Roe v. Wade has made a mockery of life and has allowed deranged far-out artists to drench their cervices with semen using little more than a turkey baster, a well-positioned mirror, and a presumed mandate from hell. Pro-choice enthusiasts will then be forced into the absurd position of having to defend Shvarts’ behavior, because somehow being pro-choice has come to mean that you also love killing babies and smearing afterbirth onto the walls of some little student gallery in Connecticut. That’s the discussion that will ensue thanks to Shvarts’ little endeavor.

Now, perhaps that is a worthy debate to some, but let’s get real for a second. This type of bullshit is what fragments discussion into its most extreme elements, forcing the nuts who reside on the periphery of rational thinking into the driver’s seat of social and political conversations. And that’s why nothing gets done. It’s like filming Boy George sodomizing a ferret and then expecting people to civilly discuss the nature of human sexuality.

No, fragile artist. What will happen is that every anti-gay-rights lobby in America will take the streets telling residents of Podunk, USA that letting gay people get married will soon lead to men marrying beasts, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! And then sane gay people and those who love and respect them will have to spend unnecessary time telling everyone what they already should know, that the average gay person has no interest in banging farm or domesticated animals and the Boy George-on-innocent ferret exhibition was just some extremist artist trying to get known and not to worry. It’s one big waste of time, and a distraction from the real issue.

The truth about the majority of people who believe in a woman’s right to choose whether or not the time and circumstance are right for her to bring a child into the world is that these individuals see redeeming social value in the legal protection of this right. Contrary to what Diablo Cody would have you believe, unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are not always blessings in disguise. There are many factors that go into the decision to have an abortion. It’s not simply irresponsibility or blood lust. The moral and ethical questions involved in abortion (1) hinge on scientific evidence not yet available in the medical community, or (2) are rooted in the absolute right to privacy between a patient and her doctor, meaning there can be no outside government interference in the medical decisions made by an individual while under the care of a physician.

These points raise genuine points of debate, the discussion of which is absolutely necessary in order to reach a societal consensus on this or any issue. There is inherent societal value in discussing — because science is unable to provide the answer — when life begins. There is value in discussing whether or not that matters, and whether doctor-patient privacy issues are the overriding factor in the ethical and legal standing of abortion. It can be taken even further by granting early-term abortions but still outlawing those in the second and third trimesters. These, and many others, are all worthwhile discussions that society must have.

But we too often get distracted by intellectually marginal figures like Shvarts or your favorite abortion-clinic bomber, those with extreme ideas and methods that polarize people, divide them into opposing camps, and create an us-versus-them dynamic that leads to nothing but resentment, hostility, and anger.

Now, does Shvarts deserve a break due to her age and relative inexperience? Absolutely. But serious questions need to be asked of Yale’s faculty members, most of which should know better. Did anyone discuss the long-term health issues that could arise by repeated forced miscarriages in such a short period of time and explain to Shvarts that perhaps she should reconsider her decision not to consult a physician? Was the possible social and political effect of the project carefully thought out between student and teacher? If so, how does the faculty explain the project? These are all topics that need further investigation. Of course, I don’t expect to get much from the Yale faculty. I can only imagine the pretentious, delusional jerkoffs teaching art school at Yale.
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¹ Click here to read the full article from the Yale Daily News.

All I have to say are these three words: Nyack. Is. Hard.

25 Arrested in Nyack cocaine raid (click here to read full story)

NYACK - A cadre of police officers arrested 25 people yesterday on felony drug charges in a raid that started at dawn in the heart of the riverfront village.

The raid on apartments and homes was aimed at shutting down a cocaine-dealing crew that sold drugs out of the Nyack senior-citizen and apartment complexes on each side of Depew Avenue, authorities said. […]

During the investigation, police also seized six guns, five bulletproof vests, $74,000 and more than 9 pounds of cocaine with an uncut street value topping $400,000. They also took in 1 1/2 ounces of marijuana and about 10 packages of heroin, as well as scales and drug-packaging material.

The business was being run outside the Nyack Plaza,” Rockland Narcotics Task Force Director Joseph Tripodo said during a news conference in Nyack Village Hall. “The Building 3 Crew was entrenched in the community … and were dealing right in the middle of Nyack. It was an open air market.”

Dubbed Operation Ghostrider, the Narcotics Task Force and other departments began investigating in August based on information about drug dealing from the Orangetown Police Department. … Read more