Lowest Common Denominator

"I am not trying to be a snob", said the snob, "But if you come from any of the coasts or if you have an education in art … you wouldn't even think twice about it."

But, what is "it?"

Well, since you had to ask, "it" is the photographic work of MSU professor Danny Guthrie who over the course of the past few years has produced a controversial series of photographs. The controversy arises because some of the works contain Guthrie's aging nude body juxtaposed and oft times interacting with the nude bodies of female art students decades his junior.

Guthrie has it made--a high paying union gig at a taxpayer supported institution where emotionally immature coeds can be successfully plied out of their clothing so the tenured prof can artistically slobber on an outer thigh.

However beautiful that saliva or thigh might be, should the professor be using his understood status amidst the student body (heh, I wrote that on purpose) to publicly lament his sexual waning?


So that you know, this photo is cropped to hide the naughty bits.

While they might not think twice about this on any of the coasts or among the artistically educated, as an MSU parent who lives more than thirty miles from Lake Huron, I'm thinking about it big time right now. What I'm thinking is perhaps we should not allow the incrementally desensitized to be the moral arbiters of all things artistic in this world. Perhaps we should not hold the artistic community in such high regard that their flippant responses to moral and ethical questions become the standard by default.

I am no prude. If some twenty one year old wants to yank off her bra in order to allow Guthrie to plant his grizzled pate between her breasts at the perfect light optimizing angle, I suppose that is her choice. That doesn't make it any less creepy.

Danger of Letting the Media Decide

I posted this over at Right Michigan in the comments section to a post by The Wizard of Laws. I might as well post it here too as nothing much else is happening on this site of late.

I am of the opinion that we conservatives cannot let unsubstantiated claims promoted by a leftist media interfere with our selection of a candidate. It is dangerous to do so. We should not cede this territory to the twenty four hour news cycle.

Every conservative candidate that climbs to the top of Romney opposition gets cut off at the knees by a willing media intent upon preventing a conservative candidate from making the ballot.

How surprised should we be that the communications arm of the democrat party dragged up these skanks and ran about 100 prime time hit pieces on Cain based on the unsubstantiated claims of someone named anonymous? Where were these women when Cain was running for the senate? Where were they when he climbed ever higher in the corporate world? Where were they when his radio talk show became ever more popular? More importantly, where were they fifteen years ago when Cain was supposedly groping them or making untoward gestures?

Where was the muckraking media when John Edwards stepped out on his terminally ill wife who was undergoing cancer treatments? For that matter, why was discussion of Chappaquiddick taboo for all the years that the swollen-headed and oft inebriated Teddy Kennedy sat in the Senate? Bill Clinton, a man who "didn't have sex with that woman" remained the champion of the media long after the stained dress was proffered, with their attention instead aimed at that unsympathetic and vengeful shrew, Linda Tripp.

"But," say the doubters, "we don't think Cain is necessarily guilty. We are just concerned about the unprofessional manner in which he responded to these very serious allegations." Good grief. The guy said immediately that he didn't do it and that he has never done it. This is just the fruit of the media trying to create doubt.

The media, for its part, would be much more pleased if we selected a candidate to represent us who is highly skilled at explaining the success of his disastrous health care initiatives, or one that can eloquently state his support of "efficient green jobs technologies" that use more energy than they create, are not green, that will have no impact on the climate, and that will destroy more jobs than they create. That these slick presentations are based on fallacies is of little import to a media whose goal has somehow drifted from informing to persuading.

I haven't decided yet on whom I'm going to vote for. But, I'll be damned if I'm going to let Brian Williams, Martin Bashir, David Brooks, and those flunkies at Politico decide on who best should represent the Republicans in a system that they'd like to have mirror the process by which the mullahs screen presidential candidates in Iran. These democrat mouthpieces have no skin in the Republican or conservative games.

I think we conservatives will only survive if we refuse to pay attention to that man behind the curtain.