Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Recently, the incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on a You Tube video in response to an e-mail that the new Obama Administration was going to definitively get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military. I am a little interested in how that is going to work. There are a lot of issues that would have to be resolved but we can look at it from one limited set of difficulties. By the way, I don’t use the word gay to describe homosexuals as it implies that anyone who is not homosexual is not happy.

In a U. S. military shore billet, open sexual preferences likely won’t make any difference to people who live off base because they live separately and commute to work like anyone else. That is the perspective of almost all the civilian people arguing for the change. For people who live in military housing or are deployed, it is a huge difference. By definition, people in the military who are deployed in tents or ships or live in barracks serve in very close quarters. Many years ago, I had a discussion with former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina about this same subject. He brought up the point of hygiene facilities. He wondered if we were going to have a single set of showers for everyone. The movie Starship Troopers showed a facility like that. Maybe that is where we are heading someday. The point being that if you are going to have to shower with someone who might look at you as a potential sexual partner, you might as well have the heterosexuals do the same. Why should homosexuals have the advantage of showering and using the same rest room facilities as the other same sex unit members when the heterosexuals are segregated? There is a lot of discussion in the military about unit cohesion. Does it enhance or hurt unit cohesion to have members feel uncomfortable when using hygiene facilities? It isn’t a homophobia issue; it is a privacy and comfort issue. The homosexual advocates will say that it is homophobic and portrays an inaccurate stereotype that all homosexuals are predatory in nature and that to think every time someone looks at you, they are thinking of you as a sexual partner. I agree that the stereotype is inaccurate. All heterosexuals don’t lust after all people of the opposite sex, either. Therefore, per the homosexual advocates, heterosexuals shouldn’t have to worry about homosexuals using the same facilities. Given that same logic, heterosexual men and women should not be segregated in the showers, if it is not required for the homosexuals. If it is not a problem for openly homosexual men or women to use same sex facilities with heterosexuals, it is women and men will have to get used to the idea of using the same facilities, using the same logic.

So, we have a paradox: If it is okay for openly homosexual members to use the same facilities, it should be okay for openly heterosexual men and women to use the same facilities. If you don’t agree with that logic, then one possibility is the four facility solution: 1) heterosexual males, 2) homosexual males, 3) heterosexual females, and) homosexual females. It is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit ships and barracks to those standards. Will the homosexual male facilities become the gay bath houses of the nineteen seventies? No, clearly that solution won’t work because it still puts potential sexual partners in compromising positions. Therefore, we have to go to the same two facility system we have now except the homosexual men will use the current women’s facilities with the heterosexual women and the homosexual women will use the ones with the heterosexual men. In order to keep heterosexual men from sneaking in with the women and the other permutations, all people will have to register their sexual preference when joining a unit so they can be classified to the correct hygiene facilities. Or should it just be added to your identification card like a religious preference? Should you wear some identifying badge? Germany did that in the 1930s and it didn't turn out very well. Is anyone beginning to see a problem?

Will homosexuals in relationships have to be segregated in berthing? Clearly, we can’t have people with an ongoing sexual relationship sharing the same berthing spaces with dozens of other members. Does that mean the Senior Enlisted Leadership will have to keep a spread sheet on who is dating so they can make berthing adjustments? Should we use the solution above and house homosexual males in female heterosexual berthing and homosexual females in male heterosexual berthing? No, that won’t work. All the homosexual males are clustered in the same berthing and all the homosexual females are clustered in the same berthing. It is back to the same problem. On the other hand, if we don’t care about segregating potential sexual partners, think of the money savings and convenience of opening all restrooms and showers to everyone. No more long walks down the passageway on a ship to find the sex-specific rest room. No more worrying about separate male or female berthing. Since none of the predominantly 18-25 year olds with raging hormones ever have sex when they are living in a barracks or deployed on a ship for eight months to a year, it won’t be a problem. Wait… you mean 18-25 year olds with raging hormones do have sex while deployed or living in a barracks? Say it ain’t so. Anyone who agrees with the above mentioned hygiene and berthing ideas and thinks they are feasible lives in Fantasyland and has no idea what it is like to be in the military. That is a recipe for turning an aircraft carrier deployment into a singles cruise.

Maybe we should just tell people not to have inappropriate sex, keep their sex life to themselves and keep their behavior professional. What a coincidence. That is exactly what the military does now. When it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Everyone knows that there are many homosexuals in the United States military who serve honorably and do their jobs well. There is no reason that your sexual preference prevents you from flying a plane, shooting a rifle, or watching a radar screen. The point is that no one’s sex life is a subject for discussion at work. To serve openly as a homosexual means that you have told people around you about your sex life. No one, heterosexual or homosexual should be discussing their sex life at work. It is not professional and does nothing to improve the climate in the work place. Everyone’s sex life, not just homosexuals, should be subject to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I hear liberal media always talk about how the policy doesn’t work. They constantly refer to some Arabic language speakers who were separated for homosexual acts. If you publish those acts to push the envelope, you cannot expect any other result. Heterosexuals are separated for inappropriate sexual relationships as well when they become known. The idea is to keep your private life to yourself and it is no one else’s business. To those who say the policy doesn’t work, I would say that I haven’t seen that in a lot of year’s experience. It has worked well every place I have been stationed when people keep their sex life to themselves and do their jobs professionally.

Immigration

I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that politicians are using the immigration debate for political points instead of using a common sense approach to the problem. Both liberal and conservative politicians see the rising percentage of Hispanic voters in the United States and are trying to get those potential voters into their camp. Let’s take a look at some of the issues and see if there is a sensible way to deal with the issue.

First, you have to get your head around the fact that the only issue appears to be the Mexican-American border. There is virtually never any discussion of the Canadian-American border or immigration of Canadians into the United States. There is no public discussion about Europeans, Asians, or Africans arriving by ship or plane. There will inevitably be some left winger who says it is a racist issue. I will preface my comments by saying that everyone in the United States who isn’t a Native American is an immigrant and that immigration is one of the strengths of the nation, not a detriment. Anyone who knows anything about science knows that populations improve by melding the strengths of the various components. Populations that don’t improve become extinct. With that as a background, I will focus on Hispanic immigration through the Mexican-American border.

I am definitely in favor of legal immigration because of the additional cultural aspects, foods, labor force, ideas, and all the other things that immigrants bring to the nation. Illegal immigration is a completely different issue. There is no obligation for taxpayers in any nation to pay for the health care, education, unemployment benefits, or any other expense for anyone who sneaks into any country illegally. There is a political view in California and other states that says that the children of illegal immigrants are victims and should be legally educated in state-funded schools. If these children are victims, they are victims of their parents who are, by definition, criminals. There is no obligation to provide benefits for them. No, I am not against children. These people could have come into the country legally. They chose not to. One of their incentives to come in illegally is the very fact that they do receive those benefits. The states bring the problem onto themselves. California is virtually bankrupt because of their policies and is asking for federal money to bail them out. The education system in California has gone from the best in the nation to one of the worst. They apparently never learn. They are now asking for a federal bail out. How do taxpayers in Iowa, Virginia or Ohio have an obligation to bail out California in light of their stupid policies?

Another incentive for the immigrants to come into the United States is our law which says that if you are born while physically present in the country, you are a citizen. Perhaps we should rethink that. If you are in the country illegally (a criminal act) and drop out a baby, how does that entitle the child to become a citizen? It reminds me of the old legal concept of the “fruit of the poisoned tree”. Evidence obtained unlawfully is not permitted to be used in court. If you deliver a baby while committing an illegal act, should the baby receive benefits for it? It is another incentive to sneak in. If fact, the hospitals on the border routinely deliver babies from women who wait until they are in labor, sneak into the United States, and deliver the baby in country. I suppose the question has to be asked, does this entitle this child to all the benefits of being a United States citizen? Would it make more sense to have the requirement be that any child born in the United States would become a citizen only if the mother was in the country legally?

No one can argue that the construction, farming and service industries in the United States do not benefit from the presence of illegal immigrants. Because of the decreased costs of production in picking vegetables and fruit, building homes, cleaning hotels, washing dishes, etc. there is definitely benefit to all American citizens from decreased prices. So, if we need all those folks to do those jobs, why would we want to prevent them from entering the country? The answer is: we want them to get in. The caveat is that we want them to get in legally.

The benefits of legal immigration are unquestioned. That is why I actually prefer the suggestion made in the past few years of the Guest Worker program. If workers from other countries (primarily Mexico, Central and South America) can enter the country legally with temporary paper work, there are a number of advantages for the United States. We can keep track of who is entering the country. From both the security and financial standpoints, this is clearly what we want. This also assuages any guilt over nailing people who come in illegally. If there is an easy way to enter legally for people who just want to make some money to support their family, there is no reason to feel sorry for people who decided to come in the illegal way.

If there is an easy way to obtain legal temporary status to come and work, what is the incentive to sneak in unless you have nefarious motives? Since so many less people need to sneak in, the numbers of people that need to be apprehended is less and the Border Patrol can focus on the real criminals trying to sneak in with narcotics, etc.

The temporary workers can take their earnings and go home to their families in Mexico, Central or South America, knowing that they will be able to come back the next season without having to enter illegally. That gives them more time with their families and less anxiety over the process of entering to earn. The industries which employ the workers who are now illegal will have legal employees who don't have to hide and don't have to stay when their work is out of season.

When you can track guest workers, those people will pay payroll taxes and social security taxes and therefore will be entitled to basic services because they are paying into the system. The financial balance will be much improved for local and state governments. No one should mind the presence of anyone who wants to work and provide for their family. It is the best of human motives.

To me, a Guest Worker program makes sense on many levels. Politicians oppose it for their own reasons but it seems to be the best answer to allow fairness and to maintain viability of the industries mentioned above.

My Aunt and the Interconnections of People

I have unfortunately reached the age where my older relatives seem to disappearing rapidly. My aunts and uncles are all of the World War II generation and those folks are going away quickly. I received information that my last remaining aunt, who is ninety five, is apparently not doing well and is expected to pass away soon. It got me thinking, as those types of events tend to do. We always say with dark humor that the only time that the family gets together is at weddings and funerals. I don’t even think we get together at weddings. The real shame in that is that my mother’s family, including the entire first cousin group that I am in, was very close when I was child and saw each other at least weekly. I have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days and thought I would collect some of those thoughts.

I have spent the last ten years or so researching and writing a book about the genealogy of my family. In doing so, I have noticed some generic trends in society. In the United States, up until the twentieth century, the country was primarily an agricultural economy. When I look back at the census listings for my ancestors, with a few notable exceptions, nearly everyone was listed as a farmer. The way things progressed typically was that you were raised on a farm, married someone nearby and either inherited your parents farm or bought some land near by and started your own farm. Families were never too far apart and helped each other when ever bad times came around. People tended to stay in the same area for the entirety of their lives. I can go to the Louisa County, Virginia Circuit Court House and follow my mother’s family from the present all the way back to about the year 1600 when some guy came over on a boat.

My older brother, and several of my first cousins and I were the first in our family to ever graduate from college. The combination of higher education, the change in the economy from agriculture to manufacturing and service, and increased mobility has led to families like mine dispersing about the country in ways almost unheard of one hundred years ago. Back then, when you went out west, you were never seen again. While the increased mobility has led to better job opportunities and more financial independence, I wonder about the impact on families of not having close relationships with one another. In the case of my aunt, my wife is traveling to stay with her, a first cousin (not her child) is checking on her daily, and my mother is in contact with her almost daily by telephone. That support does not include what her living children are doing. I wonder about how much support will be given to the elderly of future generations when their nephews and nieces hardly know them.

My aunt is a person who never misses an opportunity to laugh at the silliness that the world routinely exposes. She has had the uncommon blessing to spend ninety five years on this Earth with all of her mental faculties. Despite all kinds of health issues, she has always been alert and able to think for herself. I only pray that quality is genetic in my family. In fact, the more I think about it, the only person I can remember ever having anything resembling Alzheimers is an aunt by marriage. We also don’t have any male pattern baldness. That is pretty encouraging.

The reason I started typing this entry was because I was thinking of how many lives my aunt touched and connected with over ninety five years. I particularly think of people who were not family. When she lived in Louisa, she would drive a quarter of a mile to a local convenience store to buy a Virginia Lottery ticket and a newspaper daily. She would always have a nice conversation with the clerk. I went down to the store one day for her. The clerk just about talked my ear off about how much she looked forward to seeing my aunt every day. She lived in a housing project subsidized by the State of Virginia and made close friends with her neighbors. That is her, in a nut shell. The examples could fill volumes. She is just someone who is fun and comfortable to be around. My mother regularly goes with my step father to eat lunch at a Subway franchise. The manager of the Subway recently gave a birthday present to my mother just because she likes to see her. I think we all don’t bother to think about the impact that we have on other people as we move around doing our daily tasks. The difference between being abrupt and a kind word can have large implications on the people with whom we interact and we usually are not even aware of it. Something as small as a thank you when you actually mean it can have impact. Most people do the right thing when they can and don’t ask for anything more than just some small acknowledgement that their efforts have been recognized and appreciated. Being pleasant is a valuable asset. My aunt is a walking ray of sunshine that brightens everyone she passes. When you get old enough, inevitably you will have to visit someone in a nursing home. Those visits can be terribly uncomfortable. It is a rare and extraordinary thing to be able to say that I always look forward to visiting my aunt in the nursing home. I will miss her terribly but can’t help but smile every time I think about the good luck I have had to be a part of her family and have her in my life.

Leadership and the Herd Mentality

In any large population, the distribution of the people in the population will be represented by a Bell Curve. That means that ninety-five percent of the population will fall within two standard deviations of the median. By definition, two and one half percent of the population will be at the upper end, outside the two standard deviations, and two and one half percent will similarly be located at the bottom.

I am not particularly concerned over the dregs of the group because they will almost never be successful or provide any meaningful contribution. The upper two and one half percent will almost inevitably be leaders. The rest of the group will tend to follow a herd mentality. You see examples of this everywhere. In the entertainment industry, any time that a new popular show is developed, multiple clones always appear shortly thereafter. Every time a new band creates a buzz, other record labels will come up with similar acts in short order. Production of new fashion lines, toys, consumer products, computer innovations, etc. all follow the same pattern. The innovators and producers of new and imaginative products will be followed by the knock offs and the similar, if not quite as good, products. In some cases, when a product has been rushed to market, the newer product may be an improvement. The use of the herd mentality is an advantage in some circumstances. On Wall Street, the few truly inventive and innovative investors can use the fact that the herd will follow to their advantage when buying and selling stocks and commodities.

In any large organization, an analogous population distribution will exist. One of the difficulties in leadership is to recognize who the upper group is among the herd. To do so requires patience and foresight. An intrinsic quality of innovators is that they are not afraid to try new ways to do things and take risks. The taking of risks means that inevitably some attempts at improvement will be unsuccessful. To punish people for taking risks which do not work is to discourage anyone from trying to improve any process. It breeds an environment of safety in which no one does anything new in fear of making a mistake. The military is becoming such an organization. One adverse fitness report can stop your career as an officer. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, unless you are a mass murderer, no one gets a bad fitness report. Unless a weakness is so obvious so as not to be ignored, it is glossed over and a bland positive report is generated. Second, since no one gets a bad fitness report, any minor weakness actually reported stands out as a major problem because no others exist in the majority of reports. This environment discourages honest reporting and creates a herd of vanilla, bland officers who do everything by committee to share responsibility and will not take risks. I have pointed out in the past a large number of successful military leaders (Grant, Patton, Sherman, etc.) who couldn’t even get promoted to positions of leadership today because of their political incorrectness. One of the differences in the American military in World War II was that the majority of the military members were not career oriented and just wanted to win the war and go home. Therefore, they weren’t worried primarily about their careers.

Senior leaders should have the best interest of the organization in mind and not their own personal job security. A good leader can always get another job. The good leader allows their people to innovate and take risks and realizes that mistakes will happen. The good leader recognizes the difference between mistakes due to incompetence and mistakes made in good faith while trying to improve processes and does not punish the latter. The true leader encourages innovation and risk taking. Only in this way, will an environment be created which will lead to improvement and new ideas and not to a stagnant and unchanging organization.

The Anonymity of the Internet

There is an interesting case I heard about on the news which I am pondering. A model, Liskula Cohen, is suing Google to find out who is responsible for a web site devoted to trashing her photos and personality. It brings up some interesting arguments.

There will, of course be those who argue for the First Amendment right of free speech. Before I partially agree with that point of view, I feel obligated to point out that the right of free speech was intended to be for political speech. It was the view of the founding fathers that to have a functional democracy, the population should be allowed to hear all sides of issues to make informed judgments. In order to have representative votes, the population has to be educated on political debates. I don’t believe they ever intended exotic dancers to run around naked as part of their first amendment rights. Therefore, I believe the First Amendment is critically important to a democracy when interpreted in that light.

That being said, before the internet, when you spoke out or wrote about a subject, any subject, it was easy to recognize who the source of the information was. That recognition allowed the subject of the discussion to respond accordingly to the speaker or writer. The internet has now allowed anyone, anywhere to widely broadcast any information, factual or not, anonymously without directed response and without ever being held accountable for the content. In law, one of the fundamental rights of trials is to be able to face your accuser and present your side of an issue. It is precisely the anonymity of the internet that allows cowards and provocateurs to make slanderous accusations without ever being held responsible.

In order to win a case of libel in court, one must show that the information presented is false, that damage has been done, and most importantly, that there was intentional malice in the presenter’s publication of the information. This is where almost everyone, particularly news organizations, gets out of responsibility for their false information. They just say they never intended to hurt anyone. In fact, for most public figures, it is assumed that lies about them are par for the course. Whether a Vogue model is a public figure can be debated. The question is more about where the anonymity line is drawn. The fact that some coward calls a model a “skank” is not Earth-shattering but the fact that the person cannot be identified means that all restraint is gone. What if the person is publishing classified data or advocating open rebellion? I can already hear people saying, “But that is against the law!” or "It is only an opinion". Slander and libel are also reasons to be held accountable. The only difference is that it is a civil action, not a criminal one. Can someone knowingly publish false facts or intentionally hurtful information on the internet anonymously with impunity?

Let’s take a couple of more examples: Can someone intentionally publish misleading information about drug dosages which leads to many people taking overdoses of a medication? Can someone intentionally publish inaccurate instructions on how to put a product together which cause injuries to the users? Can someone publish instruction on making home-made weapons? Once again, the arguments would be, “These things cause harm to the users”. But one could also argue that trashing a professional model’s reputation could cause her to lose work and therefore harm her financially. She would, of course, have to show that harm in a court case. But the problem in all those scenarios is that the publisher of the information has no responsibility at all if the publisher remains anonymous. If someone published the above mentioned information in print or spoke it in public, the source is easily identified. I believe that the internet is a valuable tool and cannot conceive of not having access to it but it should not be a wall of privacy for every ne’er do well on the planet to hide behind as they perform nefarious deeds. I also believe that Google and all other internet service providers have an obligation as citizens to not assist people in either committing crimes or causing intentional harm. To the person who made the comments, come out of your mother’s basement, step up to the plate and identify yourself. If you can’t take on a ninety five pound model, you are one sad sack of feces.

Term Limits and Corruption in Politics

As I have watched the political landscape over my adult life, I have seen more and more of the ineffectiveness of the legislative branch. I am convinced that many of the problems which we all see regularly playing out on the evening news and the twenty-four hours news outlets could be avoided by term limits. I have written earlier on how the US Constitution was purposely developed in the way that is was to make the passing of new law and the changing of existing law difficult so as to not be subject to whim and short term fads and trends. What we see now is not what the founders intended.

The founding fathers embraced the concept of the citizen-legislator. This is when a person becomes successful in some private endeavor and then voluntarily leaves his vocation to temporarily serve in the government to try to better the state for all. The citizen-legislator does not join the government to advance his/her own interests but serves to improve the lot for the people. After a period of service, the citizen-legislator leaves government voluntarily to return to their vocation, content in the knowledge that they have served their country and that others will carry on in their stead. It is a way to pay back the country for the opportunities which allowed the person to become successful in the first place. It is not done for personal enrichment or glory, it is altruistic.

We have devolved to the lowest political scum, the career politician. The only goal of the career politician is to remain attached to the public teat for as long as possible. Those who are career politicians may have the public good at heart as a coincidence, but their primary goal is always to maintain their office and to consolidate their power. Let us examine some of the problems with the career politician.

Anyone who spends their entire life in public jobs has no idea how the overwhelming majority of people in the United States earn their living. I will use some examples throughout this discussion. How a very wealthy Senator who never held a job of consequence in his life (e.g., Edward Kennedy) claims to be champion of the working man amazes me. The idea of the citizen-legislator was to bring people with real-world experience and knowledge to the legislature so that people who understood commerce would craft laws about commerce. People who understood the effects of taxes would write laws controlling taxation. People who held jobs would create law which encouraged job creation. People like Bill Clinton who never had a job not paid for by tax payers are stereotypical of what the founding fathers did not want. The Civil Service, not elected office, is the place for people who want to make a career in government.

There is no reason to consolidate power into a kingdom if you know you will be leaving office and will no longer be King. Lobbyists pay off the more senior and more powerful legislators precisely because they know that those people will never leave office voluntarily. You might have noted that every time you see a Representative or Senator charged with misconduct or ethical violations, it is always some one who has been in Congress a long time (Stevens, Frank, Dodd, Rostenkowski, Hastert, Rangle, Jefferson, etc.) That is because it makes no sense to bribe someone who doesn’t hold power to promote your agenda. The saying that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” could have been the motto of the US Congress. Quoting Alexander Hamilton in Federalist number six, "Men of this class, whether the favourites of a King or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquillity to personal advantage, or personal gratification."

The career politicians always argue that the people have a right to vote whoever they want to into power for as long as they want. Of course, the people don’t know about the many back room deals, gerrymandering and bribes which go into continuously getting those same politicians re-elected. That argument might work if there was a level playing field but there clearly is not.

The career politicians also argue what a wonderful job they have been doing for their constituents. While this may be true and many unnecessary tax-funded projects may have been brought back to their political contributors in their home districts, the arrogance of the argument is startling. If you are, for example, a Senator from New York, will you honestly argue that there is no one else in a state of millions of people who could do a good job as Senator? Does Ted Stevens have to remain a Senator (and crook, apparently) for thirty six years? Is there no one else in the State of Alaska who could do the job? He stayed there for that long and you see where it ended up. Joe Biden has been a Senator for twenty eight years and is now actively seeking to have his son taken the seat from him. Is that an elected office or a kingdom? The King is now Vice President; long live the new King, son of the old King.

My suggestion is that when the amendment restricting the terms for the Presidency to two was passed, it didn’t go far enough. That is not unusual because Congress almost always includes a codicil in every law they pass which states that the law does not apply to Congress. I think that five terms (ten years) is enough time for any representative to do some good then go home. Two terms (twelve years) is enough for a Senator. If you can’t get anything done in twelve years, you need to be replaced on principle. A system like that would set up a staggered rotation, eight years for President, ten years for Representatives, and twelve years for Senators. The idea of Robert Byrd tottering around the Senate, barely able to speak and stay awake, is ridiculous. By the way, if you want to see how absolute power does absolutely corrupt, go see Robert Byrd in West Virginia. You take the Robert Byrd Highway across the Robert Byrd Bridge and the Robert Byrd Dam, turn onto Robert Byrd Parkway past Robert Byrd Park, Robert Byrd Elementary, and Robert Byrd High School until you find the Robert Byrd Federal Building. There may be something in West Virginia not named after Robert Byrd but I am not sure what that might be.

Art and Public Funding

There is always an ongoing debate about public funding, as in tax money, being used to give grants to art projects through the national Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and other public mechanisms. I have had the same debate a number of times over the years and today I was reminded of it so I thought I would make an entry about this subject.

The first problem with the system is that art, by its very nature, is so subjective that the difficulties in determining which projects should be funded are problematic. It will always be left up to the interpretation of the leaders of the NEA what constitutes worthwhile projects. Inevitably, there will be public disagreement about whether a project is worthy. A large part of this is that the very people chosen to be a part of the NEA are not going to be in the mainstream of American education or values. Anyone who believes that a crucifix in a jar of urine is not offensive and is worthy of public funding is clearly outside the mainstream of public opinion. The art community will, of course, argue that the very nature of art is to be provocative. While that may be true, it in no way obligates the use of tax funding to subsidize the making of such projects.

My older brother, who is one of the smartest people I have ever known, once told me that a project like that was art because it “evoked an emotional response”. I argued in response to him that if someone was to make a bowel movement on the hood of my car, it would certainly evoke an emotional response in me and I wouldn’t consider it art. Additionally, what I would do to that person would certainly evoke an emotional response from him/her and that person, while traveling to the medical facility, would not consider my response performance art. It would, however, be nice if the police said no charges could be filed because I was just doing some “art”.

After the conversation with my brother, the analytical side of me reared its head and I decided I needed some objective criteria for what I considered art. So, here are a few that I came up with in a short time:

1) If I can do it, it isn’t good. I am absolutely terrible at painting anything other than a wall in a house. If art work consists of randomly throwing something at a canvas, scribbling nonsensical figures, pouring something to have it splatter, dropping something out of a flying plane, or especially, using bodily fluids, it sucks because I can do that. I am not sure who decided that three I-beams stacked up and painted orange is art but you see that same crappy thing in front of buildings everywhere. Once again, I can do it, so it sucks.

2) If you have to explain it to me, it isn’t good. Quality pieces of art have some intrinsic beauty or force that allows one to just know it has merit when seen. If I have to listen to some long-winded explanation about how it represents mans constant struggle to revive the extinct Dodo bird, the artist is not an artist, he is a bullshit artist. I can look at anything Rembrandt painted and just be awed by the lighting and mastery contained in the painting. Anyone can look at a Michelangelo statue and have no question of the mastery in his hands. I don’t need Rembrandt or Michelangelo to come back from the dead and explain it to me.

3) If you can’t sell it, art is your hobby, not your job. I play the guitar pretty well and sing while I am playing. That does not make me a professional musician. I do not expect the United States government to fund my upcoming CD costs. I don’t believe that Brad Paisley, Josh Groban, or the Rolling Stones expect funding for their recordings, either. If no one likes what you are producing enough to purchase it, you should at least consider the idea that your art work is not good. There are thousands of “actors” in Los Angeles who have never made dime from the entertainment industry. If you are making your living bussing tables, you are a potential actor but not a professional one. In fact, you are a bus boy. A struggling artist is a pseudonym for someone who can’t make a living from art. My previously mentioned brother is a very successful writer but he always had a job in addition to writing and didn’t expect taxpayers to subsidize his work.

4) Funding for art education is a legitimate use of tax dollars. The idea of having a broad educational experience for children in public schools, including art and music is a good thing. When you consider the current state of commercial television and the pop recording industry, it is clearly in the interest of all people in the country to have kids exposed to some quality. Classical music, jazz, poetry, classical literature, and art all deserve a place in education. I will also add that they should be in addition to, not in place of, reading, mathematics and science. I would much prefer kids to know the story behind the 1812 Overture than what “I’m gonna do with all the junk in my trunk”.

5) Good art and literature stays good. Charles Dickens books are still good all these years after he has departed. Leonardo DaVinci's works still inspire awe despite the hundreds of years since he produced them. He is another one who doesn't have to come back and explain them. Anything that is trendy and doesn't stand the test of time exposes itself for what is is... bad.

When the outlay of public funds for art projects is left in the hands of a small group of people chosen because of their out of the mainstream radical views, it is inevitable that curious and outrageous decisions will be the result. Their response is the typical left response of “You just don’t get it” because anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid. Recognizing trash when you see it is not one of the prerequisites for stupidity, however, not recognizing it certainly is.