Edward Michael George

The spin is settled

2009-11-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

If you're not following this, you should be. (You can be forgiven if you haven't been, as Lorne Gunter appears to be the only Canadian journalist who's noticed.)

And Mitchieville dubs some smart onto planestupid's little parody of self-righteousness:

Hideous Public Art: Curmudgeons II - Revenge of the Killer Curmudgeons

2009-11-11T17:30:00.003-05:00

You remember that I had the good fortune recently of meeting Eric--of Diogenes Borealis--and spending an afternoon with him, right? (Half our time was spent hoisting pints on a Baldwin Street patio, the other half guffawing our way down University Avenue etc.)

Well, here's the second installment of our impressions of that day--the first can be found here--cross-posted to each of our sites.

Stop 3: The McMurtry Gardens of Justice and The Pillars of Justice.

EMG
The next stop on our stroll was not anticipated, but ended up being—in my opinion—its highlight.

Immediately outside of the Ontario Superior Court (across the street from the U.S. Consulate General) and—as we were traveling south—just past a very thin presence of still-protesting Tamils, Eric and I happened upon what are known as “The Pillars of Justice” and “The McMurtry Gardens of Justice”.

A little back- ground:

The McMurtry Gardens project—named in honour of then-Chief Justice Roy McMurtry, who was on the point of retiring—was conceived of nearly 3 years ago with the purpose of enlivening an otherwise dull block of the downtown with a sculptural garden (comprising around ten pieces, of which the Pillars are the first), contained within just the garden-variety of gardens stretching to Queen Street. The monuments were to depict “justice-related themes”; the garden itself, to borrow poor Michael Bryant's agonizing description, would “forever serve as a reminder that justice bloomed in Ontario under Roy McMurtry … [who] ensured that nothing could stop the growth of justice, human rights, and the rule of law."

Well, as it is now, there’s a little too much of the Gaza Strip about the Gardens—what with their flowerless piles of bleached-out dirt (save for a few weeds), made inaccessible by clumsily erected chain-link fences—and we’re still 9 short of the proposed 10 sculptures. (And that’s 3 years on, in case you’re not remembering. Three years!)

The Gardens wouldn’t be a hundredth so ridiculous were it not for the facts that 1) their commemorative plaque was erected well in advance of the planting of any actual greenery (work that cannot be undertaken any sooner than spring of next year), and 2) the plaque urges us to take this wasteland as our cue for a reflection on the state of our f-ing judicial system.

Nothing can stop the growth of justice, human rights, and the rule of law, eh Mr. Bryant? How about neglecting to sow their seeds?

But, no doubt, this will become a moot point in a year. Or two. Or three.

As for the Pillars … Well, this piece is something like exquisitely awful. The thing is just so banal, so unimaginative, and so aesthetically barren that it seems to me that only silver jump-suited aliens visiting our post-apocalyptic world could be impressed by it. A little primitive did I hear you say, Quaxon 2000? Yes, perhaps. But is it not admirable that this civilization evolved to the point of developing a Public Art Algorithm of which, clearly, this is a product? It puts me in mind of the emblem on our own galactic shield. You know the one: the really big spaceship made-up of 42 smaller spaceships?

This burrito of adolescent pretension is made of steel apparently, but you’d never know from looking at it; somebody had the brilliant idea of painting the thing white so that it looks like huge slabs of foam core. And while the maquette suggested that the Pillars would have a sturdy base of four steps, it only has two—bolted carelessly to a disproportionate (and concrete) third. The consequent impression of flimsiness is so vivid that you’d think a strong gust could toss the whole mess up University, bunking lightly off car-roofs and pedestrians’ heads until it got caught on a staple protruding from a telephone poll … Where it would flap for months until nothing was left of it but a few exhaust-stained tatters.

The body of Oscar Nemon’s work at least gave us the reassurance that Gumby Goes to Heaven was an exception—however glaring—to the sculptor’s rule. The same, alas, cannot be said of this artist, Edwina Sandys. (That’s pronounced “sands” by the way—who is, coincidentally, the granddaughter of Winston Churchill, whose be-bird-shitted likeness, you’ll remember, scowls but a block east of here.) There isn’t enough space here to dedicate to a proper examination of Ms. Sandys’ work; suffice it to say that anyone who thinks they are doing something challenging or original by putting a pair of tits on the crucified Christ and calling the thing “Christa” deserves to be ridiculed to scorn. Ms. Sandys is the very embodiment of social justice activism as psychosis.

By way of introduction to Eric’s analysis, I leave you with this tidbit (from James Rusk of The Globe and Mail--scroll down the thread) regarding the artist’s process:

Ms. Sandys … said she had first thought of modelling a work on the statue of Blind Justice at The Old Bailey in London, but on realizing the concept of blind justice could be misconstrued, chose a different design.

On realizing the concept of blind justice could be misconstrued, she chose a different design.

Inf-ingcredible.

Eric
Where does one start? There's not much I can add to EMG's observations about the Gardens of Justice except to re-iterate the point that if you're going to put up a monument called Gardens of Justice complete with a helpful plaque explaining the concept to puzzled viewers, you'd better include ... what's the word? ... a garden. The site in its current form just invites mockery. The boulevard down the centre of University Avenue includes some beautifully tended flower beds, but the only one specifically designed to symbolize a civic virtue - and one that has been three years in the making - looks like Berlin after the Russians were through with it in 1945.

I can just imagine some poor sap having some life-altering case adjudicated in the nearby Superior Court building after having mortgaged his meagre possessions to pay the shysters at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, stepping out during the lunch adjournment to eat a sandwich on University Avenue. He beholds the Gardens of Justice choked with noxious weeds and promptly steps in front of a north-bound bus.

I'm willing to give the project the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Gardens will eventually be in full bloom sometime in the near future (since the wheels of justice do grind slowly), so perhaps I'm being a little harsh. Nevertheless, even if it is ever full of tulips this garden will still be a little cringe-inducing. It's a garden, get it? A "garden of justice!" Get it? Justice "blooms" in Ontario! Get it? They say that a pun is the lowest form of humour - ditto for visual, horticultural puns.

As for the Pillars of Justice - good lord. I assume the structure is meant to mimic the Erectheum's Porch of the Caryatids on Athens' ancient acropolis. The Erechtheum was Athens' temple to Athena Polias, protectress of the city, and the Athenians built a suitably impressive monument for her. What do we have on University Avenue? A cartoon-like structure which looks more like the temporary set from a low-budget high school production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.

Once again, the patricians responsible for this artwork have included a helpful plaque to explain its symbolism to the bewildered plebes. "We are the pillars of justice", we are told. "The missing pillar invites you to imagine that you are the twelfth juror." Oh - it's interactive! How clever! If I stand in the gap, I can participate in the justice system in all its panoply! Please. EMG and I took turns standing in the place of the missing Pillar of Justice and we both felt like idiots. In fact, EMG felt compelled to grab the ass of caryatid number 11. People walking by looked at us patronizingly like we'd just fallen off the turnip truck from some benighted art-less place east of the Don Valley. "It's a metaphor, you stupid hicks," you could almost hear them saying. "You're not meant to literally be a pillar of justice."

In this case, maybe not. A look at Edwina Sandys' previous commissions reveals a tiresome fascination with juvenile metaphors. Check out The Marriage Bed, in which one learns that marriage can literally be both a bed of roses and a bed of nails. Or how about Woman Free - another sculptural cartoon depicting, well, a free woman. I noticed on her website that the United Nations is one of her main clients. That seems fitting. She seems to produce works of art suited to government committees looking for logos for their PowerPoint presentations. Pillars of Justice fits right in with the rest of her teen-angst oeuvre. The viewer is literally a pillar of justice. Groan.

This woman is the grand-daughter of Winston Churchill? This is another sad example of the decline of once-great families. Commodore Vanderbilt's dynasty degenerated to Anderson Cooper; the Churchill line ends at Edwina Sandys. Churchill once said "success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm". Indeed.

(cross-posted at Diogenes Borealis)

Roger Scruton on what happens to liberty without substance

2009-11-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

For the most part, the people I met were quiet, studious, often deeply religious, attempting to build shrines in the catacombs, around which small circles of marginalised people could gather to venerate the memory of their national culture.

...
In 1985 the secret police moved against me and I was arrested in Brno; visits to Czechoslovakia came to an end and I was followed in Poland and Hungary. But our team kept going until 1989 when, to our surprise, the catacombs were opened and our friends came pale, staggering and bewildered into the sunlight, to be hailed by the people as the natural trustees of their restituted country. This was a wonderful moment and, for a while, I believed that the public spirit that had reigned in the catacombs would now govern the State.

It was not to be. Having been excluded for decades from the rewards of worldly advancement, our friends had failed to cultivate those arts — hypocrisy, treachery and realpolitik — without which it is impossible to stay in government.

They sat in their offices for a while, pityingly observed by their staff of former secret policemen, while affable and much travelled rivals, of the kind with whom German Social Democrats and French Gaullists could both “do business”, carefully groomed themselves for the next elections.

Not since 1945 had so many records of party membership disappeared, or so many dissident biographies been invented. Within two years the real dissidents had returned to their studies, while the world outside was racing on, led by a new political class that had learnt to add a record of outspoken dissidence to all its other dissimulations. We were witnessing what Dubcek had promised, socialism with a human face.
...
But those countries today bear no resemblance to the liberated nations that were dreamt of in the catacombs. For when the stones were lifted, and the air of freedom blew across the underground altars, the flame that had been kept alive on them was instantly blown out.

Roger Scruton, The flame that was snuffed out by freedom

(via Peter Hitchens)

Fry Fry!

2009-11-05T14:38:00.003-05:00

(Sorry to those of you who are sick of the sight of Katie Price's jugs--actually, cisterns is maybe the better word. I am too. In fact I feel positively alienated by them, and haven't visited EMG for days as a consequence. Moving on then ...)

Damian Thompson takes issue with the Edenbridge Bonfire's choice for this year's celebrity effigy--Katie Price, coincidentally enough--suggesting that there is a more deserving candidate:

[My choice] would be Stephen Fry. Yup, let him fry. Or, rather, melt, since this particular guy would be made of wobbly, self-pitying blancmange.

Hear, hear!

I used to love Stephen Fry--so much so, that for a number of years after I stopped loving him I still bought and read his dreadful books. But that's all over now. His transition from hugely talented, witty, self-effacing sceptic to twee, clownish, self-absorbed luvvie is complete and the mere sight of him makes me cringe. He has joined that sickening class of Englishmen who clearly know their cultural inheritance to be of extraordinary value, but refuse to defend it openly because they can't stand the thought of being disliked or, far greater crime!, being considered lame. So Fry's gone the route of relentless self-parody; that way he gets to retain for his personal use some vestigial remnant of the thing he can't bring himself to stop adoring--but always with a wink, so nobody thinks him unclever for doing so.

Let his example be a warning to all of you who try to serve two masters. (Apart from anything else, it gets on the brain. And you end up saying the funniest things.)

Women!

2009-10-28T16:00:00.001-04:00

The Guardian's Jean Hannah Edelstein regrets, wearily (what with the weight of the patriarchy and all that), Martin Amis' apparent misogyny:

It's always a little bit astonishing in these relatively enlightened times when someone who would like to be regarded as an important contributor to the cultural agenda relies on lazy, casual misogyny to attempt a critique. But it's the approach that Martin Amis has taken in adding his thoughts to the current (somewhat tired) debate about celebrity writers creaming off the profits of talented ones, when he remarked of Katie Price (widely recognised as his key literary rival) that "She has no waist, no arse ... an interesting face ... but all we are really worshipping is two bags of silicone."

I love the Guardian for this kind of stuff: the opinions that could go either way, but once the course has been chosen, are defended in the harshest possible terms.

For it's quite clear that Ms. Edelstein could just as easily have made the argument for Katie Price's own misogyny: i.e. the career reduction of her femininity to just sex appeal. (Indeed, rarely will the term 'sex appeal' seem so dewy-eyed, almost prudish, given the person it's here describing.)

The breadth of Ms. Price's fuck-puppetry act (to give it its proper name), after all, is impossible to ignore. Among other things, she is a model (complete, yes, with massive breast implants), a reality tv star, and the name into which a host of ghostwriters have thrust their best efforts at making money off the slobbering and unenlightened masses. I haven't seen enough of her (un-photoshopped, that is) to be able to confirm Amis' assessment of her waist and arse, but it is objectively the case that not only are we really worshipping her magnificent bags of silicone, we are doing so because she wants us to. We are doing so because Ms. Price can't be, erm, arsed to do anything other than self-exploit.

Edelstein gives the game away thus:

Now, I doubt that Amis has flickered across Price's radar; nor, if he has, that she cares much about his opinion since it would appear that she is currently preoccupied with her romance with her cage-fighting boyfriend and not much with writing books, which she employs someone to do on her behalf.

Mee-OW!

But surely--surely, surely, surely--these are "lazy and casual" attacks on Ms. Price based on an unfair stereotype of women, too? Does Ms. Edelstein know for a fact that this apparent bimbo is ignorant of Martin Amis? That she is so because she's too busy with her manly-man boyfriend and getting other people to earn her money for her?

... And poor old Martin Amis is being--not merely obvious--but a misogynist when he observes the same thing!

(Observes that the empress is wearing no clothes, I mean.)

Anglican Catholics

2009-10-22T11:05:00.001-04:00

The Globe and Mail expresses its concern (and you can bet it's grave) over Benedict XVI's recent gesture towards orthodox Anglicans:

The Vatican announcement will make the Catholic Church more conservative and the Anglican church more liberal. Is that what ecumenism is meant to accomplish?

No. No it isn't. Touché, Mr. Mail. Ecumenism is meant to accomplish precisely nothing, and this definitely isn't nothing.

But I love this fear, simultaneously, of the Catholic Church becoming more conservative, and the Anglican church becoming more liberal. Strangely, the Globe editorialists do not express their (undoubted) worry that the Baptists are being ignored in all this, and that they are then at some serious risk of becoming even more like Baptists.

Clever Sillies

2009-10-20T14:40:00.000-04:00

Udolpho is back. Sort of.

He's got a little forum thing going, and posts under the name Pleasureman. Here's a pretty awesome thread wherein he and a couple of guys rap about this essay by Bruce G. Charlton.

Some excerpts (from the essay):

General intelligence is not just a cognitive ability; it is also a cognitive disposition. So, the greater cognitive abilities of higher IQ tend also to be accompanied by a distinctive high IQ personality type including the trait of ‘Openness to experience’, ‘enlightened’ or progressive left-wing political values, and atheism. Drawing on the ideas of Kanazawa, my suggested explanation for this association between intelligence and personality is that an increasing relative level of IQ brings with it a tendency differentially to over-use general intelligence in problem-solving, and to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense. Preferential use of abstract analysis is often useful when dealing with the many evolutionary novelties to be found in modernizing societies; but is not usually useful for dealing with social and psychological problems for which humans have evolved ‘domain-specific’ adaptive behaviours. And since evolved common sense usually produces the right answers in the social domain; this implies that, when it comes to solving social problems, the most intelligent people are more likely than those of average intelligence to have novel but silly ideas, and therefore to believe and behave maladaptively. I further suggest that this random silliness of the most intelligent people may be amplified to generate systematic wrongness when intellectuals are in addition ‘advertising’ their own high intelligence in the evolutionarily novel context of a modern IQ meritocracy. The cognitively-stratified context of communicating almost-exclusively with others of similar intelligence, generates opinions and behaviours among the highest IQ people which are not just lacking in common sense but perversely wrong. Hence the phenomenon of ‘political correctness’ (PC); whereby false and foolish ideas have come to dominate, and moralistically be enforced upon, the ruling elites of whole nations.

...

The over-use of abstract reasoning may be most obvious in the social domain, where normal humans are richly equipped with evolved psychological mechanisms both for here-and-now interactions (e.g. rapidly reading emotions from facial expression, gesture and posture, and speech intonation) and for ‘strategic’ modelling of social interactions to understand predict and manipulate the behaviour of others. Social strategies deploy inferred knowledge about the dispositions, motivations and intentions of others. When the most intelligent people over-ride the social intelligence systems and apply generic, abstract and systematic reasoning of the kind which is enhanced among higher IQ people, they are ignoring an ‘expert system’ in favour of a non-expert system.

...

Indeed, I suggest that higher levels of the personality trait of Openness in higher IQ people may be the flip-side of this over-use of abstraction. I regard Openness as the result of deploying abstract analysis for social problems to yield unstable and unpredictable results, when innate social intelligence would tend to yield predictable and stable results. This might plausibly underlie the tendency of the most intelligent people in modernizing societies to hold ‘left-wing’ political views.

I would argue that neophilia (or novelty-seeking) is a driving attribute of the personality trait of Openness; and a disposition common in adolescents and immature adults who display what I have termed ‘psychological neoteny’.

...

My hunch is that it is this kind of IQ-advertisement which has led to the most intelligent people in modern societies having ideas about social phenomena that are not just randomly incorrect (due to inappropriately misapplying abstract analysis) but are systematically wrong. I am talking of the phenomenon known as political correctness (PC) in which foolish and false ideas have become moralistically-enforced among the ruling intellectual elite. And these ideas have invaded academic, political and social discourse. Because while the stereotypical nutty professor in the hard sciences is a brilliant scientist but silly about everything else; the stereotypical nutty professor social scientist or humanities professor is not just silly about ‘everything else’, but also silly in their professional work.

...

I infer that the motivation behind the moralizing venom of political correctness is the fact that spontaneous human instincts are universal and more powerfully-felt than the absurd abstractions of PC; plus the fact that common sense is basically correct while PC is perversely wrong. Hence, at all costs a fair debate must be prevented if the PC consensus is to be protected. Common sense requires to be stigmatized in order that it is neutralized.

Udolpho comments:

Little wonder at their entire array of emotional crutches, from art devoid of beauty (novelty must ultimately extinguish beauty) to personal lives devoid of humility or altruism (that is, the deliberate relinquishment of one's claims for the happiness of another--not the vanity of announcing one's virtue by means of contrived charities or causes).

This argument is, of course, an argument for traditionalism, for which there is currently no compelling voice in the political realm because the cognitive elite has stigmatized it--so effectively that even the putatively "conservative" parties have been shamed into dropping these questions. It is left to a fearsome mixture of populists and fringe personalities to even broach such topics as the unhealthy nature of homosexuality, the stupefyingly obvious differences between men and women which negate much of feminism, and the need for social and ethnic cohesion (which touches on so many policies). How to reduce the influence of the clever-silly cognitive elite and restore genuine conservatism is the question of the age.

The Pennies

2009-10-09T15:28:00.000-04:00

At long last: the next episode of EMG and EMG! And it's far too pants for a blurb, so just listen already.

(Click the image, press play)

(Incidentals: no swearing ... unless you consider one 'prick' swearing. The song in full can be found here, the album here.)

Run time is just over 8 minutes.

Ransom note book reviews

2009-09-29T13:35:00.004-04:00

From the Heather Mallick stylebook:

Write down a thousand odd words, each on an individual chit of paper. Make sure to include a few that you clearly don’t understand. Like “grandeur”.
Mix words in bag. (Cloth please. No plastic.)
Overturn bag, allowing contents to fall evenly over floor.
Topmost 15 words—as they have fallen—will comprise first line of essay; second 15 from top, second line; third 15 from top, third line; and so forth.
Email to editor.
Turn TV back on.

NOTE: Words, phrases and “sentences” may be rearranged and/or improved upon at your discretion to ensure that none of the following are omitted:

a) Endless repetitions of what aspire to be—but aren’t quite—progressive platitudes.

b) Obtuse flattery of author, interspersed (on a one sentence per paragraph basis) with the crude substance of an attempt at an actual book review.

c) Basic contradictions. (E.G. In paragraph 15 suggest that mankind continually fails to grasp the obvious message of the author’s oeuvre; in paragraph 18 claim that the author doesn’t, nor has she ever, intended a message.)

d) A comparison—as though it was a compliment—of the author to, say, the mythical personage responsible for unleashing evil on mankind. Remain oblivious to kick-you-in-the-nuts irony of same.

(xposted)

flair n. promiscuousness and/or buffoonery

2009-09-24T14:10:00.003-04:00

From every- body’s favourite novelty newspaper:

By imitating Trudeau, Ignatieff could recast himself as a leader with a bold vision for Canada, a man who offered voters a stark alternative to Harper, rather than the uninspiring leader whose main policy positions seem merely to mirror those of the Conservatives.

…

[Trudeau] was internationally famous and he made Canadians believe we mattered on the world stage.

…

And he had flair, dating a series of beautiful women and once performing a pirouette behind Queen Elizabeth's back.

In contrast, Ignatieff, a man of intellect and international experience like Trudeau, comes across as too packaged, stiff, seemingly afraid to take a stand on any issue that pollsters tell him is unpopular.

…

To regain momentum, Ignatieff needs to offer voters bold programs for the future. To do so, he should steal from Trudeau's agenda, running on just two or three overriding themes that resonate with Canadians, such as championing medicare or restoring our image as global peacemakers.

…

Being bold, taking risks, speaking his mind, promoting programs that made this country better: they all worked for Trudeau.

They might just work for Ignatieff, too.

Dare we point out that there’s a difference between making “Canadians believe [they] mattered on the world stage” and Canada actually mattering on the world stage? Or perhaps that’s the columnist’s point, the cynical scamp. The emphasis should really be on that word “believe” then, shouldn’t it? As in: making Canadians “believe” that championing medicare and restoring our image as global peacemakers are bold, risk-taking stands that the pollsters consider unpopular.

(Cross-posted at Small Dead Animals, where I'm guest-blogging for a bit.)

What's he(mg) listening to?

2009-09-18T16:00:00.001-04:00

As there's a French theme to today's picks, you'll be pointing out that my post title should've been in French. Seeing, however, as I'm just not that confident in my French, let's call it a political decision that I didn't.

We begin with Jacques Dutronc--brilliant song and probably the worst video you've ever seen:

Les Négresses Vertes:

And MC Solaar:

Où est la piscine? Splish splosh.

Hideous Public Art - Two Curmudgeons Stroll Down University Avenue

2009-09-15T21:20:00.001-04:00

You'll remember that I'm a big fan of the Hideous Public Art series at the blog Diogenes Borealis, yes? Well, I had the very good fortune recently of meeting its author, Eric, and spending an afternoon with him. Half our time was spent hoisting pints on a Baldwin Street patio, the other half guffawing our way down University Avenue (by way of the AGO), taking in the sights there ... Better call them spectacles actually.

A distillation of some of our thoughts and conversation here follows--the first of what will likely be 3 or 4 joint critiques, cross-posted to each of our sites.

Stop 1: The Art Gallery of Ontario.

Eric
After having ranted numerous times about Daniel Libeskind’s grotesque addition to the ROM known as “The Crystal”, it was appropriate to take a cursory glance at Frank Gehry’s recent renovation of the AGO. I was prepared to hate it, but it doesn’t provoke a strong reaction in me either way. The old AGO building was nothing to write home about, so the new Dundas Street facade certainly isn’t any worse. It has a certain charm with its expanses of clear glass stretched over a soaring wooden frame, but it reminds me of a transparent beached whale. At least it isn’t yet another iteration of his signature crumpled tin-foil buildings, which are getting a little tiresome. The back of the building (facing Grange Park) is truly ugly; with its massive expanse of blue anodized aluminum cladding and its modern staircases curving down like claws around The Grange. It looks like an alien spacecraft that has landed in Victorian London.

EMG
Gehry’s redesign of the AGO is an improvement on the original building right up to the point where it does this dreadful thing you’re seeing done to the poor old Grange. Which is to say, seen from the northeast corner of Dundas and McCaul, it’s really something. Get around the other side, though, and you’re punched in the eyeballs, and beaten relentlessly about the credulity.

I notice that the façade is the same colour as the holograms on the Transformers toys of my boyhood; and no doubt if Eric and I had bothered to look at it from the right angle, we could’ve made out a Decepticon insignia.

So a slight variation on the alien spacecraft theme in my view: not quite suited to the physical demands of interstellar warfare, Capsizedboat-tron awaits the order for his post-colonization duties (something cushy in the Ministry for Space-propaganda, if it’s convenient) set spang in the centre of ever-accommodating Toronto.

Stop 2: Per Ardua ad Astra - Dundas Street & University Avenue

Eric
This is probably Toronto’s most famous piece of Hideous Public Art. Known officially as Per Ardua ad Astra (“through adversity to the stars” - the motto of the Royal Canadian Air Force) it was unveiled by none other than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1984 as a memorial to Canadian airmen. It was sculpted by Oscar Nemon (1906 - 1985), a Croatian emigre who settled in England during the war and who is justly famous for his portrait sculptures of luminaries like Sigmund Freud and Winston Churchill. Per Ardua ad Astra was his last work.

Per Ardua was very controversial when it was installed. Paid for by philanthropist and art patron Hal Jackman, the former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, it attracted criticism for being “politically motivated” and for being installed without consulting the Toronto arts community. At the time the Globe and Mail called it "vapid," "ghastly" and a "mediocre sculptural doodad" and art dealer Av Isaacs organized a protest against it. Nemon himself, when he saw that the city had placed his work on a plinth against his express wishes, reportedly said that they had made it look like “a tulip in a box” (as opposed to just a tulip, I suppose). Shortly after it was installed, vandals spray-painted the words “Gumby goes to Heaven” on the plinth and it’s been called that by Toronto residents ever since. The Great Canadian Book of Lists puts it at number six on its list of “Ten Controversial Moments in Canadian Art”.

Well, who am I to argue with the arts critic at the Globe and Mail? This thing really is a mediocre sculptural doodad. Prominently positioned in the middle of a major intersection on Toronto’s most ceremonial boulevard, it looks really out of place like it should be in a playground instead. I can imagine it installed in an amusement park somewhere with water spouting out of its hands. Its childish appearance is all the more startling when one realizes that it is in fact a memorial to Canadian airmen who fought and died in combat (including seven Victoria Cross winners). I can imagine the look on the Queen’s face when she pulled the shroud off this thing at the unveiling.

I just can’t understand the iconography of this sculpture. Is Gumby releasing a Dove of Peace? Perhaps warding off the Eagle of Fascism? Maybe just shooing away the Shitting Seagull of Lake Ontario? As art it’s just ridiculous, but as a war memorial it’s insulting.

EMG
I was surprised to discover that the sculptor, Oscar Nemon, is also responsible for the Winston Churchills to be found next Nathan Phillip’s Square here in Toronto, and outside of the Halifax Public Library. (No doubt there are others as well.) I’ve always rather liked these monuments—in spite, that is, of the effect the pebble-grained body has on the unstylized head, i.e. emphasis of the loads of birdshit on Winnie's face as compared with the body, where the stuff is effectively disguised in relief. And, indeed, there is much that is admirable about t he corpus of Mr. Nemon’s work. But the Canadian Airman’s Memorial (aka Per Ardua Ad Astra, aka Gumby Goes to Heaven ) really is awful.

(And if I can just note: while I sympathize wholeheartedly with the mockery intended by the nickname, it strikes me as being a little inadequate. I get more a feeling of: Gumby’s Had Way Too Much To Drink, And Is Way Too Excited That A Village People Record’s Been Put On. For which, apparently, gay Gumby is about to get squashed by a homophobic anvil.)

It goes without saying that this bronze and marble piece is conspicuously ugly/trite, but, like Eric, what annoys me most about it is the confusion of its visual metaphors:

Here we have the figure, stretched impossibly to the heavens—its oversized hands palm-upwards and outwards, implying both the skyward aspiration and the hands’ transformation into wings—but then, for some reason, we’ve got an eagle, and an incongruously proportionate one, atop all that. I mean, if we are trying to describe man’s growth through technological progress (as per the former RCAF—the institution here being commemorated) then why go any further than the gumbification-and-wingy-hands theme? Or, if it’s the idea of man harnessing the power of flight, why not just have some regular sized dude dangling from the bird?

And don’t forget the memorial’s motto/title: through adversity to the stars. The stars! Yet another dimension of metaphorical convolution! Wouldn’t it have been at least a little less muddled if Gumby were reaching for a star, then? (Though, yes, that would be rather too Soviet, wouldn’t it?)

The thing’s just a mess.

(cross-posted at Diogenes Borealis)

Reprise

2009-09-14T17:05:00.001-04:00

Sorry for thin posting. No doubt this will soon change given the gobsmacking ambitions of certain politicians.

And sorry for the lack of EMG and EMGs--I know how some of you have come to depend on them for your spiritual sustenance. But there's been a lot of construction in my neighbourhood lately and recording's basically been impossible. So we're still in reruns.

The archive, of course, is always there in the sidebar for you to make your way through (just under the blogroll), but I was listening to a couple of them last night and feel compelled to recommend another listening of The Acceptable Usage. Really just absolute genius. And that's me saying that, so ...

And The Girlfriend.

Pants, pants, and pants again!

Chris Selley sees the logic through

2009-09-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

In expressing my exasperation at Naomi Klein' s baffling, circuitous and slippery attempt to defend her and her cohorts' protest against Israeli films at the Toronto International Film Festival — or, if you believe her, against the way these Israeli films have been “packaged” — I neglected to follow her argument, such as it was, through to its logical and damning implications.
For those of you lucky enough not to have read her piece in The Globe and Mail, and foolish enough not to have read this morning's Full Pundit, I will summarize her reasoning: Israel did bad things in Gaza, and is trying to resuscitate its international reputation through a re-branding campaign, which doesn't help Gazans any, and threatens to let Israel off the hook for the aforementioned bad things. The package of Israeli films to be shown in Toronto may or may not be related to this re-branding exercise — this is the most equivocal part of Klein's article — but it nevertheless “matches Israel's stated propaganda goals to a T.”

This is a standard (and odious) political play: “You yourself may not be [insert bad thing here], but your actions facilitate [the bad thing], and thus are misguided.” National Post readers will be familiar with it from the debate over Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, and free speech in general. Ezra Levant isn't a neo-Nazi, his opponents might say (and have said), but his campaign for absolute free speech nevertheless emboldens neo-Nazis. Why does Ezra Levant want to embolden neo-Nazis?

But here's the thing. If Klein believes showing these films as a package is wrong because it happens to intersect with the propaganda goals of an unrelated third party, then it's only fair that her actions be scanned against the propaganda goals of other third parties for points of intersection.

So, would the most bug-eyed, missile-launching fanatics of Hezbollah and Hamas support or oppose showing these films? I think they'd oppose it. Indeed, one might argue that cancelling the event would match their propaganda goals to a T. One might even argue that Naomi Klein was, in fact, facilitating misery in Israel. I sure as hell wouldn't argue that, but someone might. Someone like... well, like Naomi Klein.
...

Chris Selley, Leonard Cohen, Naomi Klein and boycott politics

Dennis Dale on going 'round the prickly pear

2009-09-09T11:20:00.000-04:00

Has the media's recoiling fascination with the Angry White Mobs of health care reform's roadshow crippled that effort and stalled the Obama administration?

Marshaling evidence to that effect, liberal codger E.J.Dionne, for one, draws the only relevant conclusion: there is no such thing as a "liberal media bias." In giving the "tea-baggers" all that sneering attention, the media overstated their numbers and fury; and as we all know consequence equals intent and consequences are always intended. Employing their conspiratorial mob tactics (political organization and assembly, raised voices, unfashionable clothing) they snookered the media into acting as their own oblivious man behind the curtain, projecting the illusion of a powerful force. It's a new twist on an old story: idealistic and naive city folk brave the American interior in search of a dream, get taken by slick operating small-towners. It was a Simpson's episode. Of course, eventually everything will be a Simpsons episode.

...

Media bias, liberal or not, is nothing more than the aggregate of the influential class' prejudices, fantasies, and phobias. It is not action but drift. Its predictable nature creates the illusion of direction and control. But once set in motion, round and round it goes, where the narrative stops, nobody knows.

Dennis Dale, Narrative Blowback

Shock value and Brookfield Place

2009-09-04T00:30:00.002-04:00

Un.

The basis for what has been treated as 'daring' for the last 50 years:

An ignoramus has a very elaborate opinion.

Deux.

There is something extremely irritating (but still not shocking) about inferior architecture that treats superior architecture as an artefact.

Viva la contrarevoluciòn!

2009-09-02T23:15:00.000-04:00

Gerald Warner on the strangest thing I've ever heard:

You do not have to go all the way in supporting the English Democrats party, whose silly proposal for an English parliament would add another superfluous layer to already excessive government, to raise a glass to Peter Davies, the party’s elected Mayor of Doncaster. Davies, the father of Tory MP Philip Davies, is one of just 11 directly elected mayors and he is enjoying increasing media exposure because of his outrageous agenda which, against all the tenets of consensual British politics, consists of doing what the public wants.

In his first week in office he cut his own salary from £73,000 to £30,000, which is putting one’s money where one’s mouth is. He also scrapped the mayoral limousine. He is ending Doncaster’s twinning with five towns around the world, an arrangement which he describes as “just for people to fly off and have a binge at the council’s expense”. He intends now to reduce (that’s right, reduce) council tax by 3 per cent this year.

The “diversity” portfolio has been abolished from the council’s cabinet. From next year no more funding will be given to the town’s “Gay Pride” event, on the grounds that people do not need to parade their sexuality, whatever it may be, at taxpayers’ expense. Black History Month, International Women’s Day and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month are similarly destined to become history.

Council funding of translation services for immigrants has been scrapped because he believes incomers should take the trouble to learn English. Officials have been ordered to abandon bureaucratic gobbledegook language. Davies is saving the taxpayers £80,000 by disaffiliating from the pointless Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit. He aims to abolish all non-jobs on the council, as epitomised by “community cohesion officers”. He is taking advice from the Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Campaign Against Political Correctness.

Davies’s views are calculated to put Harriet Harridan into intensive care for six months. He disregards all “green claptrap”, is creating more parking spaces to encourage traffic in the town for the benefit of business (”I’m not green and I’m not conned by global warming”). He has asked the Electoral Commission to reduce the number of Doncaster’s councillors from 63 to 21 (”If Pittsburgh can manage with nine councillors, why do we need 63?”).

You may be feeling disorientated, overcome by a surreal sensation, on hearing such extraordinary, unprecedented views. They are the almost forgotten, forcibly extinguished voice of sanity which most people had thought forever excised from British politics. These policies are common sense, which is something we have not experienced in any council chamber, still less the House of Commons, in decades. The establishment is moving heaven and earth to discredit and obstruct Davies. He is that ultimate embarrassment: the boy who reveals that the Emperor has no clothes.

If it is good enough for Doncaster, it is good enough for Britain. Our effete, corrupt, politically correct politicians must be compelled to follow suit. Once upon a time, such policies would have been axiomatic in the Tory Party. In the Cameron-occupied Conservative Party of today they are regarded as anathema. There has to be an inflexible public will to enforce the country’s wishes on the political class under pain of ejection from public life. That is the sole agenda for the next general election. The mainstream parties, as currently constituted, are no longer electable.

More here and here.

That hissing sound

2009-09-01T16:20:00.001-04:00

*And, yes, the artwork is an EMG (and Mrs.) original*

Christopher Booker on the "barbecue summers" that refuse to materialize:

The idea that temperature records might be a state secret seems strange enough, but when the policies of governments across the world are based on that data it becomes odder still that no outsider should be allowed to see it. Weirdest of all, however, is the Met Office's claim that to release the data would "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector".

Doesn't the Met Office realise that trust in it has already been damaged enough by its batty predictions of "barbecue summers"? If it wants to restore that trust, it should first come clean about its data, and then reprogramme its computer to give us forecasts that are not skewed by its obsession with global warming – which is not happening.

James Delingpole provides a little perspective:

Power cuts (and the energy gap) represent a clear and present danger to Britain and her economy. ‘Climate change’ does not. Unless we get our priorities right very soon, we’re all going to be in deep, deep trouble. And no amount of impassioned protesting by environmentally conscious ex-public-school-children or bien-pensant celebrities will be able to get us out of the hole that they personally did so much to help dig.

Biblical literalists all!

2009-08-25T23:55:00.002-04:00

It's very frustrating to me to hear certain people moan on about the sort of 'Christian' who 'takes the Bible too literally.'

Frustrating, I say, because it is very, very, very often the case that precisely these people abandoned their own faith--or, indeed, refused to come within a barge pole's length of one in the first place--for the very reason that they take the Bible so literally.

What's he(mg) listening to?

2009-08-21T14:00:00.001-04:00

EMG can't be bothered posting, 'cause he's too busy listening to righteous tracks.

Like this one (even if the video's a weeny-fest):

This one:

And this one:

... only, because Groove Armada are way lamer than their name suggests, I can't embed it, so you have to follow the link like a chump.

"Anglicans"

2009-08-14T17:30:00.005-04:00

Hey, if I was to tell you that the Liberal Party--and, indeed, liberalism itself--were finished, would you believe me?

No?

Would it make any difference if I told you that, as of this morning, I'm a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party and therefore reliably positioned to make the call?

No?

Good. Because it really would be bollocks, wouldn't it?

I mean, any jackass can say he's a liberal--even have a membership in the Liberal Party--and not actually be a liberal.

All you'd need do to find out if I really was a liberal would be to peruse the last five or six of the posts below; whereupon, one assumes, you'd snort and say something really witty like, "Yeah and I'm Mother Teresa, chowderhead. How's about you, me, and that cigar store Indian start a rock band called The Blue Nazis?"

And I would totally understand your doing this.

So maybe you'll understand my reaction when H.E. Baber--self-styled "Episcopalian" (that is "Anglican")--gets to spanking about the state of her church.

Witness!

Clergy will likely write off these comments as ignorant or short-sighted. [Well, they won't now, or else they'll have fallen into your cunning trap! Well played! --ed.] The church, they will note, is not merely a collection of congregations that maintain buildings and do liturgy. Through most of its history, the church has been a transnational institution, under the oversight of bishops, meeting in councils to establish doctrine and policy. It engages with the world and provides moral guidance to its members.
My question however is whether the institutional church should be operating in this way.

What, as a church, you mean? As opposed to, well, nothing. --Sorry, sorry; you were saying:

Members of the Episcopal church are highly educated and well-informed. There is no reason why they should look to the church for moral guidance. As for prophetic proclamation and witness to the world, the church's efforts are pointless. Christendom is over: the world does not recognise the Anglican communion as a moral authority and pays no attention to its statements on matters of public concern.

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh! What? What, what, WHAT?!--

Trained professionals operating under the auspices of secular institutions study social, political and economic issues. Government and secular non-profits provide social services and concern themselves with economic development, peace and justice, the environment and human rights. There is no reason why the Anglican communion should maintain an additional institutional structure to engage in these activities. Institutional structure doesn't come cheap and it would be far more efficient if Christians worked through existing secular organisations.

(Gurgling sounds.)

When it comes to establishing doctrine, I doubt that most Anglicans, if they are honest, seriously believe that anything of importance hangs on theological correctness ... Laypeople who see church as nothing more than a local congregation, which maintains a building, provides Sunday services and rites of passage, and functions as a venue for community activities are not short-sighted. They are right. The institutional church has nothing else of interest to offer its members or anyone else that isn't provided by secular organisations.

... Eesh. Well, while she may play one on TV, H.E. Baber is neither an Anglican nor is she (as her bio claims) a scholar.

But let's just see if we can get this straight:

1) The Anglican Church is "a transnational institution, under the oversight of bishops, meeting in councils to establish doctrine and policy" that "engages with the world and provides moral guidance to its members." (Note: apparently eternal salvation falls under the catch-all "moral guidance".)

Baber suggests that if only the Anglican Church would stop doing those things, then people would recognize that it serves none of those ends.

2) The Anglican Church would be well-advised to abandon its own outreach programs and serve their secular equivalents, because there is absolutely no difference between the two, given premise 1).

3) "Most" Anglicans have no interest in "theological correctness". Which is to say, most Anglicans have no interest in being Anglicans. Therefore aren't Anglicans; therefore the Anglican Church does not exist. Therefore the Anglican Church has no business claiming to exist.

4) (Which, chronologically, should've come between 1 and 2--but which is the best, and is therefore saved for last ... ) Anglicans are "highly educated" and "well-informed". What makes Anglicans highly educated and well-informed is a species of, apparently, uniquely Anglican apophasis: i.e. they are highly educated and well-informed to the extent that their education and information exclude anything that might be considered "Anglican". It is, therefore, in Anglicanism's best interests, and most consistent with its Christian duty, that it acknowledge to the world that, erm, "Christendom is over". The "world", after all, does not acknowledge its moral authority, and therefore it cannot have any. (Securus judicat orbis terrarum.)

Fantastic! And I hope Ms. Baber will understand the compliment when I say that she has come to replace the God that I--as an Anglican--would never have been such a bumpkinish bore as to have believed in in the first place.

What's worth noting, though, is that I don't think I know a single atheist as terrified of using the name of Jesus Christ as Baber apparently is. Heck, many of them even know that He has something to do with Anglicanism.

Anyway ... I'm off to OXFAM to get me some Communion.

________________________

ADDENDUM (Aug. 18th)

Publius gives us the atheist's take on Christian atheists such as H.E. Baber.

Stuff stupid people like

2009-08-07T00:50:00.001-04:00

There was a fire scare in the building the other day. So, not an actual fire in the end, but somebody put a pot on the stove before going out and there was a lot of smoke. So all the rest of us were driven outside by the fire alarm to kick at the pavement and make awkward conversation until the firemen arrived.

The subject quickly turned to who 4D was again, and just where the hell they thought it was that they were living. 6B warmed to this immediately--6B being a woman who is, and I'm not exaggerating here, only just this side of Down's Syndrome. She mocked 4D thus, affecting an Appalachian accent: "Somebuddy left the possum pie in too long, Ma! Dagged if I don't know which way to turn them switches to get 'em to go off."

And it was as though I'd been struck by a thunderbolt! ... I realized, then and there: even trash imagine themselves to be small L liberals now.

That they make a point of staying up late to watch Jon Stewart too!

Making sense of it all

2009-08-05T15:15:00.002-04:00

Carol Anne Burger slew Jessica Kalish by stabbing her 222 times with a Philips-head screwdriver. The moral of the story?

After the sad incident, some observers suggested that the story of Jess and Carol highlighted the need for across-the-board legal recognition of civil unions and same-sex marriages.

Wow. Now that's what I call a stretch.

And in case it isn't clear: the suggested problem here isn't that Ms. Burger was driven to commit this definitively evil act because of the lifetime of discrimination she'd suffered as a lesbian. This wasn't a desperate and perverse concession to, and consummation of, the 'abnormality' legally imposed upon her by society. For she and Ms. Kalish were married! In Massachusetts in 2005! Rather, the problem is that the state of Florida wouldn't legally recognize their divorce.

"It's very messy for us to get disentangled," says Elizabeth F. Schwartz, a Miami-based family attorney specializing in same-sex issues. "This is one example of many of a couple that entered into a marriage and then couldn't get themselves out of it. When the kind people of Massachusetts grant you the right to marry but Florida won't recognize those marriages, it can make getting a divorce very difficult. Certainly the answer is not to kill your ex, but it does remind us that the consequences can be grave when we don't have a legal and appropriate way out."

Hmmmnn ... Let's see here: 222 stab wounds to the upper body less 1 state recognition of a same-sex couple's right to end their marriage ...

Nope! Still doesn't balance.

But while we're on this tack: I wonder what "some observers" might have had to say about this little detail:

[Burger] got dressed, drove a mile in the opposite direction of the BMW [containing Kalish's dead body--ed.], and dropped Jessica's keys and wallet in a rough neighborhood.

Boynton Beach has an awful lot of Hispanic and Haitian residents, I gather. I wonder how many of them live in this "rough neighborhood" just south of Gateway Blvd? Seems like an odd place for a fiercely Democrat, progressive activist, Huffington Post blogger to be planting evidence, don't you think? Of course, it wouldn't be if we recognized that the woman was just a complete nutjob. But seeing as we're playing down that angle.

John Henry Newman on religion that isn't

2009-07-30T21:30:00.001-04:00

... Let us not then deceive ourselves; what God demands of us is to fulfil His law, or at least to aim at fulfilling it; to be content with nothing short of perfect obedience,—to attempt every thing,—to avail ourselves of the aids given us, and throw ourselves, not first, but afterwards on God's mercy for our short-comings. This is, I know, at first hearing a startling doctrine; and so averse are our hearts to it, that some men even attempt to maintain that it is an unchristian doctrine. A forlorn expedient indeed, with the Bible to refer to, and its statements about the strait gate and the narrow way. Still men would fain avail themselves of it, if they could; they argue that all enforcement of religion as a service or duty is erroneous, or what they call legal, and that no observance is right but what proceeds from impulse, or what they call the heart. They would fain prove that the law is not binding on us, because Christ has fulfilled it; or because, as is the case, faith would be accepted instead of obedience in those who had not yet had time to begin fulfilling it.
Such persons appeal to Scripture, and they must be refuted, as is not difficult, from Scripture; but the multitude of men do not take so much trouble about the matter. Instead of even professing to discover what God has said, they take what they call a common-sense view of it. They maintain it is impossible that religion should really be so strict according to God's design. They condemn the notion as over-strained and morose. They profess to admire and take pleasure in religion as a whole, but think that it should not be needlessly pressed in details, or, as they express it, carried too far. They complain only of its particularity, if I may use the term, or its want of indulgence and consideration in little things; that is, in other words, they like religion before they have experience of it,-in prospect,—at a distance,—till they have to be religious. They like to talk of it, they like to see men religious; they think it commendable and highly important; but directly religion comes home to them in real particulars of whatever kind, they like it not. It suffices them to have seen and praised it; they feel it a burden whenever they feel it at all, whenever it calls upon them to do what otherwise they would not do. In a word, the state of the multitude of men is this,—their hearts are going the wrong way; and their real quarrel with religion, if they know themselves, is not that it is strict, or engrossing, or imperative, not that it goes too far, but that it is religion. It is religion itself which we all by nature dislike, not the excess merely. Nature tends towards the earth, and God is in heaven. If I want to travel north, and all the roads are cut to the east, of course I shall complain of the roads. I shall find nothing but obstacles; I shall have to surmount walls, and cross rivers, and go round about, and after all fail of my end. Such is the conduct of those who are not bold enough to give up a profession of religion, yet wish to serve the world. They try to reach Babylon by roads which run to Mount Sion. Do you not see that they necessarily must meet with thwartings, crossings, disappointments, and failure? They go mile after mile, watching in vain for the turrets of the city of Vanity, because they are on the wrong road; and, unwilling to own what they are really seeking, they find fault with the road as circuitous and wearisome. They accuse religion of interfering with what they consider their innocent pleasures and wishes. But religion is a bondage only to those who have not the heart to like it, who are not cast into its mould. Accordingly, in the verse before the text, St. Paul thanks God that his brethren had "obeyed from the heart that form of teaching, into which they had been delivered." We Christians are cast into a certain mould. So far as we keep within it, we are not sensible that it is a mould, or has an outline. It is when our hearts would overflow in some evil direction, then we discover that we are confined, and consider ourselves in prison. It is the law in our members warring against the law of the Spirit which brings us into a distressing bondage. Let us then see where we stand, and what we must do. Heaven cannot change; God is "without variableness or shadow of turning." His "word endureth for ever in heaven." His law is from everlasting to everlasting. We must change. We must go over to the side of heaven. Never had a soul true happiness but in conformity to God, in obedience to His will. We must become what we are not; we must learn to love what we do not love, and practise ourselves in what is difficult. We must have the law of the Spirit of life written and set up in our hearts, "that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us," and that we may learn to please and to love God.

John Henry Newman, The Strictness of the Law of Christ

Sometimes my enemy's enemy is just some chick

2009-07-28T13:55:00.001-04:00

Don't tell me that this is a fiddly point. Too many of my friends and allies in the blogging world are lauding Margaret Wente's garbage-column in today's Globe because it's hard on the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. For some reason they're all ignoring the howlingly absurd 'sane alternative' in which she couches her observations.

She begins:

White cops and black men can be an unhappy mix. Last week, all hell broke loose when a white cop intercepted a black man trying to break into a big house near Harvard University. Unfortunately for the cop, the man was Henry Louis Gates, a prominent African-American scholar, and he lives there. Tempers flared. Accusations of racial profiling filled the air. Prof. Gates was promptly arrested for disorderly conduct, i.e., mouthing off. It turned out the cop was a race-relations trainer. Barack Obama got involved, declared them both fine men and invited them to the White House for a beer.

If only things worked that way in Canada ...

And ends:

Can't [Barbara Hall and the OHRT] just buy everyone a beer? That's what Mr. Obama would do.

No he fucking wouldn't, Margaret! You've left a big goddamn detail out here--as absolutely anyone who doesn't live under a stone could tell you.

What Obama would do--that is to say, what he did do--was to use the Office of the President of the United States to render an utterly biased judgement on a matter he admitted knowing nothing about, and that was none of his goddamn business in the first place.

(The President, mercifully, only made a fool of himself in this. Mercifully, I say, because the only other option was the destruction of a man's career and reputation, not to speak of the reputation of the Cambridge police.)

This, it seems to me, is exactly the sort of thing Barbara Hall would do. And, indeed, has done.

... And why should everyone get a beer, by the way? If anything, Obama should be buying, Sgt. Crowley should be drinking, and Skip Gates should be watching, in silence, from the corner.