Hey, did you know that there’s a statue of Brigitte Bardot in Buzios, Brazil? And what does this have to do with economic theory? It’s just that yesterday Karen and I took a walk in Beverly Hills and we were totally grossed out by a hunk of public sculpture in a bank plaza on Wilshire Boulevard. In truth, most public sculptures are eyesores designed to make ordinary citizens feel stupid and ignorant in contrast to the artistic class who insist they know what’s best for the public. Anyhoo: I really think BH needs a BB sculpture. Desperately. Maybe I’ll start a petition or something. Just kidding. About the petition I mean.
Andrew Klavan is one of the few screenwriters in Hollywood who has boldly come out as a Conservative Republican. He’s smart and witty and knows that the best way of getting a free market message across to the public is not through long geeky policy papers that no one has the time or patience to read, but through simple and entertaining bites of information. It’s Conservative politics Hollywood style.
Here, Andrew explains why Obama’s economic plans are ruinous for America, cynically designed to get him a second term and create even more dependence on the federal government—a benevolent system of slavery.
Congressman’s Ryan’s economic reforms truly are reforms—Democrat economic and social policy is best described as reactionary identity politics fused with class warfare—and conceived to make the individual American more prosperous and more free.
Remember, without economic freedom there is no genuine freedom for citizens. Witness the Muslim world which is shackled to theocratic and secular Socialists and whose only technical innovation in the last few centuries is the cruel refinement of homicide bombing.
The Eighth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture featuring Yossi Klein Halevi is now available for viewing. Just click the yellow banner in the sidebar and download the file. It’s a wonderful lecture and a fine way of honoring Ariel’s memory.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
6 Comments
Bill:
Hope you enjoy the lecture. It is true that Ariel left a considerable footprint on this world, but after the lecture, when Karen and I were alone, Karen said: “There’s another side to Ariel that we should acknowledge: He was just a little boy who needed his mommy and daddy.”
This observation made me weep.
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Johnny:
Public art is a problem because it is government mandated art. It’s dominated by parasitical artists and their dealers in alliance with real-estate developers who just want to get it out of the way and city bureaucrats who like t mingle with the art crowd. Tghius, most public art is crap.
I had dinner with Richard Serra a few years ago. Mostly he just kvetched about his mother who committed suicide and boasted about his, um, talent. It was really strange. I ended talking mostly with his scary German girlfiend who was an Armani clad Marxist. The evening was drop dead crazy.
Love Norman Rockwell. Steven Spielberg collects his work.
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Thank you Robert for availing us of the lecture you had in honor of Ariel recently. I wish I could have attended. I have downloaded it.
Surely as a parent there is no greater sorrow than surviving your child.
From what I have learned about Ariel he made a bigger footprint on the world than many living far longer. Surely his passing makes one question why the good and righteous are taken so early. But then the question has been asked through the millennium.
As as an aside I am in an experiment – to see whether an old dog can learn new tricks. I have this new programming job – having not worked at all for 3 years – and have been exposed not only to a massive project 7 years in gestation, but many new concepts foreign to this old dog.
I am exhausted – mentally and physically – after 7 hours of trying to learn this today.
Perhaps I am wondering if one can become exhausted merely by utilizing brain cells long dormant.
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I prefer photos of BB. A sculpture is fine but lacking a little of the hubba-hubba of a photo.
The problem with public art is no matter how atrocious it looks, if anyone complains they are labeled knuckle dragging yahoos that can’t understand anything deeper than Norman Rockwell. (Rockwell is a real test – his critics think the only people that like his work never passed 8th grade). Ask anyone in St. Louis about the Richard Serra sculpture downtown called Twain – nothing more than 8 rusting steel slabs forming a triangle. Mark Twain is rolling over in his grave hoping people start calling him Samuel Clemens again. And I say this as someone that has loved Roy Lichtenstein’s work since I visited the Art Museum as a kid.
I look forward to hearing the lecture as the previous ones have been outstanding. Happy belated Fathers Day Robert.
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Alter:
Enjoy!
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Thanks, Robert! The MP3′s already on my iPod. (Now I just have to find an hour to listen to it…)
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