Art, movies become political forums

Demon art: A shocking image of a blood-spattered President Bush devouring a headless child is causing an uproar. The drawing by sculptor Richard Serra, based on a painting by Goya, is being used to promote www.pleasevote.com, billed as "a call to vote the Bush administration out of office." It appears on the back cover of The Nation's July 5 issue. Ironically, Serra, a past recipient of NEA grants, was once praised by first lady Laura Bush in a White House news release about one of his pieces at a Texas museum. His "Titled Arc" once graced (or defaced) Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan until it was destroyed in 1989. Pundit Andre Sullivan labeled the Bush image "an obscenity" and "simple demonization." -- New York Post

P.S. I pulled this drawing by Serra off the Web page. It's gross. It's based on artist Goya's "Saturn Devouring One of His Children" and appears on www.pleasevote.com's home page.

It's not even creative art as Serra (see the Serra metal sculpture in St. Louis) based it on another artist's concept which placed Ariel Sharon of Israel in a similar setting.

Radio shock jock Howard Stern says he's committed to the all-out defeat of George Bush. Michael Moore has announced this is the goal of his film "Fahrenheit 9/11" (which I have seen).

I want to see Bush be re-elected, but I don't hate John Kerry (nor anyone else).

These cartoons and use of the entertainment media are not new to American politics, but they are getting more exposure to the voting public, and less informed people (conservative or liberal) are encouraging campaigns of misplaced passion.

America's Bill of Right: What can conservatism mean in a nation with no ancient regime to pine for, no established church, no privileged aristocracy? That was the challenge facing Bill Buckley in 1955 when he founded a new journal called National Review. Today the Buckley era ends with what he calls his "divestiture," as he hands over the ownership and administration of the magazine he defined for nearly a half-century.

Before Bill Buckley and NR, American conservatism was a loose assortment of isolationists, protectionists, traditionalists, anti-Semites, Southern agrarians and just plain cranks. What National Review did was drain the fever swamps and infuse U.S. conservatism with a coherence it had never had.

The defining elements were anticommunism, capitalism and traditional moral values. It made -- and still makes -- for a combustible brew of personalities no less than philosophies. In political terms this has yielded a conservatism as congenial to tax cutters as it is to evangelical Christians. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge put it in "The Right Nation," the uniqueness of American conservatism is perhaps best appreciated from abroad: "Stand back a little and look at George W. Bush's army from the perspective of London or Paris and you are struck by the distinctiveness of the faith that holds them together."

No one embodied the NR ethos more than the man it helped catapult to the White House: Ronald Wilson Reagan, a conservative at home equally with Milton Friedman and Mother Teresa. And the Gipper would have been the first to attest that his presidency would never have been possible without his "favorite magazine" to lay the groundwork.

In a 1985 speech at an NR dinner, then-President Reagan spoke of NR's contributions, particularly the link between an appreciation for human limits and the political wisdom and humor such a recognition engenders.

"It really is an acknowledgment that God means for us -- at least sometimes -- to take life as it comes: to woo, to laugh, to love, and to make room, as you have tonight and throughout the 30-year life span of National Review, for fun." Let's not underestimate the fun. Of the three articles featured prominently on NR's inaugural cover, one was by Morrie Ryskind, a writer for the Marx Brothers.

Today National Review is just one year shy of 50, and its success has spawned a host of conservative alternatives that now compete across print, radio, television and the Internet. Yet it remains the largest opinion magazine in America. And far from auguring its demise, the abundance of new rivals only confirms one of National Review's longtime principles: that competition is among the sincerest forms of conservatism. -- The Wall Street Journal

Here are a few tidbits worth chewin' on for a while. Enjoy!

Grandpa's Country Wisdom

Don't name a pig you plan to eat.

Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight and bull strong.

Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.

Mortgaging a future crop is saddling a wobbly colt.

A bumblebee is faster than a John Deere tractor.

Trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.

Don't skinny dip with snapping turtles.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.

Meanness don't happen overnight.

To know how country folks are doing, look at their barns, not their houses.

Never lay an angry hand on a kid or an animal. It just ain't helpful.

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.

Two can live as cheap as one if one don't eat.

Don't corner something meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You can't unsay a cruel thing.

Every path has some puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about happening, don't.

-- Author Unknown

Gary Rust is the chairman of Rust Communications.