Week of 11/08/1999

The World’s Largest Monopoly
- by David Matthews 2

Quick, tell me who has the largest, most powerful monopoly in the world!

The answer may surprise you.

Coca-Cola? Nope.

Visa and Master Card? I said "monopoly." Besides they aren’t it.

Your local phone service? You’re getting warmer.

Your cable company? Close…

Microsoft? Despite the recent claims in the media, this is just a goldfish being compared to a whale.

So what is the largest, most powerful monopoly in the world?

The United States government.

Now I know that raised some eyebrows, but think about it.

If you look up the word "monopoly" in the American Heritage Dictionary, you’ll find it listed as "exclusive ownership or control, as of a given commodity or business activity; a company or group having such control; a commodity or service thus controlled." And while some businesses can wield such control, no group can do this with more power, and with more devastating effect, than government.

Now let’s suppose you run a local pizza shop, selling a large pepperoni pizza for $8, while your competition - let’s call them Sticky Pizza - sells theirs for $12. You don’t spend as much on advertising, and you don’t run too many special deals, but you still rake in more customers than your competition. So the owner of Sticky Pizza goes to you and says your prices are too low for him to compete fairly. You tell him too bad, you’re making a modest profit, and you aren’t going to risk that now by raising prices just to suit Sticky Pizza.

So that pizza owner goes to the government and says that you’re engaging in price-fixing to drive out any kind of competition. Now the government is looking into how you do business, and demanding you give in to Sticky Pizza’s demands. Other government agencies may also get called in to see how you’re able to make a profit selling pizzas that cheaply. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) may want to look at who you’re hiring, and how much they’re getting paid. The local health inspectors may decide to scrutinize your business for possible health code violations. They may even have been encouraged by a "concerned citizen" who possibly has some connection to Sticky Pizza. Since we’re talking a local business, the local government may even draft some new business ordinance setting pizza prices no lower than $10 for "the sake of competition." So between the lawyers to get the government off your back and the mandated higher prices, you go out of business. So much for "competition."

Now that’s local government. What about the United States Government? Same kind of game, but multiplied on a much larger scale.

Let’s start with the myth that Uncle Sam is all for competition. Let’s get brutally honest here.. the US Government is about as interested in business competition as I am in watching infomercials.

If the federal government is all for competition, then perhaps they can explain why they are eager to kowtow to the wishes of cable companies over satellite providers?

In many communities, the cable companies enjoy tremendous power over the public. They determine which channels will be available, and have the power to bundle each channel into certain "packages" for the public to purchase. For instance, take the three most popular channels like USA Network, MTV, and VH1, and call it the "special value package." Do the same with the premium movie channels, the cable news and business channels; each in their own separate "package" for people to pay extra for. Then combine that with the "basic" package of local networks and public access, and the cable companies can make more money off the public without having to add more channels. I’ve seen it happen, so I know it isn’t fictional.

The government’s solution? Regulate the prices. They passed laws which hindered what kind of cable packages could be offered.. but all it really did was allow the cable companies to continue their monopolistic practices. And when those laws were too stringent? The cable companies got government to bypass those laws under the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996.

But satellite companies provided some real competition to both local networks and to cable companies, because they were able to provide channels the local cable companies didn’t want to provide, and provide national network feeds, which cut out local broadcasters. So the cable companies went to Congress to pass even more laws which hindered the satellite companies from competing. They also got many local zoning boards to enact regulations which hindered people from getting those bulky monster reception dishes. Even when satellite companies came out with smaller dishes for their digital satellite systems, they were still hindered by the laws written at the behest of cable companies.

So now more laws are being presented to Congress.. which are - as of this article’s date - being rewritten in committee to appease the cable companies. Which leads me to wonder.. if the federal government is so interested in competition in the business world, why is it that they were so eager to hinder satellite companies in the first place? After all, if the federal government didn’t hinder the satellite companies in the 1980’s, then they wouldn’t have needed to regulate cable prices in the early 1990’s.. and they wouldn’t have had to de-regulate them in 1996.

How about the government’s own "monopoly" - the US Postal Service? Oh sure, the USPS doesn’t consider itself to be part of the federal government.. they much rather call themselves a "semi-independent" operation. After all, they graciously allow private carriers like United Parcel Service and Federal Express to do commercial deliveries. But deliver the regular mail? Fat chance of seeing that happen! And now the post office claims they can’t compete against the Internet and e-mail. They may actually have to cut back on services and raise postage prices yet again. Of course, if the federal government was REALLY interested in competition, they would let the postal service be a real private operation, and then let it sink or swim with UPS and Federal Express offering the same local mail services. Then we’d see how the post office would compete against e-mail.

How about the gas we pay at the pump? The United States is more dependant now on imported oil than it was during the gas crunch of the 1970’s. You’ll notice now that gas prices are slowly creeping up universally no matter which pump you go to. Price fixing by the oil companies? Not according to the federal government. No, according to Uncle Sam, this is just normal "competition."

You know, that’s the doublespeak of government.. break up AT&T because they claim its too big, but say nothing about the cable companies. Go after Microsoft because of their operating system, but say nothing about the 100% control by Apple over both the hardware and software of their systems. Claim to be all for "competition" while silently protecting other businesses.

In many ways, the federal government under President Bill Clinton’s tenure acts much like a real monopoly. They decide selectively which laws to enforce, and which judicial decisions to obey. If Congress can’t pass a law that meets Clinton’s approval, he’ll write an executive order that has the same force of law.

And the federal government can be quite devastating to businesses. In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered mandatory price freezes which were intended to last one year, but the effects spread to three years, and resulted in an economic recession.

Even the political system operates under strict monopolist rules. Democrats and Republicans have written those rules so that their parties are ensured continued control in government. Just ask any member of the Reform Party or the Libertarian Party how hard it is to even get included on the ballot. Under current election laws, Abraham Lincoln would not have been allowed on the ballot, since the Republican Party then was a "fledgling third party" under the Democrats and the Whigs. You would think that a government so interested in healthy competition wouldn’t mind practicing what they preach, right?

So why not get out of the country? That’s what many people would say.. the competition to our form of government is what’s offered in other countries. We don’t like it, we can leave to a government that suits us. Right? There’s just one little problem… the US Government’s reach is not limited to its own borders. There is not a place on the Earth that the US Government does not want to reach out and affect in some way.

Remember Manuel Noriega? The leader of Panama, indicted on drug charges in Miami, was literally deposed by the United States government under the orders of President George Bush. Yes, Noriega was suppressing that country’s election, and he did detain his eventual successor for a while, but instead of letting the people rebel against Noriega, a foreign power stepped in.

The US has been meddling in many a foreign matter for quite some time. And there are many who feel that the US should continue to serve as the world’s policeman, and to do so even more aggressively than before. However, if that is the case, than it would make the US even more of a monopolist power than ever before - and do to the world what Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Communist Party could never accomplish even at their peak. Certainly not something AT&T could accomplish.. or Microsoft for that matter.

If the US government wants to claim they support competition in the business world, fine. Let them do it from a position of neutrality. And certainly they should make sure their own house is clean before preaching to others about the housekeeping. To do otherwise would only serve as an insult to the American public it represents.

Week of 11/01/1999

Scrambled Hysteria
Model’s Eggs Plus Medical Hypocrisy Equals Media Breakfast
- by David Matthews 2

Ron Harris loves beauty.

That much is apparent.

As a photographer, Harris has photographed hundreds of beautiful people. As a producer and director, he created everything from the visually pleasing 20 Minute Workout series in the 1980’s to the Star Shapes and Naturals series for Playboy TV, which featured nothing but beautiful women. He is also the author of the yet-to-be released book "Naked Power", which explains the power beauty plays in society. In each instance, Harris feels he should share his vision of beauty with others.

And now Ron Harris want to share his vision of beauty in a different way.. He has created a web site that is auctioning off something very personal of some of his models. Something very unique, in fact. Their eggs.

As Harris says himself: "Beauty is its own reward. This is the first society to truly comprehend how important beautiful genes are to our evolution. Just watch television and you will see that we are only interested in looking at beautiful people. From the network anchors, to supermodels that appear in most advertisements, our society is obsessed with youth and beauty. As our society grows older, we inevitably look to youth and beauty. The billion dollar cosmetic industry, including cosmetic surgery is proof of our obsession with beauty."

In other words, beauty is more than just being skin-deep, according to Harris, but something that’s in the genes. And why should a couple risk the genetic gamble when they can have the willing egg of one who is already a model? All you have to do is post the highest bid, which starts at $15,000.00!

Of course, this is outraging many people, including the self-professed Gods of Mount Morality in Washington DC. How DARE Ron Harris auction off the eggs of models like he does his Arabian horses? How DARE Ron Harris let the marketplace dictate the price of the eggs of beautiful women? How DARE the Internet community ALLOW this to happen?

Surprisingly, the loudest of critics are the people who work in the reproductive clinics, who claim that Harris’ auction is somehow unethical. Hmm…. This from clinics that offer on the average $3000 for a human egg? That sounds awfully a lot like a McDonald’s worker complaining about the prices of a trendy California restaurant. And these clinics don’t work for free, right? How much more are the doctors charging for their gracious services? They certainly don’t operate solely out of the "goodness" of their hearts. Methinks these so-called "ethical professionals" protest too much.

Other critics go even further, speculating that this kind of auctioning of human eggs and sperm would bring us that much closer to Hitler’s dream of genetic manipulation to make the superior race.

Now let’s get brutally honest here… That’s OLD news, folks! Genetic manipulation has been going on for centuries the old fashioned way, carried out by the elite in our society! The fact that both Prince Charles and the late Lady Diana of Wales both had romances on the side while they were married is proof that their marriage was more about producing "perfect" heirs than creating a family based on love. This kind of stuff happens even in our mom-and-pop Americana communities. We all have our local examples of the "Ken and Barbie" couple. Why else do you think that the star quarterback ends up with the head cheerleader? They want to create those perfect little Stepford Pod children, just like everyone else!

What Ron Harris is doing with his auction is simply exposing that vanity and putting it up for our own reflection. Let’s face it, the couple who would be willing to spend up to $150,000 for a model’s egg has to be very vain, not to mention very foolish with their money.

Of course, the media doesn’t see it like that. They much rather point towards the money side of the situation, saying that the models are simply in this for the big bucks. But if there are people who are foolish to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for your reproductive material, who wouldn’t want to get the most out of that?

The process isn’t easy either. Once the deal is made, the model has to undergo months of hormone injections before the egg can be retrieved. This is a long and laborious process, and quite possibly the model would not be able to make money modeling during that period of time. Would you be willing to do that with your job and only get paid a relative pittance?

And yet, even after all of this, there is no guarantee that the product of this unusual combination of a model’s egg and the sperm of a foolish rich man would be a beautiful person. There is SO much that is dictated by the randomness of fate and the various genetic combinations that quite possibly the child will grow up in twenty years to be a Plain Jane and not the next Kate Moss. What then? The parents certainly cannot sue the model, or Ron Harris, simply because the promised child isn’t beautiful.

If anything, the whole debacle concerning Ron’s Angels and his egg-auction is more phony public hysteria than a serious legitimate concern. Infertile couples who are foolish enough to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars simply for the egg of a beautiful model should be left to their foolishness, and let the rest of America concern itself with more serious issues that affect our lives.

Week of 10/25/1999

Bet On It!
Gambling Is Life
- by David Matthews 2

A devout Christian started hearing voices from above. The message was always the same: "This is God. I have chosen you to help me." The man first thought it was his imagination. But then God shows the burning bush, makes it rain inside the guy’s living room, and rattles the room with thunder and lightning.

The man goes to the local church, the priest listens carefully to what the man was being told. The priest talks to the other ministers and they all agree that it has to be God who is talking. They tell him he’d better do whatever it is God tells him to do.

God tells the man to quit his job and sell all of his belongings. So the guy quits his job, sells his house and car, and everything he owns. God then tells the guy to take all of the money and buy a plane ticket to Las Vegas. So the guy takes his money and flies out to Vegas. When he gets to Vegas, God tells the guy "Go to Caesar’s!" So the guy goes to Caesar’s. "Go to the fourth roulette table!" The guy goes to the fourth roulette table. "Put all of your money on Red 36!" So the guy puts all the money into chips and puts them all on Red 36. The roulette dealer spins the wheel and drops the ball. The ball bounces around and around as the wheel slowly spins down…

The ball lands on Black 42.

"DAMN!" God exclaims.

No doubt a certain Alabama governor feels the same way.

Governor Don Siegelman had been in office less than one year, after having thrown out incumbent deadweight Fob James on the promise that he would help bring a state lottery to Alabama so it can help pay for education. Governor James had opposed any kind of state lottery because his masters in the Christian Coalition told him so. Fob James’ head was so high up the collective rectums of the bible-thumpers that ministers had to go see a proctologist in order for the governor to have his dental checkup. So after the voters tossed out Governor James and his bible-thumping masters, it was believed that a state lottery would be certain.

But the religious wrong would not go down without a fight, and they decided to use the lottery referendum to make Governor Siegleman pay for crossing them. The religious wrong came out in droves to push voters away from a state lottery. And in the end, they managed to convince 55% of the voting populace to say no to a state-run lottery.

Now, full of themselves, and still having the taste of fresh political blood in their rabid mouths, the dysfunctional elite are poising themselves to spread their anti-lottery moralism to the state of South Carolina, where their own lottery referendum will be decided by the voters in November of 2000.

Their rationality against the lottery, however, is where the real problem lies. Anti-gambling moralists content that gambling hurts poor people and the elderly. The moralists LOVE to talk about the people who gamble away their life savings, or even their meager paychecks, just so they could buy lottery tickets. Of course, they don’t talk about the 74-year old retiree who buys a lottery ticket on a fluke and wins big, or the simple families, whose father or mother buys a lottery ticket every so often, and then wins the big money. No, you don’t hear those tales much… and certainly not for the moralists. They much rather point towards the people who spend recklessly and foolishly in hopes of winning the big money. It’s not THEIR fault, contends the moralists, it’s the lottery that’s to blame for their lot in life!

Then there’s the hypocrisy of Alabama’s vote against the state lottery. The moralists contend that a state lottery would supposedly introduce legalized gambling to the state. Apparently they forgot that Alabama already has legalized dog racing, as well as bingo. Oh, but that isn’t the same as a lottery, right folks? Yeah, right.

The lottery system is as old as the nation. The Continental Army that beat back the British redcoats was funded by a lottery. The Statue of Liberty, the gift of freedom from France (long before their streak of socialism) was paid for by a series of lotteries. In fact, gambling was perfectly legal until the 1820’s.. when they were outlawed by none other than the bible-thumping moralists!

There is perhaps no greater sign of hypocrisy amongst the bible-thumpers here in the American south than to drive past a church with a sign that says "GAMBLING IS EVIL! SAY NO TO LOTTERY!" while over their front door they have a banner that reads "BINGO 7PM." Oh, so a lottery is evil because it is gambling, but bingo, which is also a form of gambling, is okay because it’s for the church, right? That’s the logic the dysfunctional elite is trying to use. Gambling is evil.. unless it’s for their purposes.

Let’s get brutally honest here.. gambling is a part of life, whether you know it or not! Gambling simply means putting your trust in factors outside of your control, and if that is somehow evil, then we are all evil to the core!

How many of you participate in the stock market? That, too, is gambling. Oh sure, Wall Street executives can swear up and down a stack of bibles that it’s not gambling, but let’s be blunt - it IS gambling. You’re spending money on a business in the hopes that the value of your stock will go up. You can’t control how that stock fares, and if that business loses value, you’re out money. How different is that from putting money on the dog track, or buying a scratch-off ticket?

The only difference is that betting on the stock market makes more people money. How many people have made millions on companies like Amazon.com or Red Hat or Yahoo? Even the movie "Forrest Gump" talked about making a lot of money by putting stock in "some fruit company" called Apple. The latest "play-to-win" game pieces include stock in Martha Stewart and the World Wrestling Federation. They made fast trades on their first day. Even solid companies in the market are successful because the people who invest in them do so for the long run instead of the buy-low, sell-high, cash-in-now crowd. Ambrose Bierce said it best when he said "The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling."

Of course, that’s not the only activity people gamble on. How many of us commute to work in congested rush hour traffic? That too is a form of gambling, but the stakes now are more than just money - the stakes are life and death. You don’t know when a driver who is still waking up forgets to put on his brakes until the last second, or if he decides to do a lane-change at the last moment. I don’t know how many times I’ve come across people who are in the left lane suddenly dart across three lanes of traffic in order to get to the exit on the right hand side of the road. You could be driving alongside someone when - POW - they blow a tire. Or suddenly a truck ahead of you drops a ladder on the road. Atlanta is legendary for it’s numerous "ladder in the road" alerts. You don’t know when these things will happen, and if they do happen, only the fates will determine whether or not you will be involved in them. And take it from me, no matter how good your driving skills are, there is a chance you can get involved in an accident.

How about sex? Eddie Murphy did a great comedy routine a few years ago comparing the singles scene to a craps table. Dating is a form of gambling, because you don’t know if the person you’re seeing is mister or miss perfect fit, or someone who will rob you blind and break your heart. Even sexual intercourse is a gamble. Sure, you can time it right and have all sorts of protection, but if the rubber breaks, the diaphragm slips, or the pill not work fast enough, you could end up contributing to the population growth. And nowadays, pregnancy is the LEAST of your problems! Some married couples are finding out the hard way that their spouse may not be completely honest about their sexual history, and are contracting sexually-transmitted diseases like AIDS, herpes, syphilis, or gonorrhea. So sex is also very much a gamble, but with a different kind of reward.

And, believe it or not, religion is also a gamble! The philosopher Blaise Pascal considered religion to be a sure bet, even if God didn’t exist. When you choose one particular religion over another, you are gambling that your religious belief is the correct one. Who is to say that should the much hyped day of reckoning come, your religious belief will be the one that passes God’s test? The Baptists certainly feel they have the inside win.. so much so that they want to convert Jews and Hindus, whom they feel are on the losing side. Who is to say that they will be right?

According to the Book of Revelation, only one-hundred forty-four thousand people would survive the Apocalypse. The Christian Coalition alone boasts a membership of two million. Even if the Baptists were the "chosen people", what would Pat Robertson tell the remaining 1.85 million members who don’t make the promised cut? Sorry? Thanks for playing? He certainly wouldn’t be able to say "Better luck next time."

Of course, there’s the other reason why religious people oppose gambling.. one that people really don’t talk about, because it’s purely financial. Ministers oppose gambling because it takes money away from the causes THEY support - namely themselves. Let’s get really brutally honest about this - that’s why churches love bingo but hate the lottery, because with church-sponsored raffles and bingo games, the money goes to the church! Bet it on the dog track, and the money goes to someone else. Bet it in the lottery, and the money goes to the state. Either way, it doesn’t go into their hands, which is why they oppose it.

Then again, the good thing about the Alabama ministers leading the drive against that state having its own lottery system is that it keeps Alabama money going to Georgia, where that state’s lottery is still going strong. So on behalf of all the Georgia residents, I say thanks to all those bible-thumping moralists in Alabama for ensuring that your decent, God-fearing Christian people will continue to come across state lines and spend their money in our businesses and for our state’s lottery system. It’s a sure bet that your continued dysfunction will bring in more money to Georgia’s businesses, while keeping Alabama away from the "stain" of gambling.

Week of 10/18/1999

The Measure Of A Man
- by David Matthews 2

A rather old and risqué joke goes something like this.. a little boy and a little girl were arguing about who was better. Everything the boy could do, the girl was able to do just as well if not better.

Finally, out of desperation, the little boy drops his pants and says "Well, I have one of these, and I KNOW you don’t!"

Then the little girl smiled, raised her dress and said "No, but I have one of these, and my mommy says that when I’m old enough, having one of these means I can have as many of THOSE as I want!"

Crude and risqué, but it gets to the heart of the topic at hand.

I have one simple request for America.. Can we end this so-called gender war soon? Like… right now?

I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about factions like "angry white males" and "soccer moms" in the media. The so-called "Republican Revolution" was supposedly created by the "angry white males" who were leading the backlash against feminism. Then the Clinton re-election was supposedly credited by this group of voters called "soccer moms" who supposedly came screaming to the voting booths in their sport utility vehicles, complete with Stepford Pod children in tow before whisking them away to soccer practice.

Please! Give me a break! The only people who actually buy the notion of groups like the "angry white males" and "soccer moms" are pollsters, and they’re the ones who created this fluff-oriented garbage in the first place!

However, when it does come to the sexes, it seems like many men are left gazing like deer in the headlights of progress. The best they can do is either get out of the way or get run over.

Of course the media doesn’t help matters much. The tabloid talk show circuit is filled with guys who are two-timing louts who don’t pay child support or alimony, who stalk their ex-lovers, or just plain refuse get jobs and sit on their fat ass watching other tabloid talk shows. The sitcoms want to show dad as either a bumbling buffoon or a workaholic who is too busy to know what his children are doing until it blows up in their face. A man either has to be a larger-than-life hero to be noticed in the media, or else he’s a pathetic character either looking for pity or canned laughter.

And our elected officials? Well, our highest elected official is a narcissistic and hypocritical con man who needs public opinion polls to know when and how to tell the truth. Then on the Republican side is retired congressman Newt Gingrich, leader of the "Republican Revolution", former speaker of the House - the man who preached about family values and the sanctity of marriage - who is now in what looks like a messy second divorce, and is rumored to have been carrying on with a Washington aide for quite some time. The alternatives right now running for office are authoritarians like Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer, or plain-as-yogurt personalities like Governor George Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Men are represented in government either by hypocrites and thugs, or else bores.

Now some people are starting to blame the wave of shooting sprees on men acting out on society. Several writers I’ve come across have gone so far as to say that men are being "feminized" by both women and society in general. While the argument could be made that the men .. and even boys in many instances.. could’ve felt emasculated by their peers and by society prior to their violent shooting sprees, I would find that theory too difficult to swallow, and too easy a scapegoat. We’ve all been harassed and picked on in our lives, some more than others. Everyone has had their share of failures. Not everyone can be the next Mark Andressen, or the next Steve Jobs, or even the next Bill Gates. The best business advisors will tell you that eighty percent of all businesses fail. The fact that some males take this as feeling emasculated should not be used as an excuse for violent behavior.

So what has been happening with us guys?

Well, let’s get brutally honest here.. we guys have been busy working. Too busy, sometimes, to notice the changes that have been happening. Times change, often at an incredible pace for most men to keep up with.

Women have been able to change more readily than men because they’ve been pushing for those options that the male populace never considered. Before World War II, the very notion of women working was unheard of aside from professions like nursing and teaching. Today, women have options. They can work, or they can get married, stay home, and raise children. The birth control pill in the 1950’s gave women more power to determine whether or not they’ll have children while exploring their sexuality. The more liberalized trends in the late 50’s and into the 60’s and 70’s allowed women to explore more about themselves.

Men, on the other hand, worked. There was no movement to "explore our sexuality." Our egos told us we didn’t need to explore it.. either we knew what we needed to know or it didn’t matter. There was no real push for "fathers rights" because that conflicted with our own traditional notion that fathers worked and mothers stayed at home to raise their children.

What would you say if a woman told you that she was going to quit her lucrative job so she could stay at home and raise the children, and let her husband do all the work that pays the bills? You’d probably say "Good for you!" and commend her on her willingness to stay at home and raise the children.

Now what if a man said that he was going to quit his lucrative job, stay at home, raise the kids, and let his wife do all the work that pays the bills? How many of you would be willing to say "Good for you" to that guy? Or would you be quick to chide him about his choice of being a lazy SOB while his wife did all the work? You probably wouldn’t even think about him raising the kids, because you’d think that was just an excuse.

And yet, it was that double standard that explains the problems between women and men. Women have been making progress by making more and more options available. For the most part, men have remained the same, and that is creating some confusion amongst the male populace.

What is the measure of a man? Is man simply an economic life-support system? A wallet with legs? A replaceable cog in the ever-demanding workforce? Or is he something more than that?

Unfortunately, too many social institutions tell us no. Social programs like welfare tell us that struggling mothers are somehow better without husbands. The workplace tells us we’re replaceable through various layoffs and corporate mergers. To add insult to injury, the workplace does so even after demanding the employees dedicate more and more time to work. The religious institutions simply tell us to grin and bear it, and the so-called "family" experts chide men for not dedicating every single, solitary moment of their time, effort, and money into the family.

Let’s start with the notion that men should be allowed to BE men, just like women have been demanding to do everything they want to and yet still be treated like women. Women don’t like to be treated as walking wombs (to put it mildly), so they should stop treating men like walking wallets. Objectification of either gender is wrong.

Let’s also entertain the notion that man is not a finished work of art just because he is out of school and has a job with a steady income. Not every hard worker is destined to climb that ladder of success in their current field. Sometimes people just don’t know what they really can do, or what they really want out of life until later in the years. For women it’s not that difficult, especially when they have a spouse that is understanding and supportive enough to allow women to find out what it is they really want. Guys should be at least given the same amount of understanding.

Finally, let’s realize that men - for the most part - need some very simple things.. to be accepted, respected, and appreciated amongst their peers, their family, and their spouse, for the things they do. Basic needs that have been forgotten in this fast-paced, me-more-now world. Take those things away, and what you have left is a shell of a human being; one that doesn’t care about anyone or anything; and angry enough to lash out at a world they feel has ignored them.

In the end, men simply want to be the best they can be. THAT is the real measure of a man.

Week of 10/11/1999

Sticking It In The Eye Of The Beholder
- by David Matthews 2

"Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid." - Jules Feiffer

A few years ago, I was criticized by one of my online visitors, who amongst all of the perceived faults he posed, one of them was the fact that my head shot photo was set behind a painting that was in my parents’ living room, which he deemed to be a cheap Hong Kong acrylic painting. To be honest, I never really knew where my parents got their paintings from. All I know is that they got them from someplace and it suited their tastes just fine. I needed a head shot photo for the local newspaper to run with my column, and it didn’t really matter where the photo was taken, because in a black-and-white newspaper the background would be meaningless. But apparently that does not translate the same in the high-color world of the Internet.

Now, if anyone has ever been in my parents’ living room, they’d know that the painting in question is a rather nice scene of a coastline in midday, complete with a lighthouse. Some might call it cheap, but my father calls it art.

And that’s the problem with art.. it’s subjective. Much like beauty, art’s appeal - or disgust - rests only in the eye of the beholder.

Lately, however, a lot of talk has been about what in the art world disgusts people.

Most of the talk, naturally, has been by the number one enemy to freedom - those dysfunctional moralists who try to find even the most obscure museum display and use it as their excuse to throw every artist and artisan into the gulag.

Of course, it doesn’t take much to offend a moralist. Performance artist Karen Finley taking off her clothes and covering herself in chocolate sauce would set off a good percentage of the bible-thumping crowd. Throw in a couple of the infamous photos done by the late Robert Mapplethorpe, and you’ll get most members of the Christian Coalition in a rabid, frothing fury.

Personally, someone covering themselves in chocolate sauce or having a photo taken with a bullwhip up someone’s butt only tells me two things: one, that we have some very creative people in the world; and two, some folks would do anything for a buck.

But is it art? For me, no. I would much rather have a "Kingdom Come" lithograph done by Alex Ross, or perhaps one of the cosmic Chromagraphs done by Michael David Ward. To me, a beautiful nude form is much better to the eye than a beautiful nude form made to look like a butterscotch sundae. Give me a photo of a beautiful nude form done by Pompeo Posar than one taken by Robert Mapplethorpe any day. To me, that’s art.

However, some people do consider smearing chocolate over a naked body to be art, because they pay good money to commission it and display it where they can. And I have no problem with that, because I know that art is subjective.

But what if the government funds it?

That’s where the real problems begin, because what one taxpayer considers art, a moralist who also pay taxes would consider to be an obscene waste of money.

The latest battle between art and government deals with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the man who is perhaps the most anti-freedom mayor of New York City, Rudolph "Mussolini" Giuliani.

The Brooklyn Museum recently opened an exhibit called "Sensation" - which was sponsored by a private patron to the museum - and featured several unusual pieces of art, including a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant waste and adorned by certain parts of the female anatomy. That piece, amongst all others, was singled out by every conservative and religious moralist in America as blasphemous.

But Giuliani decided that proclaiming a piece of art to be blasphemous was not enough. He wanted to make the museum pay for offending his senses. So he used his authority as mayor to cut off all public funding, and is even threatening to evict the museum from their city-owned building unless they cancel the exhibit.

Now let’s get brutally honest here… this is a clear case of abuse of power if there ever was one by an elected official. The kind of blatant political extortion that defines the word censorship. Not even the members of the US Congress and the Clinton Regime have abused their power so blatantly as Giuliani. Outside of the political office, Giuliani’s antics would rightly brand him as an extortionist, and reward him with prison terms.

However, the issue of government funding for the arts is something that really needs to be addressed.

Because art is very subjective, government sponsorship of the arts is something that deserves a rare zero-sum category, either accepted in full or not at all. As a libertarian, I would rather not see any government funding for art, simply because of the kind of problems such as being faced in New York. The alternative is what moralists would want, namely to fund only the art that they would approve of; that would reflect their own personal tastes - no matter how dysfunctional they are. To essentially turn groups like the National Endowment for the Arts into the artist version of the Hayes code.

I realize that there are plenty of starving artists out there in the world. I meet them at comic book shows and science fiction conventions. People of amazing talent, who look at their more successful counterparts and either are jealous or baffled how these people could make it rich in their trade. But they aren’t alone in their frustrations. As a writer, I would love to be able to quit my bill-paying day job and spend all my efforts developing my writing skills until I can be recognized in the private market. Or do to the same as an online broadcaster.

But the truth is that such welfare from the government does little to encourage real success in that field. If the goal is to make money from your work, then government welfare solves that situation quickly, without any need to appeal to the more lucrative private sector. Why should one strive to succeed in the private sector when the government is willing to pay your way? Our problems with the current welfare system is the best example of why even this kind of funding doesn’t work to bring forth true success.

As for government’s current sponsorship, it’s one thing to have someone like "Il Duce" Giuliani decide to stop future funding altogether. He wouldn’t even need to use the excuse of the Brooklyn Museum to justify his actions then. Although the art world would throw a fit, it would be far more respectful as an elected official than his current actions, which show the world just how much of a fascist he really is.