Pictures as Sculpture While in Hobart for Christmas, we took in an exhibition at MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, of the artist duo, Gilbert and George. They’ve been around since the late sixties, and I’d never encountered them previously, but am now a fan. The exhibition was extensive, exhaustive, and gave a very good overview of their career, including a couple of films, one of their work and another documenting them. They have been what we would now refer to as “performance artists”, but refer to themselves more as sculptures, even though it appears that most of their work is photographic. However, the installations of their photographs are wall-sized – “mosaics” rather than collage, although using that technique, too – so the chosen appellation seems apt, nevertheless. MONA itself is an eclectic collection – as the name says – of ancient and modern art, presented according to the whim of its founder, David Walsh, without labels, largely in darkness, so that each piece is highlighted and separate from those around it. Like much of modern art, a fair bit of it is museum-only in style, and much of it is fairly confrontational. Gilbert & George certainly fall into the latter category, and largely into the former, but what they’ve done certainly does what great art always seems to: It makes you think. Primarily it makes you think about your own thinking: Are you simply reprocessing received opinions or are you trying to understand something new? Not for everyone, certainly, but that’s also true for most great art.

Why Are Republicans So Extreme These Days That’s the question the Sydney Morning Herald asks, and correspondent Chris Zappone answers. He tells us that: 1. The demographics are changing and the Republicans are losing their core constituency to age and increasing inequality. 2. This has led to a loss of direction and floundering leadership. 3. As a consequence, the Republicans are using increasingly strident and hectoring tactics, relying on fear rather than substance, but this is actually driving what’s left of their constituency away. 4. Donald Trump. How true is this? Well, Trump used to be registered as a Democrat, but since Trump is Trump, political affiliation isn’t any reflection of core principles. He’s an opportunist, entirely self-serving. There’s only one reason he’s running for President, and it has nothing to do with immigration, terrorism, or “making America great”. It’s about him. Unlike other immensely wealthy people, like Bill Gates or even, more lately, Mark Zuckerberg, Trump’s status as wealthy is all he cares about. His wealth serves him and he serves it. Running for President is like a perk. He does it because he can, and because it increases his personal brand penetration. The Republicans shouldn’t be running away from Trump. They have to bear the responsibility for having created Trump the Presidential Candidate, even if not Trump himself. They’ve ginned up the hysteria, left the power vacuum, and abandoned any attempt at running the government. So instead of running away, they should be rolling up their sleeves to get down to business, and meanwhile roundly and loudly condemning every word that comes out of their monstrous creation’s mouth, including, but not limited to “and”, “the”, or “an”. They won’t, of course, because if Trump is right about one thing, it’s that the Republicans are stupid. Yes, he also says that about the Democrats, and a lot of them are, too. The Democrats, even when they had the Congressional majority, spent an inordinate amount of time being proud of themselves rather than working, and then let the Republicans steal the majority. But the Republicans have built a trap for themselves, a tar baby named Donald whom they now can’t escape. The Republicans, if they tried, could find their way back to a reasonable right-of-middle position, one that would allow them to address immigration, accept Obamacare, but since the days of Ronald Reagan have so thoroughly aligned themselves with the extremists on every issue that that’s all they’re left with. The Religious Right has a lot to answer for, but by pursuing that demographic, the Republicans have ended up with the Nativists, as well, and increasingly pursuing law-and-order into something more resembling fascism than any other political philosophy, amply demonstrated by their current campaign leader for 2016. Americans have long held their exceptionalism in an incestuously close embrace, to the point where any perspective on themselves than their own becomes impossible. “O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion: What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' ev'n devotion!” The louse is out there, for everyone to see, if they would.

Watch and Wait President Obama has proposed using the Federal “no-fly” list as a register to deny the purchase of weapons. Seems like an easy win. Some say, however, that it would be unconstitutional, violating the Second Amendment, or that it would be simply unworkable due to the errors inherent in the list itself. I don’t buy “unconstitutional”. There’s a provision in the Constitution to protect the “freedom of assembly”, i.e., the right of persons to travel and to associate with one another freely. Banning them from commercial air travel could be interpreted as a violation of this right, but nobody minds that: Because nobody wants to be on the plane one of those banned bombs. Well, nobody wants one of those banned to head to the office and start shooting up the place, either, do they? As for “unworkable”, Carly Fiorina’s “friend” notwithstanding, I don’t buy that either. Her friend got off the list eventually, and now, presumably, flies hither and yon regularly, without guns, of course, but probably still has to take his shoes off and stand in the scanner and have his carry-on bags wanded, etc. Waiting for the next mass shooting or the one after that is what’s unworkable. Watching people buy guns whom you suspect would be trouble on a plane is what’s unworkable. The concern that being unable to buy a gun would tip a suspect off is just stupid. They’re already not allowed on a plane. Don’t you think that might make such a person concerned for their status regarding law enforcement? The NRA bought-and-sold politicians will make up any excuse to do nothing regarding the regulation of firearms. They ignore the part about a “well-ordered” militia in favour of an armed rabble that inevitably includes psychopaths and criminals. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” come up-front ahead of other rights. Want a gun? Join the military.