"More and more our desire for instant gratification - our need to be kept entertained, whether by literature, pop music or television, without contributing any real effort - is starting to marginalise art of vision, art that questions and may require concentration in order to yield its rewards. Yet it is precisely this art that informs us most about ourselves as human beings. In an ever-changing society we need ever-evolving art to allow us to see our true selves."
-Michael Berkeley, speaking at London's Royal Academy of Music, as excerpted in The Guardian

Truth Comedy =Tragedy+Time: Secrets and lies

You don't have to be an ichthyologist to know when a fish stinks. In other words, you don't need to be a government insider to detect official deception and hypocrisy. All around us are former weapons inspectors, foreign policy experts and CIA analysts who daily challenge this administration's official deceptions. It's up to all of us to discover and speak the truth.
· Secrets: A Memoir [San Francisco Gate]

Let them call me a rebel and I welcome it, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of demons were I to make a whore of my soul.
-Thomas Paine

Politics In Defense Of Politics

Not many commencement addresses are memorable. This one, delivered by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, is.

I have decided to undertake one of the most daring things imaginable these days -- far riskier than a defense of pornography, or a defense of prostitution, or a defense of polygamy. I propose to submit a defense of politics.
· A typical politician [Middlebury College Class of 1994]

Elections Winner Take All

While some of the the provisions in the Help America Vote Act have improved the electoral system, the United States still lags behind other large democracies in electoral efficiency.
· Election Reform Finally Limps Into Port [Tom Paine]

Literature & Arts BULLS*** ARTISTS OR TRUTHSAYER?

Unmade beds, pickled sharks, or just a can of worms?
Art history is full of irritable middle-aged men who, having suffered some disappointment or other - such as being passed over in a government reshuffle - explode into apoplectic rage as Kim Howells did the other night when confronted with what he called the "conceptual bullshit" of the Turner prize show.
· Conceptually Speaking [Guardian, London]

Byng, Byng, Byng
No one is ambivalent about Jamie Byng; they either love him or loathe him. Not that he gives a damn, since scooping the Booker prize last week, he's been hailed as the most dynamic figure in British publishing.
· Love him or Loathe him. [Guardian, London]

Wannabe Writers
There's a enormous publishing industry out there of books advising wannabe writers on how to get published. Do any of them work? I never expected to make a lot of money as a writer, I just wanted to do something I enjoyed and would gladly do for free. But sometimes, it is kind of better to receive than it is to give.
· Rip Off Artists [Dead Mule]