Some People Are Truly Pathetic (and the Pathetic Thing is That They Don't Seem to Know Why They Are

If you've happened to visit BlogsforWomen, it includes the image of a stunning painting of a woman standing beautiful, strong and unafraid. Never occurred to me anyone would take it for anything other than it is.

So imagine my surprise when I happened by the blog tonight and read this:

It's unfortunate that I have to school the ignorant on such a simple issue, but I must. The Blogs by Women blog header is art. It is not meant to be construed as a pornographic image, although I would consider many pornographic images very artistic. For those people who have decided to ban the Blogs by Women blog from various directories because of the header -- SHAME ON YOU! Your ignorance is pathetic - especially because it's obvious you didn't bother to READ the blog.

Sadly, this reminds me of our beloved GOP governor in Vermont, Jim "I don't just look anal retentive" Douglas.

Just as John Ashcroft spent a small fortune in our tax money having custom drapes made to cover a nude statue that apparently embarrassed him terribly at the fear he might sport a "happy teapot spout", Jim went into quite a tizzy because a lamp - or a lampshade and here, forgive me, the details always got lost in his silly rhetoric about it - that was part of a special art collection on exhibit at the state house had a nude woman on it.

This was headline stuff in the state for more than a month because Jim was just aghast. Jim could not work with that representation of a human body in his office. He said he felt uncomfortable having visitors in his office because of it (ed note: really, Jim, the only embarrassment you should have felt was that YOU had made it into that office). Of course, all of this was pretty ironic because Jim spent almost the entire first term of his governorship out of his office working to re-elect the king (just in case Diebold's voter machine code was faulty, perhaps). But everything was supposed to grind to a halt because a person with far more pressing concerns than a piece of artwork spend an inordinate amount of time trying to ditch the art. Sounds just like a politician, doesn't it? Of course, this isn't just the realm of the Jim Douglases and the John Ashcrofts. I'd happily count Joe ("I got kissed by the president!!!" Lieberman roundly in this camp.

Yet all of this amounts to nothing more than a tempest in a happy teapot spout. ::snort:: Meaning, I'm real sorry these fellows can't control their dicks but can the rest of us who can not be required to limit our art choices to the "Bush in a flightsuit" or the "Ann Coulter in a red-white-and-blue thong" on black velvet editions? The people who know how to control themselves should not have to go without because others' have the sophistication of an 8-year-old. [I know, this sounds like a really radically left wing concept that those who can control themselves shouldn't have to be limited by the morons, but I hear this idea has worked very effectively for the NRA and the assault rifle lobby, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.]

I mention this because it's amazing that we're supposed to take art and view it only as the most repressed, conflicted, and small-minded view it. Some of us would see a piece of art like that shown at BlogsforWomen, at the Department of Justice, and in the Vermont governor's office and see the woman's spirit long before they noticed her breasts.

But some clowns just figure it's porn and they're mad as hell because they're convinced they've only got two options:

* cover it up/destroy it/outlaw it, or
* whip out their little teeny peenies and do nasty things

Interestingly, many of them would do the latter first and THEN righteously perform the former. Then there are the others who would masturbate to it, outlaw it as bad, and THEN seize the piece of art so they can whack off to it again as often as they want. I suggest we've got a LOT of these types trying to run the country these days.

To finish: man, the people who pound their chests professing their great love God really like to hide His best work, don't they?