beyond this place, there be dragons

or

ART ISN'T EASY, re-duex

"Oh, I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,

A college bell to put it in and a clapper to stir it around.

I'd drink to all good fellows who come from far and near.

I'm a ramblin', gamblin', hell of an engineer."

This mornings NYT re-opens the can of worms that we here at the k+b covered pretty well a while back, the broo ha ha of a tempest in a tea cup that was The hollowed Smithsonian Portrait Gallery removing the totally odd little clip of " A Fire in My Belly " by the late artist David Wojnarowicz. ( I sat through it.. UN-watchable, but art.. because the artist said it was )

read it here

Anyway, all sorts of gnashing and wailing from all sorts of folk.... The lefty's all mad cause it was removed.. the righties all mad.. well, because it is what they do, and in the middle the mild mannered ex president of Ga Tech, G. Wayne Clough, the now head of the Smithsonian.
A good long through piece on just how Bizzaro world things have become in Washington, and just from another dimension shocking that the stupid GOP would even think of cutting any ( they want to cut ALL ) of the Smithsonian's budget. We spent more in missiles on day one of bombing Libya that the Museum gets....