The Dish

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David Hockney on the church and images:

The church had social control. Whoever controlled the images had power. And they still do. Social control followed the lens and mirror for most of the 20th century. What’s now known as the media exert social control, not the church, but we are moving into a new era, because the making and distribution of images is changing. Anyone can make and distribute images on a mobile phone. The equipment is everywhere.

We do not have debates about images. The world of art is separate from the world of images, but the power is with images, not art. An obvious problem is seen. The world of images claims a relationship to visual reality – television and cinema – but this claim cannot now be sustained. We will get more confused if we don’t think about them.[…]

Parliament will discuss depiction, but not art. We are in a confusing time. The decline of religion in Europe is seen as part of the "scientific" revolution. I have begun to doubt this now; it is quite likely that it’s to do with images. The decline of the church parallels the mass manufacture of cameras. They are deeply connected. I noticed on a recent tour of Italy that not many Italians went in the churches to see pictures. They see them at home, not made by Botticelli but by Berlusconi. Think about it.

A reader writes:

Ross has drunk too deeply from the well of imperialism. His argument is simply a rehash of the oldest defense of imperial occupation known to mankind: protecting the wild, savage, occupied people from themselves. It was the excuse of Britain in India, of the Boers in South Africa, of the French in Algeria. That he has dressed it up in Colin Powell’s "you break it you own it" formulation does not change a thing.

That’s not to say I don’t understand his point. I do, and it has some feel-good, noble appeal. But let’s get to the point.

The "Iraqi people" have been at each other’s throats at least since Britain cobbled together the territory nearly 100 years ago. To think that we can outlast these ancient hatreds with our military presence is folly. And it is criminally unfair to American servicemen and women who are forced to endure tour after tour after tour so that people like Ross don’t feel bad about Iraqi self-destruction. It is unfair to their parents, their spouses, and their children. Throw continuing fiscal crisis, lack of military readiness for other threats, and endlessly eroding American soft power on the scale, and the balance tips sharply towards GTFO – harm to Iraqis notwithstanding, cold as that may seem.

If Iraqis are intent on killing one another, there is little America can – or necessarily should – do about it. The first step toward getting beyond this mess is to get out of it.

Yglesias backs Obama. Of course, I’m hoping Krugman is more right than wrong on this.

From Joe Klein’s article on Gore as the nominee:

Pish-tosh, you say, and you’re probably right. But let’s play a little. Let’s say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let’s also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they’d have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.

And I thought Clinton was presumptuous for offering Obama veep?

Poulos suggests an alternative to scrapping the penny:

The clear solution derived from these key points is not to eliminate the penny but to kill off the nickel and make pennies worth five cents.

Another reason to revere him. A reader writes:

So happens this Methodist minister is leaving for Fort Smith, Ark. in a couple of hours for a "Praying the Hours with Thomas Merton" retreat at the St. Scholastica monastery there. What I love about Merton is that while progressives and peace activists and social activists have always loved and embraced him and found inspiration in him, he was always suspicious and often very critical of their motives and excesses. Consider this journal entry of his from July 3, 1968, not long before his bizarre death from electrocution in Asia:

"One thing is very clear: all that passes for aggiornamento is not necessarily good or healthy. One has to remain pretty critical and independent about all ideas … Both the conservatives and the progressives seem to me to be full of the same kind of intolerance, arrogance, empty-headedness, and to be dominated by different kinds of conformism; in either case the dread of being left out of their reference group."

That is the right approach of a man of faith to church politics – let alone the secular, partisan kind.

One word on his untimely death: he was electrocuted at the age of 53 when getting out of the bath. It seems awful, unseemly, almost humiliating at first. And yet what a merciful way to be brought back to God. No anxiety; no fear of death; no forewarning. Are there any moments you’d be less expecting to die than getting out of a bath? Merton was so close to God I doubt God needed any last confession or contrition from him. So He took him instantly. Yes, Hitch and Sam can now laugh out loud.

A Cartier Camel looks into the camera during the 3rd Cartier Dubai Polo Challenge at Desert Palm Polo Ground on March 28, 2008 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Challenge is the year’s most celebrated polo tournament taking place in the desert under the patronage of HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of Dubai. By Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

James Lileks wieghs in:

This shouldn’t be polarizing, but it is. Energy conservation has been suffused with a moral quality these days; instead of being a sensible reaction to higher prices and foreign dependence, it is a sign of virtue. It was thus in the 70s, and now it’s back. That’s why your choice of light bulb says what kind of a person you are. Fluorescent? Or evil?

A daily tabulation of Clinton’s chances at the nomination.