Artistic Offense

It makes me want to step outside 
I want to loosen my tie 
Sweet Jesus, my heart 
Is beating faster and faster 
--Modern Art, Art Brut

Nobody does it better 
Makes me feel sad for the rest 
Nobody does it half as good as you 
Baby, you're the best 
--Nobody Does it Better, 
Carly Simon
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And while we are at our day of remembrance, witness the new Purple Heart pin fronting the cover of this month's Military Order of the Purple Heart magazine (on right).

The pin is supposed to be a facsimile of the noble Purple Heart medallion featuring our first president, George Washington.  Instead, it looks vaguely like a Labrador Retriever, or perhaps Veronica Lake.  The features have been so obliterated that it could be some insect's pupa.

This, no doubt, is a Chinese manufacturing effort, lacking the tolerances and oversight that used to be the hallmark of American-made goods. (Efforts to get an answer as to the source of the monstrosity were met with ambiguity.) So Americans fight and die, and buy things from our once great rival, Communist China -- now, Most Favored Nation (MFN) People's Republic of China, the nation who rolls over civil rights as we fight wars to ostensibly install those rights in lesser places.

Meanwhile, we suffer along, calling a bad the "new normal", gobbling up shoddy goods and calling it a day, forgetting that at one time, such items wouldn't sit on the discount table at Woolworths (if we still had a Woolworths.)

Where does pride end, and expediency begin? Gall?  This horrific effort -- fronting a national magazine, no less -- brought to mind the recent botched effort to restore an ecce homo fresco of Jesus in Spain -- "probably the worst art restoration project of all time"  -- by 80-ish parishioner Cecilia Giménez.

Take a gander, if you dare, and tell us which you think is the worse offense:

Getting Braver All the Time

Suffers who suffer all
Can swim upon the desert
Where avarice have ravaged all
In spite of good intentions
-- Seven Deadly Sins, Flogging Molly
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The Purple Heart Magazine (May/June) ran Ranger's Letter to the Editor in opposition to the use of the term "warrior" to describe today's soldiers.

This is no small thing. We noticed the liberalization beginning in June of 2007 when Gary Kurpius, national commander of the 2.4 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, backed recently released Marine Corps veteran Adam Kokesh in his right to protest the U.S.'s involvement in the Iraq war.

It amounts to a sea change when the editorial arm of a military fraternal organization like the MOPH is willing to publish opposition to an accepted ooh-rah stance. The letter is reprinted below:

Editor:

The last issue reports the MOPH [Military Order of the Purple Heart] organization issued Sen. Jim Webb a special leadership award this year for, among other things, his legislation to create a new G.I. Bill. “Webb’s legislation . . . will make it possible for today’s young warriors and their families to live the American dream.” (Purple Heart Magazine, Mar/Apr. ‘09).

Sen. Webb is a great advocate for veterans issues, though he has never referred to himself or our soldiers as “warriors” (aside from its use in the so-called “Wounded Warrior” Project.)

Unfortunately, the P.H. Magazine and by extension, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is endorsing a “warrior mentality” which is the opposite of the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

The American dream used to be peace and prosperity and adherence to a set of core values. Both the concept of being a warrior and arriving at the American dream through warfare are gross distortions of the concept of a democracy.

George Washington, the originator of the Purple Heart, never branded himself or his soldiers as warriors. Like the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington fought only in a defensive posture. This is not the stance of the warrior. Washington left office warning of the dangers of entangling foreign alliances.

We have run afoul of his vision.

Respectfully,

Jim Hruska