Sooner or later, you find yourself wondering what it is that distinguishes good art from bad art. That's because we have opinions about music, movies, books, even Weblogs. Of course we recognize quality pretty much on sight, and dreck sinks to its own level every time. But how do we discriminate between finer shades of value? Henry James, in his essay The Art of Fiction, proposed that at some level at least, all art has to pass the "I like it" test. That is, if you don't like something, all the theory in the world won't change your mind.

These are the kinds of thoughts that came to mind while I was reading a review of Journalism: Truth or Dare? by Ian Hargreaves. In particular, this passage jumped out at me, in which reviewer Alasdair Palmer questions our fascination with journalism that exists despite our profound misgivings with the entire notion of jounalistic integrity:

The explanation of that paradox is the ambivalent attitude of most of the public to its own tastes: most of us would like to be concerned and high-minded citizens who discuss ethics and the principles of politics and international relations like members of Plato's academy, but, in reality, we almost all prefer to read, and look at, material which covers, or uncovers, issues of a rather less elevated nature. When journalists give us what we like, rather than what we want to like, we don't like them—but we read their reports.

So when we experience a work of art, we apprehend its texture as being its own internal tension—the degree to which it asks questions and suggests points of departure for additional exploration. This very much applies to Weblogs, and as you've seen yourself, some appear to be closed circles that lead nowhere: The writer simply has a point of view and exhorts your assent to it. The better ones present a more richly textured perspective and contain their own internal tension between the extant and the possible.

The Bleating Goat

That's my pet name for the UK Independent's Robert Fisk, who generally runs off the rails with his always-predictable jeremiads against the Western world. His copy today is no exception: For the people on the streets, this is not liberation but a new colonial oppression. But we'll skip past all that and look at this interesting observation:

Because there is also something dangerous—and deeply disturbing—about the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses...The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid.

While we're in Baghdad, take a look at a story out this morning about our discovery of a bizarre weapons cache that included "briefcases fitted with sub-machine-guns, air pistols loaded with cyanide pellets and a bomb concealed inside a bottle of pills." Now pay attention, double-o seven...

Memestream

The "meme" meme is getting some mileage lately. It appears in a review of Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class—and how it's transforming work, leisure, community, and everyday life.

Florida suggests that while we're busily transforming ouselves into a service economy, we're also witnessing the rise of something he calls the "creative class," a brilliant and intelligent sub-set of our population who are the best and brightest of us. Problem is, they don't possess "class consciousness" and thus cannot organize for their own benefit and political clout.

Well I'd say that's a good thing. You put two or three "creative-types" into a room, you've got problems. These people are generally a major pain in the ass and I don't want them banding into large blocs. Anyway, Florida terms the uber-creatives as bourgeois-bohemians, or "bobos," leading to this amusing paragraph:

Attracting clusters of bobos is good for cities and neighborhoods, because companies are more likely now to relocate where the talent pool is, and the talent pool is closely correlated with bobo tastes. Florida suggests, for example, that gay-friendliness is on the rise in certain areas of the country because of the high correlation between concentrated gay populations and bobo chic.

Jobs You Don't Want, Dept.

Every now and then, I'll see somebody doing something and think, "Damn, I'm glad I don't have to do that." I got the same thought after reading an article at the LA Times this morning titled, "Diving to Keep a City's Sewage on the Move". Meet Mexico City's muck divers, a scuba team that plunges daily into the inky sludge beneath the streets in order to free-up blockages in the effluent that they call the "aguas negras," aka: The Monster.

Having respect for "the monster" is the key to surviving it, says Cu, a sinewy 42-year-old who has spent half his life in the sewers.

After all these years, "I still have fear," Cu said. "We never know what we're going to encounter below."

The Unwanted

That would be the legions of "white rappers" who are desperately seeking to cash in on Eminem's good fortune. The NY Daily News deals with this phenomenon this morning, in a story titled, Don't call these rappers 'Vanilla Ice'. We get to meet Stagga Lee, Poverty, K-Mo, DF Dub, and "the first white female rapper," Sarai, who's also known as "Feminem."

At Sarai's Website, we discover that:

Sarai is along the same vein of Lil' Kim. It's got a catchy tune that is perfect for the ladies. That's right fellas: mess up and you have to pack your bags! Sarai is the perfect artist for all the ladies in P-Town (Portland).

That round up this morning. I also noticed this item, titled, Many Americans Still Aren't Going Online, Survey Finds. Turns out that "forty-two percent of Americans still don't use the Internet and the majority of them do not believe they ever will." They tend to say that the Internet is "too hard" to use. Whatever we do, let's keep them offline.

1:14:51 PM