James Brown died on Christmas Eve; Gerald Ford died on Wednesday. At this point in our culture, the Godfather of Soul is more important than the ex-President. There has been more coverage of James Brown than of Gerald Ford.

The world has actually gone topsy-turvy. Bloomingdale's has just done an entire display from the School of the Arts in Harlem, in which the children have painted a portrait of Andy Warhol. Simon Doonan was on the Channel 9 News, explaining what an important influence Warhol was, but what is anyone thinking, using Warhol as a role model for children?

Is there any rationality in the world? Better yet, is there any judgement?

One warhol is funny: someone who took the "seriousness" of the artworld of the 1950s and cheapened it, trashed it (deliberately) and made it into something gaudy and superficial and empty. But to extoll Warhol now is to say that there is no seriousness in the world, that there is no difference between art and commercialism. And that was funny once, but to continue it now, and to indoctrinate children with this view....

What are people thinking?

Of course, people aren't thinking. Not now. There was an interesting article (where did i read it?) about how CBS decided that the death of an ex-President didn't warrant any notice. At all. No interruption of the usual daily programming, nothing. This is CBS, the "Tiffany" network, noted for its news division?

Though the blockage on the news of the war in Iraq is well-known (the ban on pictures of funerals, the ban on pictures of American casualties, the underreporting of Iraqi casualties, etc.) , still, you'd think somebody (aside from a few "independent" producers) would have the guts to try to do some actual reporting about Iraq. But instead, we get endless reams about Britney Spears. Is Nero fiddling while Rome burns? What's happening? Are we so desensitized?