DRIVEL THAT DREW CONSIDERABLE APPLAUSE: MITT ROMNEY "When the White House reflected the best of what we are, not the worst of what Europe has become"; RICK SANTORUM about Romney's wealth:" That's how capitalism works and I'm all for it." NEWT GINGRICH:This is "(...) not a Republican, not an establishment, not a Wall Street funded campaign, but a people campaign." RON PAUL: " The problem is too much government, we need more personal liberty." "We should have the right to keep the fruits of our labor as well." LOOSE TRANSLATION:ROMNEY: No health insurance benefits or lower premiums because the industry needs to settle on its own, like a house built on stilts. I'm doing okay so I don't care how much you have to pay, besides I want to dismantle Washington to favor states, with all that implies.RICK SANTORUM: I want to work for Romney as a vice president and I don't care that he went to Harvard Business school on his father's money. GINGRICH: (You needed to see his facial expression when he started talking aboout Israel and Jerusalem, so...)Hey wait...aren't small investors involved in Wall Street? Hey, wait a minute...Hey...RON PAUL: Same as state policies by Romney, and I still won't mention Sasha Baron Rothschild or the newsletters.

ETHICAL OR UNETHICAL ARGUMENTS: Isn't saying that Liberals have bogus arguments against Republicans a way of avoiding the ethical weight on which Liberal arguments are based and a way of attempting to secure the support of the least disingenuous of their constituency? Why and how would its constituency be willingly kept domesticated and ignorant by implying that any ethical concern is partial?

MAURIZIO CROZZA: MA E' SCODINZOLARE LO STESSO SE NON SI VEDE? MAURIZIO CROZZA: IS IT WAGGING YOUR TAIL IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT?

FROM THE BOTTOM OF HIS HEART: VERIZON'S NON-UNIONIZED VERSION OF A STRIKE. While the real workers strike fighting planned job, benefit and pension cuts, one of their faithful or those who can't find work elsewhere is busy emasculating himself with inexplicable comments, such as " Thank you for blowing the President" at the end of a conversation on technical problems. This so called "Mike" wanted my voice mail password, which he did not get, and jumbled the banter at the end of the conversation. Since the applicability of this puzzles me, "Mike" has some in depth issues he needs to take to a therapist in a hurry. Guess who's switching services at the end of the bundle deal.

EVEN YOU CAN ANIMALIZE YOURSELF LIKE WOMEN AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WITH THE PROPER ATTIRE IF YOU ONLY TRY! ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS CLOSE YOUR EYES AND GRIMACE!

Image by Jiri Georg Dokoupil. In a 15 minute long self-proclaimed relaxation video I just saw there was one interpreter, a close to nature brunette in various floaty evening gowns traipsing around deserts, beaches and Mexican ruins, bending over backward while accompanied by feral animals.Disregarding the fact that most were carnivore,she walks continuously around the various primal landscapes and then stops abruptly, all to place her head against each and every bear or jaguar,close her eyes and fall into a trance with the animal following suit while annoying canned New Age music plays. At times indigenous people in indigenous or campesino dress would substitute the animals instead,not falling asleep but standing next to her,since they were less appealing. Only one man on the sand celebrated the video-maker's something by simulating sleep during a small ceremony. Our heroine walks right past it. There was also one shot of a meaningful head-on glance exchanged between a young buck and the interpreter,as she walks past, assembling within it all the vibrantly formulaic qualities of a wild countryside Latin American male shaman. He didn't say hello because A) you couldn't hear it over the music, B) he was on a train in passing and C) the woman in evening wear was in the video possibly on a friendship mission with the director and these things take awhile to clear out.

CHANGING DIAGNOSIS IS EXPECTED TO LEAD TO CUTS IN GOVERNMENTAL ASSISTANCE TO PEOPLE WITH AUTISM. Yesterday Newsday reported that the updating of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatrist Association due in 2013 will change the definition of autism enough to exclude thousands from benefiting from governmental assistance programs that include training for work, independent living, and the development of social and academic abilities. Dr. Fred Volkman, a former panelist for the Manual, stated that 1/2 of those who were defined as "higher functioning" could be excluded. Dr. Von Bergeijk, Dean of the New York Institute of Technology and Director of the Vocational Independence Program noted that 40% of his students are considered "higher functioning" and some of them are smarter than the instructors themselves, quoting as an example one student with an IQ of 143. Just to be contentious, two studies conducted by the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachussets and Stanford University in Palo Alto California found instead that there would be an increase in diagnosis for 1%, while for the other the drop would be 4 to 5%.

ALLEN WEST AND BORDERLINE BILE. This is what the Republican said of President Obama: " You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America." He obviously has been away from the military for so long he forgot that the Commander in Chief doesn't go offshore to war.

REPUBLICAN RELIGION: AN OXIMORON. It's not that Republicans object to President Obama on religious grounds, they don't like anyone not sharing their application of religion.

"YOU'RE SEXY! YOU'RE CUTE! TAKE OFF YOUR RIOT SUIT" Occupy Oakland chant.If for Mitt Romney his politics ain't beanbags it's not as if they're bean bag pellets shot at Occupy Oakland participants, but riot suits and the bad decision making behind them.

GINGRICH AS A CANDIDATE LEADER FOR THE INSURRECTION. Gingrich feels like picking a fight: " I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order." While one could only estimate the appeal of a "genuine insurrection" to the Republican establishment, where would Gingrich lead it? To the moon collecting rocks in his ice bucket? To my back yard? I'll call 911. There are plenty of good cops around.

BOEHNER IN TEARS. I hear Boehner is in tears because Kansas House Speaker Mike O' Neal secretly transcribed his invective against the President, signed it Ready and Willing and forwarded it to Michelle Obama. In order to heal his wounded pride, in pain at the Republican candidate choices for the presidency and knowing that no one had heard a wink from the First Lady, he proceeded to shout at any available Democrat saying they could be treasonous too if they tried. He explained, still shouting, that all they needed to do was burn a moppet of ex President Bush on a small pyre in each and every back yard or street corner. Please.

THANKS TO ROMNEY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NRA, HERE'S A JUMBLE OF COMMANDMENTS HONORING HIM (IT'S BEEN SO LONG, I DON'T REMEMBER THE NUMERICAL CORRESPONDENCE). FIRST COMMANDMENT: You must see how Mitt Romney's a viable candidate for the presidency of a country thanks to his father's humble Mexican origins.SECOND COMMANDMENT: You must accept that Mitt Romney has a thing for French Canadians. THIRD COMMANDMENT: You must not lust after French Canadians. They're all reserved for Mitt Romney. FOURTH COMMANDMENT: YOu must not vote for other candidates than Mitt Romney. FIFTH COMMANDMENT: You must steal from everybody earning $50,000 or less a year, then fire them and give a percentage to Mitt Romney. SIXTH COMMANDMENT: You must not murder corporations or Mitt Romney. SEVENTH COMMANDMENT: The most you can say to Mitt Romney, if you're miffed,is "heck". EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: You must donate to the same charities Mitt Romney donates to. NINTH COMMANDMENT: You must learn how to spell Mitt Romney's first name out in its entirety. TENTH COMMANDMENT: You must lie about watching Mitt Romney commercials.

TURN OFF THE TV: TURN ON WHOSE IMAGINATION?

AMBIGUITIES. Other words which originally demeaned those with mental disabilities: idiot; fool. And then, in terms of disabilities, there's always the whimsical spazz, the key cultural value here being the ability to run like a gazelle through the streets of Manhattan to catch a cab to the nearest clothes fitting.

NAZI VERPISS DICH!

TACO BEAU. Connecticut mayor Joseph Maturo, who expressed a wish to eat tacos in an effort to to build bridges to redeem himself and the racially profiling cops captivated by Latinos had his prayers answered: today 2,000 were delivered to him in person.

ACCIDENTS IN LANGUAGE. Yesterday, at Printed Matters opening for Maurizio Cattelan. The usual chatter, like there is some interest he takes in his subjects that seems...the usual looks of disgust of elitism unbound from some of the staff toward me, which, when caught, turn into the fear of the loss of a sale, and the usual display of material with titles such as retard squad. I just kept on thinking how Kloisterman and Hodgman use the term, how there is really no word defining sadistic and brutalizing behavior other than terms inplying mental disability, such as psycho, retard, cretin, and how safe that was, as if a person with a clean bill of mental health couldn't gut another, and more, on purpose. So I mentioned how the term was ambiguous to the man at the register, who in tone of voice implied I wasn't on the scene. Then I said, I guess not, since by purchasing a copy of Charley I was only there to sustain his rent habit, and left.

THE COLONOSCOPY ON THE MOON... ...and from a perfected world, on his little colony far, far from home the Church of Gingrich can celebrate his own marriages as moonwalking cops provide funding via parking violations. Amen.

RIGHT TO WORK AND YOU. People who choose to support Right to Work and not pay union dues now figure that by the time there are no unions left and wages are driven down to nothing by businesses, they'll be rich.

JAN BREWER AND THE "INTIMIDATING" PRESIDENT

I don't know what the hullaballoo is about. Jan Brewer was just testing which way her wind was blowing.

JOHN CHIARA

Iain Baxter

THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARIES. Glad to see the clowning isn't over even though Bachmann and Perry are gone. If Gingrich's answers are no as to whether he offends Americans with prejudicial views on African Americans, as to whether he wanted an open marriage with his second wife, and as to whether he was ever a lobbyist for Freddy Mac, let him just say no to an easier set of questions that have no ethical resonance: ask him if he's a woman, not inside or ask him if he's still in high school. In the meantime,for Cold War and inhuman interest votes he envisions new covert warfare against Cuba, even though that country presents no threat to us. To polish himself off as an anti-government pundit he referred to the Dobbs-Frank law concerning mortgage lending as "more corruption", not needed federal assistance. Enemies to the end, both he and Romney at least agree as well they should on some matters. The first is a brave new world of "self-deportation": starve illegal immigrants by denying them any employment opportunity, and they'll leave on their own. The second would allow their acceptance of the Dream Act if altered. Currently it would allow illegal immigrants's children to become citizens if they attend college or join the military. The Republican duo would allow them citizenship only by "taking a risk" and joining the military, nix on the old college try. To top this entire debate experience off, Gingrich generously allows even those falsely accused to reflect on the appropriateness of their legal rights: for him, people on death row in this country have an "extraordinary right to appeal". In a perfect universe, if you're on death row there must be a reason. By the way, just discovered in passing from reading the NYTimes: Gingrich is the same man who said in a debate that Catholics were anti-USA spies as well, sounding much like a Klan member, is the same man as the one who converted to Catholicism from Lutheranism to please wife number three.

Verizon's at it again: The CWA union is protesting the firm's retreat from the negotiating table in terms of benefits and pensions. To add insult to injury 45,000 workers are at risk of losing their jobs: Verizon wants to contract the work out. Their policy for new hires are simple: No benefits and no pensions. look into www.UnityAtVerizon.org

Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim. A show worth seeing, even if the Guggenheim is at odds with workers fighting for their rights, so the pay as you wish from 5:45 to 7 something was fine. I paid a penny to the suggested ten dollars, which was worth it even more when I was condescendingly allowed to purchase three postcards by the gift shop hoity house help. The show lasts till January 22. All his work, sculptural and non, is suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the museum, amidst stuffed pigeons, and all of it is satirical, ridiculing among else the sacrality of art, such as Lucio Fontana's knife on canvas marks turned into a series of Untitled Zorro's signatures, or the cult of personality, as in a Picasso statue in seer stance, and the fascistic sacrality present in religion, culture and sexuality with a figure of Hitler on his knees, as if praying, or the billboard presentation of a new image of woman in a fascistic mausoleum white perfume bottle, presented as Which will be the next woman? in Italian, by a supposed firm ridiculing the Schiaparelli signature as tired and assish or, last but not least, his ridicule of the art world's presentations of plushies in various form and of alter sexuality in a plastic threesome with a male figure placing a flower's stem in a receiving female's anus. The crowd it drew was incredible. All were mostly serious and blankly pondering just how to simulate an artistic appreciation that reflected positively on themselves, with the exception of a man saying "Hold on Paco-I'll show you something funny: a horse's ass". There were a couple of racists struggling through a list of Italian names mispronouncing one and all, then finally giving up, saying "Jersey Shore" while walking off in frustration,and a woman in her twenties holding and caressing a stuffed animal simulating a white persian cat, misunderstanding the taxidermied work that dangled from the ceiling, such as one that brought to mind the Italian proverb sleeping dogs don't bite, also bringing to mind that perhaps they do. Talking about misunderstandings, a child pointed at a sculpture saying to a woman accompanying him: "look at that horse-it looks like its head is cut off", both then giggling sadistically, or a woman speaking of a taxidermied dog saying "that dog is disgusting", or a man with the learned intent stare of a connoisseur admiring as beauty the crassness of a nude female torso. These attitudes are exactly what the work is deriding, and it is interesting how a mere reference should draw closeted admirers desperate for a titillating which was far from there. Maybe they were all united by some degree of sincerely perverse masochistic affection for the caricaturistically realistic.

The Supreme Court and contemporary society. In a bouncily overconfident effort to escape the pressures of current culture and its realities, the country's highest court declared that United States juridical concerns no longer pertain to those hired by religious organizations to represent their views, leaving the vast world of possible crimes committed by those members in some deity's hands because they have a right to be hired to proselitize exclusively based on their belonging to a particular faith. And, nothwistanding the evidence that at least 76% of eyewitness accounts were later disqualified by DNA analysis, the jury still has the right to be swayed by the malice or overconfidence of an eyewitness instead of allowing a judge to decide first whether the evidence should be presented as valid to jurors or not, unless in cases of police misconduct.

MOMA's new photography 2011 same as no photography in any year. No, I'm not naming names of photographers, simply because they aren't. I wouldn't pay the admission to see it, so go on Free Fridays, courtesy of Target. Entry starts at 4:00. It's a rollercoaster of repulsive, prejudice and cult of the personal glitch. You get to see a seventy year old diva, culturally "nekkid" under a black leather jacket, lost in a room with an African-American plaster servant statue; then you're treated to a photographer's idea of her very own "family" of perfect strangers, mostly Hispanic and African American characters in various phases of inappropriate sexual behavior: a clothed mother portrayed with a daughter "nekkid" under a nylon stocking body suit; a woman, "nekkid" straddling a man in the same room as a sleeping infant. Things go from racist to culturally bigoted: there's the usual anti-communist anti-Mao spread serving a new anxious immigrant class of Asian, and a frozenly hostile Greek-English analysis of Turkish society, not easy to misread but enhanced by knowing of the deep enmity between Turkish and Greek cultures. The best of the worst were the pseudo-intellectual expectorations by others: a facile series of shots of cafe' and library details because one consolingly nourishes the body, the other the soul (Must not be the New York Public Library, with its current firings, future closings of Midmanhattan branch and another and the destruction of the consulting Main library building now inscripted five times with the name of an important donor); a series of ceiling bare lightbulb shots and a close-up of a male and female middleaged couple,not traditionally erotic, prone, staring. The titillating implications of sex in experiential bleak exhaustion leave you as nourished as eating frosting from a month-old cupcake would. In this vein of ponderosity, another pseudo artist offers us an unrequested insight in the land of her nightmares, which includes a bare tree with branches screechingly in focus. I mean, tell a therapist. At least you have to pay him or her to listen to you.