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My Art Show At The Guggenheim Museum [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-26

I did this back in 2010, when I was speaking at a conference in NYC. As it happened, I had to drive because my favorite bus service was temporarily shut down, so I had the cargo capacity of a car.

This was nearly a much better photo than it is. An elderly New Yorker in a big coat with two yippy dogs on leashes walked by, leaned over and peered at the picture, found it wanting, and walked off. I was desperately maneuvering to the flank to get both the museum and my sneering critic in the picture, but I was not fast enough.

The whole point, of course, was that there are people who glibly lie about things based on proximity or interpretation. This particular picture happened because there was a fellow in a photography forum I followed, who claimed to be a professional with “thousands of images in print” – it turned out after some digging that he had shot a photo that was featured in a real estate listings magazine – thousands of copies printed. This was my way of pointing out that the fellow was playing fast and loose with the truth; “Oh yeah, well I just got back from NYC helping take down and pack up the pieces from my one man show at The Guggenheim.” The hook baited, I waited until someone bit, then posted the image.

All of this is because of Florida Bro Ron DeSantis’ claim that he was “deployed with the US Navy SEALs.” Yeah, they were over on the other side of the base and DeSantis was a JAG (military lawyer) who was deployed kinda near them. Near enough to be “with”, I suppose.

This is all old hat, I must imagine, in a world where George Santos was not immediately thrown out of the house for his lying scamminess. DeSantis was doing it, first, though. That becomes a time machine problem because DeSantis was “with” the Navy SEALs before Santos served as the unit’s first commander.

There are plenty of republicans who have attempted to burnish their credentials as violent thugs, a little bit. You know, like JD Vance who was a marine, deployed in the criminal Iraq war, but was a “combat correspondent” which, I assume, means “Rear Echelon MotherFucker” (REMF) I am genuinely nonplussed by this sort of thing – am I supposed to be impressed by his military glory and assume it indicates his political acumen? Vance wrote “Hillbilly Elegy” based on experiences while he was supposedly combat corresponding. [military] By the time it was published, he was being a “hillbilly” with a degree from Yale Law School, working for Peter Theil’s venture capital group. In my opinion, he is as soaked with military glory as some of the british royals, who are titular commanders of military regiments so they can strut around events in very expensive bespoke uniforms covered with self-awarded bling. Fuck them all.

In my life I have known a few really dangerous people, like Sazz, [stderr] who killed a whole bunch of people and never bragged about it, didn’t even put it on his resume. And there was Axel. [stderr] People who have actually seen the shit, don’t strut around in the uniforms and bling, don’t write books about what humble badasses they were, etc. The military heroes I have known would prefer not to talk about it, and tend to mostly talk about how tired and scared they were.

Hopefully, DeSantis’ campaign is dying and will crawl off into some Florida swamp, to make a brief smell and then sink into the weeds. But with creeps like DeSantis, there’s an instinct to kick them while they are down, to keep them from getting back up.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/26/2189812/-My-Art-Show-At-The-Guggenheim-Museum

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