Obscene.
"We don’t think it’s in the interest, not only of the Smithsonian but of other federally supported cultural organizations, to pick fights."
Someone asked me this morning why I haven't remarked this week on Martin Sullivan's act of profound cowardice and incomprehensible dereliction of duty. I haven't remarked on it, not here, not there, because-- what, really, would you have me say?
That there is nothing, nothing, that degrades and destroys us more - both as individuals and as a species - than the censoring of art?
That "obscenity" is not defined by statute, that it relies for its definition and disposition on “hypothetical reasonable persons," and that clearly such persons remain, as ever, quite entirely hypothetical if your collective decision is that ants on a crucifix are obscene and the removal of artwork from public view at the behest of a religious zealot is not?
That in the tangled tresses of obscenus' etymology and usage, we find a time when it meant "boding ill"? When it meant
Ominous.
Call me when you want to do something other than ruefully shake your head about it.