… so we have never had the professional pleasure of writing the following in an introductory paragraph:


Still, I was not quite prepared for the derailment I got when I attended a forum on “Terrorism, Technology and Visual Media” and found myself watching a slide show featuring an apparently naked artist sitting on a pyramid the hard way.


Mitch, I think the tradeoff is worth it, however ? especially after reading the next two paragraphs (again, from a panel purporting to discuss terrorism and media):


Even at the Modern language Association’s annual convention, whose Division on Popular Culture sponsored the panel, the presentation helped show just how loosely the higher education establishment now defines the term “liberal arts.” Because the next slide of the same unrobed artist was more complicated, the presenter, UC-Riverside associate professor Jennifer Doyle, felt compelled to offer some narration.

“Ron Athey, who was prominent in the NEA wars of the 1990s, does a self-exhibit in which he lay naked on metal rods,” Ms. Doyle explained. “As you can see, he’s got a baseball bat rammed up his …”


Our pal Mal Kline is the unfortunate panel attendee doomed, as we are, to play the role of the child in the crowd as the academic Emperor parades around in his new “avant garde” clothes (baseball bat and all).