Entry 13:

Good morning, Hanna.

As always, we must thank God for the artists of New York. They are so kind to journalists. Today's New York Times front page brings us the story of one Hans Haacke, whose show "Sanitation" is part of the forthcoming (and eternally notorious) Whitney Biennial. Haacke intends "Sanitation" to be a commentary on last year's Brooklyn Museum "Sensation" show, and on government suppression of art in general. And how exactly is brave Hans expressing that? you ask: He is putting a bunch of garbage cans in a room and covering the walls with quotes from Rudy Giuliani, Jesse Helms, Pat Robertson, and Pat Buchanan. Oh, and he is rendering the quotes in Nazi-style "Fraktur" script. Get it? What a light touch this fellow has.

Here's my theory about Haacke: Rudy himself secretly hired the artist to make "Sanitation." (Can't you imagine Giuliani telling him: "No, No Hans. Not just the Nazi script. Use garbage cans too. It'll be great.") The best thing about this show for Giuliani is that the Whitney receives very little city funding: The mayor gets to be martyr to the idiocies of the culture vultures, and he can't do anything stupid like shutting the museum.

The Times front page also carries a disturbing story about how the INS has essentially stopped raiding workplaces in search of illegal employees. The implication is that the United States is so desperate for low-wage workers that it is ignoring illegal workers in order to keep wage inflation low. (Weird detail: One reason employers don't bother to weed out illegals is that an employer can be sued for discrimination if she questions an authentic-looking Social Security card. In other words, the law encourages employers to look away.) The policy seems backward. We are creating a huge cohort of second-class Americans, illegals who will be tolerated as long as they work for cheap, but will never be afforded the real benefits of living here. It is economically efficient, but un-American. Instead of limiting immigration and letting illegals stay, we should vastly increase legal immigration and boot illegals out. The new legal immigrants will fill the same jobs the illegals have now, but they will also gain the opportunity to become citizens.

Another Times story caught my eye--what is it with me and the Times today?--the account of a San Antonio high-school basketball player who just got sent to jail for viciously elbowing an opponent in the head during a game. The kid was already on probation, so the assault may put him in prison for five years. This follows yesterday's announcement that Canadian authorities are going to charge NHL player Marty McSorley for slashing another player in the head with his stick. Sports fans and NHL officials seem indignant about cops' getting involved in their games: It's our sport, let us police it. I think the player indictments are great news. If a sport's violence stays within its rules, the law should leave players alone. But if players are causing mayhem and the refs can't stop it, the law should intervene. When a hockey player swings his stick into an opponent's head, he is no longer playing hockey: He is committing assault.

Best observation of the morning comes from Michael Kelly in his Washington Post column. Musing on the stupidity of George W. Bush--"Pinhead," Kelly calls him--he writes, "Contemplate, if you are pitiless, the Gore-Bush debates."

Yours contemplatively,
D