Pre-Ramble: ‘Twas the night before voting day and all through the land …

I don’t know why I’m always surprised by political campaigns, and why I tend to tune them out. It’s weird, because, if you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know that I am a fairly politically engaged gal.  I pay attention, and I care, which makes it even more dichotomous to me that I refuse to watch political ads on television and delight in actively tearing every piece of politically charged direct mail in half before tossing it directly into the trash.

Bring in the clowns – On the other hand, I so wish I had been able to attend Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” last Saturday on the National Mall in Washington D.C.  According to a follow-up story in Sunday’s NY Times, the event was, “part circus, part satire, part holiday parade, … a political rally without politicians.” There were flags and bands and speeches, and Stephen Colbert wore a sweet pair of navy blue pants with white stars all over them. I mean, these guys are political satirists, right? Comedians?

But there was something more.  Thousands of people (or Colbert’s estimate of 6 billion … ) don’t travel across the country to hear a couple of jokes …

“For many who came, the rally was an opportunity to take control of the political narrative, if only for one sunny afternoon … Beyond the goofiness, the rally seemed to be channeling something deep — a craving to be heard and a frustration with the lack of leadership … less by President Obama than by a Democratic Party that many described as timid, fearful, and failing to stand up for the president’s accomplishments.”

I actually think Steve ‘n’ Jon are only half right. Foreshadows of this frustration were present way before the ink had  dried on Obama’s Audacity of Hope. The American people are frustrated because they aren’t being heard by any party on Capitol Hill. Things are a mess and there’s a huge disconnect and people don’t know what to do with that. 

The Take-Away: Here’s a thought – In solidarity with the call to “be heard,” step out into your own little rally and deliver a few punch lines at the ballot box today.

Pre-Ramble:  If you had a whole bunch of money - money that you wanted to give to “exceptional people who are likely to make great things happen in the world“ - who would you choose? 

Such is the annual task of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s esteemed MacArthur Fellows Program, a secret nomination and selection process that singles out 20 candidates from a pool of hundreds to receive the prestigious prize – $500,000 paid in quarterly installments over a period of five years to be used in whatever way the recipient chooses — !

According to the Foundation website,

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction … The program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations … Recipients may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.

Eclectic mix – Often referred to as the “genius” grant, the MacArthur Fellowship prize is designed to give recognized individuals the freedom to delve more deeply into their creative pursuits.  As in past years, the 2010 recipients are definitely an eclectic and creative mix … artists, musicians, scientists, economists, environmentalists and sociologists … This year’s roster includes:

• Marla Spivak, 55, a professor of apiculture (beekeeping) at the University of Minnesota
• John Dabiri, 30, a professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at California Institute of Technology, studying the swimming motion of jellyfish
• Nicholas Benson, 46, a calligrapher and stone-carver currently working on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington D.C.
• Sebastain Ruth, 35, founder of a music academy that works with inner-city kids
• David Simon, 50, celebrated author and screenwriter, creator of HBO’s “The Wire” and other series

What I love about the MacArthur Fellows Program is its under-the-radar model. Its search and selection process is the polar opposite of the shallow, confrontational, tawdry reality show fare that we have come to expect. The highly accomplished recipients have neither sought, campaigned, auditioned, performed, Twittered nor started a fan page in order to call themselves to the attention of MacArthur nominators. Along with industry, curiosity and dedication, humility appears to be one of the qualities that the process seeks to reward.

But, what I love the most about this unique program is the premium that it places on creativity. MacArthur Foundation president, Robert Gallucci marks creativity as the heart of its commitment to identify and recognize these gifted individuals, … ”the most vexing problems we face are not going to be addressed without creativity.” 

Here, here, public K-12 education policy ! … Here, here, corporate America ! …  If it’s only about teaching to the test and driving the bottom line, many of the most challenging problems we face are going to go unaddressed. Do you want that happening on your watch?

The Take-Away:  Cheers to the beekeepers! ( … would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Ms. Spivak wrestled off the beekeeper suit to take that early morning call … )

If there was ever a ratification of the “follow your bliss” mantra, this is it.  In this age of pompous self-promotion (think Snooki and Gaga), it is exhilarating to encounter a scenario that steadfastly (and stealthily) affirms and supports over-looked, unglamorous and often game-changing efforts … 

“Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential … The purpose of the MacArthur Fellows Program is to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.”

Cheers to empowering individual originality, insight and potential!

Pre-Ramble: Peggy Noonan is a great writer, even when she’s wrong. Her piece on yesterday’s WSJ opinion page (A19) describes a now familiar exchange that took place in a town hall meeting in Washington last week…

“A woman stands — handsome, dignified, black, a person with presence… The president looked relieved when she stood. Perhaps he thought she might lob a sympathetic question that would allow him to hit a reply out of the park. Instead, in the nicest way possible, Velma Hart lobbed a hand grenade. 

“I am a mother. I am a wife. I’m an American veteran, and I’m one of your middle-class Americans. And quite frankly I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are.”

Noonan goes on to dissect the moment, angling her words around the ”disastrous fall” that has become the Obama Presidency. Then she jumps horses a bit and points to the rise of women and new access to good ol’ Washington inside information as major developments that are going to shape election outcomes going forward. The words are saying that women and outsiders will play a new role in American politics, but the subtext is …

“Democrats are going to lose big in the next election because Barack Obama campaign-promised that he would fix things, and he hasn’t.  He is responsible for all of the things that aren’t going well in our country … and in the world, … Watch out because the brave new Tea Party Girls are deeply disappointed and we are going to toss our tea bags into a new cup.”

Let’s be real about this – Republican or Democrat – regardless of which party you’re steeped in, they’re both full of hot water.  The fact is, all kinds of hurt would have been visited upon whoever was sitting in that Oval Office … Barack Obama … John McCain … Hillary Clinton, … heck, even Betty White would be taking a hard right to the chin on the breadth and depth of stuff that’s been going down lately. 

The Take-Away: Like that goofy vintage Milton Bradley game, Time Bomb, this big mess was going to blow; it was just a matter of who was holding the ticking ball when it went off. Sure, we can be “disappointed about where we are,” even deeply, but we can’t hold one man singularly accountable for taking the oath of office moments before the teetering mass of cumulative missteps went KABOOM!!! in our faces.

Post Note: The Time Bomb game was released in 1964 by Milton-Bradley. Based on the schoolyard game of Hot Potato, players would gather in a circle, wind it up and start tossing the ticking ball from person to person. Suddenly, the ball would make a popping sound and whoever was holding it was eliminated from the game.

Time Bomb is hard to find these days, especially in good condition as the premise of the game involved tossing and the product was targeted for kids – human beings with under-developed motor skills. Expect to blow $50-$75 on a clean working example of this toy. (Adapted from description found on the Big Red Toy Box website)

Pre-Ramble: So, I am currently working on a project with the University of Minnesota Extension – a branch of the U that “extends” its vast body of knowledge and resources into the local community – on messaging and communications materials about good health and nutrition for families and children.

Unless you’ve had your head in a cookie jar, you are probably aware of the national push in this direction as well, with Michelle Obama’s initiative to combat childhood obesity, “Let’s Move.”

 The Let’s Move! campaign, started by First Lady Michelle Obama, has an ambitious national goal of solving the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight. Let’s Move! will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that will engage every sector impacting the health of children and will provide schools, families and communities simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy.”

Beyond baby fat – Recent statistics indicate that one-in-three children in the United States is obese and, “For the first time in 200 years, children are likely to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.”

• Childhood obesity accounts for $14 billion annually in direct health expenses, and that number is growing
• Excess weight in kids increases their risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and asthma
• Less than 33 percent of kids surveyed ate two or more servings of fruit per day
• Just 26 percent of those surveyed ate three or more vegetables in a day
• Kids spend an average of 5.5 hours per day engaged in media-driven sedentary activities (playing video games or watching TV)

Let’s face it – There are a lot of reasons why kids (and adults) are putting on more pounds than they might like: ”healthy” foods can cost more; they can be difficult to find in some communities; information and awareness about healthy foods and lifestyle may be lacking; busy parents and families may not have time to plan, shop and prepare healthy meals as often as they’d like; kids aren’t running around outside the way they used to; and, for whatever reason, parents aren’t insisting that kids turn off the TV and trot on outside as much as they might have in the past.

And actually, … healthy foods … the ones loaded with vitamins and minerals, can be kind of labor intensive. Until pre-washed, pre-chopped baby field greens and those freakishly rounded tiny carrots came onto the scene, eating veggies sure was a lot more work than popping open a bag of chips … Cutting, chopping, bowls, peels, seeds, water all over the place … Well, and, in the case of vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli, unless there is some steaming and dipping involved, they can come off as what has been described by the target population (kids and teens … and some adults) as “super yucky.”

Yes, this will not be easy — socioeconomics, lifestyle habits, parenting, marketing, accountability and convenience present a formidable set of factors. The fix for this complex, deeply ingrained issue must extend beyond catchy missives and green leafy photo ops.

The Take-Away:  The promising solutions here are as much about incentives (carrots) as they are about admonishment (sticks). The “Let’s Move” campaign is on the right track with its up-beat, multi-pronged approach. Let’s hope that this, and efforts like it, are able to bring together a fresh new combination of partners and ideas – and cook up a successful and healthy outcome for America’s kids.

(Corny ending.)

Pre-Ramble: This just in – the hard-working folks on the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion’s advisory panel have completed another round of musical chairs on the deck of the Titanic – they’ve come up with new recommendations for the revered Food Pyramid (not their version at right).

The USDA began its nutritional education campaign over 100 years ago, providing general info on food composition and dietary standards. In 1992, the iconic Food Pyramid was unveiled, delineating various foods into groups and indicating the relative amounts of them that should be consumed by the American consumer. Apparently, the committee gets together every so often ”to review the latest science and state of the American diet” and make any needed adjustments. According to the USDA website:

“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are the cornerstone of Federal nutrition policy and nutrition education activities. The Dietary Guidelines are jointly issued and updated every 5 years by the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS). They provide authoritative advice for people two years and older about how good dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines remain the current guidance until the 2010 Dietary Guidelines are published.”

A sneak preview of this latest round of tweaks includes reducing daily sodium intake from 2,300 mg to 1,500 mg; reducing the percentage of saturated fat in the diet from 10% to 7%; “drastic” reductions in foods with added sugars; and, “avoidance of artificial trans fats altogether.” The panel’s recommendations also continue to endorse nutritional darlings vitamin D, calcium, potassium, and our good friend dietary fiber.

It isn’t that they aren’t trying … I’m sure the USDA wants to foster the best of the best nutritional practices out there so we can all live healthy, happy lives. In this technologically enhanced era of fan pages and crowd-sourcing, Dr. Robert Post, deputy director of the UDSA Center, assures us that in their high level nutritional discourse, all comments made by public citizens are taken into consideration, along with scientific reviews “and lively debate within the committee’s meetings.” Great effort around public engagement, guys!

Seriously, though …  What new information can that discussion have possibly uncovered that I can’t see jiggling up and down the aisles at my neighborhood Super Target?  Has anyone at the USDA been to Disneyworld? Do they know that people at the Minnesota State Fair are carrying around chocolate-covered bacon on a stick?  Show of hands — who thinks there’s a huge gap between public health policy and real-world practice? … It doesn’t take a super-sized bucket of science to see that the state of the American diet is in dire need of adjustment.

No news here - the Food Pyramid is not pulling its weight in the battle of the bulge. The nice people at the USDA can change the direction of the stripes from horizontal to a more slimming vertical; … put the latest nutritional trends out there on a happenin’ new website (mypyramid.gov); … they can even recommend that the entire pyramid endorse leafy greens … or reduced fat Triscuits, … or PURE LARD! It wouldn’t make a lick of difference. 

The Take-Away:  I think I’m speaking for more than myself when I suggest that despite our best efforts (ok, maybe we’re not even trying), the average American Joe is not up to the task of understanding, calculating and strategizing around every little morsel that we put in our mouths. We don’t know (and/or don’t care) how many milligrams of salt can dance on the tip of a curly fry. We don’t know how much 10% of our daily intake of anything is, so ratcheting that down to 7% should be no problem. 

We just want to eat stuff and not get too fat or dead. Can we fit that solution set somewhere on the Pyramid?

Pre-Ramble:  Just the sound of the word “innovation” gives me a rush of energy that rises up out of a cross section of art, science and the romantic notions of resourcefulness and hard work. Over the past decade, this glorified word has been slapped all over everything from business schools to soap, claiming the “frontier spirit” and trading on its appeal to dreamers and pragmatists alike. 

There is growing concern, however, that the U.S. prowess for innovation is in danger, and that steps must be taken to ”reclaim our edge.”  John C. Lechleiter, chairman, president and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company expounds upon that sentiment in a recent Opinion page article (WSJ, 7/9/10, p. A17).

A stream of inventions helped make the 20th century the American century … Unfortunately, America’s economy is in danger of losing what has always been our greatest competitive advantage – our genius for innovation. … A recent study ranked the U.S. 6th among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness, but 40th out of 40 in the rate of change in innovative capacity … In other words, we’re at serious risk of falling behind.”

(Forgive me if I’m missing something here, but how much farther behind can we fall if we’re already dead last?)

Building capacity. In crafting a turnaround plan, Lechleiter talks about an “ecosystem” of conditions that are required to foster an environment of innovation, among them the “seeds of innovation” meaning, us human beings with our talent and energy, creativity and insights, “…  a priceless resource and one that is woefully underdeveloped in this country.” Lechleiter goes on to suggest that, along with simplified immigration policies and adequate funding for our research infrastructure, one way to bolster America’s “capacity for innovation” is to step up the rigors of science and math instruction in our schools.

At the recent Apsen Ideas Festival, education gurus like Bill Gates, Jeffrey Canada, and Howard Gardner discuss the future of education in America. They suggest all kinds of great ideas, innovative ideas even, that strive to engage young people in real learning and give them the tools they will need for a successful future. They talk about innovative models for reform … a longer school day, … an articulated curriculum, … more rigorous testing, … accountability for results, … teacher quality and parent involvement.  Certainly, these are all important elements in a high-quality education, and important building blocks for innovation as well.

Jack Hidary, a successful innovator/entrepreneur in the tech and finance camp, former philosophy and neuroscience student at Columbia University, and also a speaker at this year’s Aspen Festival, puts things in another perspective, 

“Problem-solving is not correlated with grade scores on a transcript.”

Science and reading and math – Oh my!  Sure, high performance in math and science (and reading ) are critical skill sets that must be nurtured in the well-rounded innovator, but so too are the critical traits of curiosity, independence and engagement. What is going to actually engage these kids?  Why are they going to want to sit in the classroom longer and take harder courses?  What is going to get them excited to come to school and apply themselves?  To get excited about learning?  How are they going to find what they are looking for in life unless they are given an opportunity to access their their imagination, their chi, their passion, their hidden sources of motivation? What is going to compel these students to shift their internal paradigm such that they see barriers and obstacles as exciting ”challenges to be overcome”?

Follow the yellow brick road.  Sometimes the answer is to go off of the beaten path and find yourself in a whole new place … maybe even one with rainbows, a tin man and ruby slippers (awesome, magical sparkliness shown above). Problem-solving – a gateway to innovation – involves critical thinking, exploration, resourcefulness and creativity. Future  innovators need to develop the motivation and capacity to snoop around … to follow their whims … listen to their gut, and rely on instinct and insight to make new connections among an infinite sea of random data points.

We need to provide kids with opportunities to venture down the yellow brick road … to get out of the black and white and see the world in color on a regular basis. In addition to a crabby Auntie Em and high winds, Dorothy’s data points were facilitated by her encounters with the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion.  The future entrepreneur needs a firm understanding of math and science and literature, AND art and music and team-work and a whole bunch of other random and wonderful things.

The Take-Away: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Like Oz and the Fab 4, our the world is spinning and we need to figure out a way to make sense out of it. If we are to have any hope of rebuilding the American capacity for innovation, we need to engage and “nurture the seeds” in new ways. … Even clicking our societal heels in a spanking new pair of sparkly red shoes isn’t going to help us find our way back to innovation if we continue to ignore the critical role that the arts and extracurricular activities play in human engagement and continue to undervalue (cut funding for) them in our public and educational environments.

Pre-Ramble:  You can’t swing a bag of gold bullion around here without having some top-tier philanthropist knocking at the door and imploring you to give away half of your wealth. The July 5th cover of fortuitously named Fortune Magazine features the smiling faces of billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates along with a plug for the “$600 Billion Challenge.”

Brainchild of legendary Berkshire Hathaway money-magnet Buffett, the Challenge invites the nation’s billionaires “to pledge to give at least half of their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death.”  Names like Eli Broad and David Rockefeller are on the ask list along with media moguls Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg and Oprah Winfrey. Between the assets of these folks plus the other 395+ super-rich Americans (a la Forbes 400) … we’ve got the potential for quite the pot of cash, … sums the likes of which would “change the face of philanthropy as we know it.”

Long and the short of it.  The thinking behind the scheme is laudable. Buffett explains that while he has not yet made a commitment of time, which he feels is ultimately far more valuable than money, his contribution of Berkshire Hathaway stock certificates “ … can command far-ranging resources [which can] benefit others who, through the luck of the draw, have received the short straws in life. “ 

The obvious thought here is, if you’ve got $1 billion, half-a-billion is probably going to be sufficient to pay the bills and have enough left over to have some fun. So, where exactly is the line between the fortunes conferred by long straws and the lot of the fortune-challenged short straws set?  Where is the tipping point between having enough to live on and experiencing a true sense of need? 

Mortgage payments …  From a personal standpoint, I guess I never really thought about my net worth in terms of “wealth.” Sure, I feel plenty fortunate, blessed even, with the rich and varied lifestyle that my money allows, but I never really considered it “drive-me-across-the-estate-to-the-polo-ponies” kind of wealth.  When I think of vast amounts of disposable wealth, I imagine those closets you’d see on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous … the ones with thousands of shoes all perfectly lined up on racks. My shoe inventory will fit at the foot of the bed with room to spare. I’m just sayin.

The challenge then, in the lifestyles of those of us who are not so rich and famous, is vastly more confounding — Just how much is enough?  How much of your “personal wealth” could you realistically consider parting with?  What amount of your earnings is really just gravy? For those of you on the less charitably-inclined end of the continuum, how little can you get away with giving away without looking or feeling cheap, greedy or heartless? 

The Take-Away: I don’t have an answer for any of those questions … and I don’t have $1 billion to test the theories. For what it’s worth, the prose of the philanthropic pledge itself offers Warren Buffett’s humble and generous rationale,

The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.”

Pre-Ramble:  So, an editorial in today’s WSJ deems the Cape Wind project, a wind farm approved to be installed in Nantucket Sound, a “lousy deal.”  

In addition to creating an environmental eyesore in what some regard as a near sacred piece of natural shoreline and animal habitat off the coast of Massachusetts, the average electric bill in the region served by the wind turbines will jump up by an estimated $1.59 per month.

Environmental protection – The article goes on to note the “comic irony” in the slew of ”archaic” regulations bearing down on the clean energy project including lawsuits filed by the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, tribal protection laws, the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act.

I would like to note a less comic irony here by asking whether these authors would rather:

A.  Endure a reported coastal eyesore and pay increased wind energy bills, … OR …

B.  Be party to the destruction of miles upon miles of shoreline and harm to potentially hundreds of thousands of plant and animal life while incurring payments of $8 billion and counting to clean up oil that is gushing unchecked into the Gulf of Mexico from the wreck of the off-shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon.

?? 

The Take-Away:  Hands down, I’d rather look at hundreds of giant metal structures twirling silently in the wind, than jingle an extra $1.59 in my pocket while watching the absurdly futile efforts of relief workers scraping tons of black sludge into garbage bags and scrubbing limp shore birds overcome by oil.  Nothing comic or ironic here.

Pre-Ramble:  My very eclectic artist, teacher, traveler Uncle Richard sent over a comment on my last blog post, Faux-cumentary, ( … watch that pronunciation) 5/6/10 along with the photo of street art shown below. 

I’ve been meaning to see that movie ["Exit Through the Gift Shop"] for several weeks now… Since I used to teach art in a juvenile detention facility, and a number of schools on the wrong side of D.C., I became very interested in the “wild style.” The best graffiti I’ve seen is in Barcelona. Here’s a piece I caught in Athens last month. The 420 refers to drugs – there’s a lot of drug reference in street art.”

The Take-Away:  Regardless of the potentially objectionable subject matter or the element of vandalism inherent in graffiti, there is something so spontaneous, expressive, powerful and free about it.

Post-Note:  Next time you’re in Athens, keep your eye out for this piece (hopefully, it hasn’t been removed), and if you happen upon some other interesting street art, do take a pic and send it over!

Pre-Ramble:  Every now and then I feel compelled to write about a movie. Sometimes it’s because the movie was unbelievably good and sometimes it’s because the movie was unfathomably bad. In the case of “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” it wasn’t so much good or bad, as it was thought-provoking.

Nothing like having your thoughts provoked.

“Exit” is billed as a documentary about the covert world of street/graffiti artists. Created and directed by “shadowy British street artist,” Banksy,” whose stencils of rats and puckish acts of mischief have made him a huge international success,” the quirky film is at once captivating and  irritating, raising as many questions as it pretends to answer.  Washington Post staff writer, Ann Homaday describes the film,

A celebration of pranksterism and perhaps a superb prank in its own right, the documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” captures the outlaw, monkey-wrenching glee of the graffiti artists who became art stars at the turn of this century, while raising profound questions about authorship, the truth claims of nonfiction film and that old chestnut “What Is Art?”

Punked.  Unlike the blatant tone of classic “mockumentary” spoofs like “Best-in-Show” and “This is Spinal Tap,” “Exit Through the Gift Shop” defies profiling. Reviewers are taking all kinds of contortions trying to characterize … the story, … the “actors,”… the ultimate message here. 

As usual, I almost love the commentary on the film more than the film itself.  NY Times  reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis, describes a seminal moment wherein the hapless guy behind the camera decides to mount an exhibit of his own work, …

“… what appears to be a display of blatant knockoffs and cut-and-paste pop trash that is nevertheless fawned over by gullible collectors… Street interviews with ecstatic attendees give way to a sniggering Banksy, who seems both gratified and embarrassed by his [role in the farce] … Whether acting as a genuine friend or constructing an elaborate long con, Banksy has clearly found a new canvas for his provocations. Scrutinizing the commodification of street art and the lemminglike behavior of many enthusiasts (including those who pay millions for his own work), Banksy mischievously exfoliates the next-big-thing hunger and the posers who pursue it.”

The Take Away:  Once I was able to embrace the fact that the work of these miserable punks artists was more than a defiant act of vandalism, I could appreciate it for what it was — an enthralling, mischievious, between-the-cracks commentary on the largely unexplored dynamic of public space. Often the sprayed-on/glued-up graffiti begs a haz-mat team … But sometimes, as in the case of Banksy’s poignant rendering of a young child looking at a beach scene through a bombed-out hole in a cement wall (above), the street art provides an element of interest and color in an otherwise bleak, desolate environment. And, on another level, the juxtaposition of the work to its surroundings engages us in a shade of meaning that transcends both the art, the artist and the environment to reach a deeper truth.