by P.D. Lesko

It’s no surprise Republican Rob Steele couldn’t unseat Representative John Dingell in 2010. However, Steele’s run, which campaign emails intimated would be financed with the doctor’s own “fortune,” rattled Team Dingell. Former President Bill Clinton came to Michigan and stumped for the Dean of the House prior to the November election. It’s obvious why Steele had Republican support, but it’s also true that Repesentative Dingell is routinely pummeled in the online comment sections of the Detroit newspapers, as well as AnnArbor.com. One common criticism is the Congressman’s “pandering” to Detroit, to quote Time magazine. In the October 5, 2009 issue of Time, in a sidebar to the piece titled “How Detroit Lost Its Way,” the magazine editors singled out Representative John Dingell for political pandering. They write, “In an effort to prop up their constituencies, politicians like John D. Dingell resisted sensible policies, like more-stringent mileage standards, that would have helped Detroit compete today.”

Lisa Wozniak is the Executive Director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. She appeared with Represenative Dingell at his recent Ann Arbor campaign kick-off event. Wozniak was there to sing the praises of Representative John Dingell, Environmentalist. Of course, the LCV and Wozniak have a record of endorsing candidates spurned by the more politically reliable and credible Sierra Club. After Wozniak contributed money to his mayoral campaign, the LCV endorsed John Hieftje, whose environmentalism included subsequently attempting to lease a parcel of river-front parkland in Ann Arbor for a 1,000 car parking tower to be used by the University of Michigan. Though the city has a Charter requirement that mandates sales of parkland to be approved by voters, Hieftje and his City Council cronies attempted to circumvent the Charter by negotiating a lease of the parcel for under $50,000 per year—the river edge land has been valued at between $5-$10 million dollars.

Like Hieftje, whose environmental record the Sierra Club has refused to recognize as credible, John Dingell has been the subject of national Sierra Club action alerts, including this one issued in 2009 that lambasted Dingell’s rejection of state clean car rights—a program the Sierra Club supports thanks to its success in reducing global warming. When he campaigned to represent the 15th Congressional District in 2002, the Sierra Club endorsed his opponent, Representative Lynn Rivers. Under the auspices of the most recent redistricting, Representative Dingell’s 15th U.S. Congressional District was redrawn to include large portions of Washtenaw County, all of Ann Arbor, and nearly the entire Downriver Detroit area—the new 12th Congressional District.

This year, Representative Dingell is being challenged in the Democratic primary by a candidate (Dan Marcin) who is talking about the green elephant in Dingell’s Washtenaw County living room: his record on the environment.

Despite the fact that national media outlets have for years chastised Representative Dingell for resisting “sensible environmental policies,” Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County and Michigan environmental Uncle Toms are only too happy to step in and try to cover up the potholes in Dingell’s environmental record. Former Ann Arbor City Council member and Michigan legislator Chris Kolb ponied up a guest commentary published in the Detroit Free Press on April 22, 2012 and titled: “Rep. Dingell’s green legacy.”

Kolb is the Executive Director of, yes, the Michigan Environmental Council. He writes:

So today, in addition to celebrating Earth Day, I want to honor one of our own: a pioneer of American environmental policy whose leadership should be modeled by others. From authoring landmark environmental legislation to making sure we have a secure energy future; Congressman Dingell’s important work makes Earth a healthier, more vibrant place for us and the generations that succeed us.

Mother, alas, has been rolling her eyes and gnashing her teeth since 1999 at the mention of John Dingell’s environmental record in Congress. Mother is none other than Mother Jones.

Who is the Michigan voter to believe? Lisa Wozniak or Chris Kolb? The award-winning reporters at Mother Jones? Hmm….if you’re under 35 and went to a public school, the obvious answer is Lisa Wozniak. If you’re over 35 and went to a private school, the obvious answer is Chris Kolb. If you live in Wayne or Washtenaw County and have asthma thanks to air quality that EPA research shows ranks among the worst in the state (and country), listen to what your Mother has to say on the subject of John Dingell’s environmental record.

In a 2009 piece titled “Misremembering John Dingell,” Mother Jones’s Steve Aquino writes:

Dingell’s close relationship with the auto industry, a connection seen as one major reason for Detroit’s foot-dragging on raising fuel economy and cutting carbon emissions during Dingell’s 17-year tenure as chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, a position he lost in November when Californian Henry Waxman organized an intra-party coup to oust Dingell. Waxman’s rise to the chairmanship of the Energy Committee represented not only an geographic and ideological change (from Detroit to Beverly Hills), but a generational one as well (Dingell had been in the House for 20 years when Waxman arrived as a freshman).

Here’s a list of Representative Dingell’s anti-environmental successes courtesy of Mother Jones. Neither the Executive Director of the League of Conservation Voters (Wozniak), or the Executive Director of the Michigan Environmental Council (Kolb) let these issues get in the way of endorsing Representative Dingell as a Green Giant among us:

• Even though Dingell helped write the original CAFE standards in 1975, he has since resisted broad changes to emissions, fuel economy standards, and other regulations affecting the auto industry, including air bags. In 1989, when Nevada Senator Richard Bryan proposed a bill to raise CAFE standards to 40 miles per gallon, Dingell floated the idea of building a toxic waste dump in Bryan’s home state.
• Dingell’s wife, Debbie, has worked for General Motors since 1977, when she joined the company as a lobbyist. Dingell’s own financial disclosure documents show he owns at least $600,000 in GM stock and stock options.
• As late as November 2007, Dingell was still pushing to keep SUVs classified as light trucks, a classification that subjects them to less-strict fuel economy standards.

Kolb and Wozniak also failed to see the problem with the fact that Dingell made the handy Mother Jones 2010 list of British Petroleum’s favorite 20 politicians (#8) to whom the company’s PAC has given most of its millions in donations. Ironically enough, In September 2010, Dingell’s campaign team sent out an email pitch for money that claimed Dingell “had taken on BP.”

Kolb and Wozniak ignored the news piece published in Mother Jones when Dingell was ousted from his committee chairmanship by Waxman: ”Huge news. Great news. Michigan Representative John Dingell, who has spent over 50 years in the House of Representatives being the auto industry’s babysitter, has lost his position as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to the younger and more liberal Henry Waxman.” Ouch. MJ also reported that when the EPA finally declared greehouses gases pollutants in 2009 that “Henry Waxman is much less polluter-friendly than Dingell was during his tenure in the House.”

Since 1999, Mother Jones has been revealing inconvenient truths about Representative Dingell’s environmental record. The plethora of national investigative reporting on John Dingell’s efforts to, among other things, claim greenhouse gases were not pollutants, also raises uncomfortable questions about why Ann Arbor and Michigan environmental leaders continue to overlook the truth about poor air and water quality in Dingell’s own 15th Congressional District while endorsing the Congressman. Kolb’s guest commentary and Wozniak’s cloying endorsement gloss over Dingell’s record with a smelly, oil-based substance that they quickly dump into the nearest sewer grate.

Michigan voters, particularly those who cast votes for candidates who run as environmental stewards should, then, cast a cold eye on Kolb, Wozniak, as well as the endorsements of their respective organizations during the upcoming election season.

by Amy Kerr Hardin

When you next tune into your favorite National Public Radio broadcast, say… maybe it’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, you might expect to hear a story like the one aired in 2010 about the billionaire Koch brothers and their ongoing egregious attempts to wholesale purchase our political system. NPR ran this segment well before the Koch brothers became two of the most reviled men in America. Public Broadcasting, unlike commercial news, was able to report the truth and alert the public about these bad boys because it was insulated by law from external political pressure.

And now it seems the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wants to see even more of the Koch brothers on NPR – buying politcal “issue ads” through their super PAC, Americans for Prosperity, that is.

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 provided the American public with 45 years of politically unfettered programing, and now, thanks to a recent ruling from the 9th Circuit out of California, this institution is gravely threatened. The case in question, Minority Television Project v. FCC, was essentially about a public broadcasting station that had run commercial ads which are strictly forbidden by law. The court looked at that provision of this long-standing statute that prohibited advertising and chose to uphold the ban on commercial ads for goods and services, but citing constitutionally protected free speech, they shockingly struck down the portion outlawing political advertisements, including both candidate and issue ads — making this ruling nearly as appalling as that found in the Citizens United case.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law decades ago, he was explicit and emphatic on the point of keeping politics and politicians out the content and spirit of our public airways. In his signing speech, Johnson said of public broadcasting “it will be carefully guarded from Government or party control. It will be free, and it will be independent — and it will belong to the people.”

Public broadcasting, including both National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), has been a thorn in the side of politicians ever since, but more acutely so with Republicans in recent years. They don’t like what they can not control. Unable to directly manipulate content, they go for the Achilles heal of public broadcasting — its budget, the only area where they may legally exert pressure.  In 2011 lawmakers threatened to eliminate NPR’s federal funding altogether.  Over the years, they’ve made claims of liberal bias, they’ve asserted the public airways are antiquated, and now they’re all a clamor about fiscal responsibility.

Let’s examine the numbers then.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) receives about $430M taxpayer dollars (FY 2011). That equals one 25th of one percent of U.S. discretionary spending. Spread among its approximately 1300 member television and radio stations, it accounts for a small portion of most of their individual budgets. The CPB does not fundraise like its affiliates regularly do, but it does receive additional revenues through various funders, notably the Ford and the Annenberg foundations. U.S. federal funding of public broadcasting amounts to $1.35 per capita, compared to $82 at the British Broadcasting Corporation, $30 with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and $60 for Japan’s public airways. It seems our public radio and television is a bargain indeed.

Both NPR and PBS rely heavily on viewer support for day to day operations and programming. In fact, of NPR’s revenues, only a small fraction of their budget is from federal funds, with fully 39 percent coming from devoted listeners and another 45 percent from various other sources. The remaining 16 percent are derived from a combination of federal, state, and local governement sources along with other monies contributed by foundations to the CPB.

So, why then if the federal portion is so small does it even matter?

Simply put, not all public broadcasting member stations are created equal. The Public Broadcasting Act itself acknowledged that one of the core purposes of public airways was to provide open media access to underserved markets — places where other media did not exist, or where the quality of the media was low. And 45 years later, the need is still there for public airways.

Often rural, and frequently impoverished, member stations are unable to accomplish the level of fundraising found in more upscale markets so they find themselves relying heavily on federal funding. Some NPR affiliates rely on up to 50 percent of their revenues coming from federal funds, and while only 15 percent of the PBS overall budget is federal, some of their member stations are drawing 40 to 50 percent of their operating costs from taxpayers. Stations like these, that are heavily reliant on tax dollars, broadcast at the mercy of lawmakers, and every year they find themselves in a crisis mode based on the politics and cost of public broadcasting being leveraged against other descretionary spending.

So, are they worth the $1.35 per year to the average American?

NPR is known for its superb news reporting. While commercial news media have shrunk their newsrooms, almost to the point of non-existence, NPR has stayed true their mission in reporting on both domestic and global issues, all being delivered to their listeners daily and hourly through member stations. They are among the few media outlets that maintain a robust foreign reporting presence.

PBS is the lone holdout among all media in supporting the arts. While commercial television has slithered down the road of merely titillating and teasing the lowest common denominator of their viewership with cheap and sleazy fare like talent and reality shows, PBS has consistently kicked their collective asses with some of the best and most creative programming imaginable. Just this past year they’ve bagged a whopping 31 Emmys (the next closest was ABC at 20), 6 Peabodys (more than the rest), 11 Parent’s Choice Awards for websites, and 2 Webbys.

PBS has a long history of partnering with public education, as was the intent of the Public Broadcasting Act. Its children’s programming is second to none, yet that didn’t stop conservatives from their recent attack on Sesame Street. Given the Republican war on public education as a whole, and their obsession with privatizing everything in sight, we should not be surprised they want to pink slip Elmo and Big Bird too.

But alas, the most they can do is put the beloved puppets on war rations.

Decreasing federal dollars, along with broader economic woes, have distressed many public broadcasting member stations to the breaking point, and their search for alternative revenue sources is an unfortunate economic reality. When it becomes a choice between shuttering the doors or holding their noses while collecting huge sums in political ad dollars – it’s a difficult call to make. Ethics and history may be damned.

Not surprisingly, the commercial broadcasting business model is completely incompatible with the goals and values of public broadcasting.

For-profit radio and television stations already devote approximately 33 percent of their airtime hawking wares — from wrinkle creams to boner pills. Their programming content is 100 percent ratings-driven and their advertiser rates are determined by viewership. This is why we’ve seen a narrowing of program genre, a lowering of quality, and a dumbing-down of content. Commercial programming is like a gruesome auto accident — people don’t want to see it, but they still look. They’re simply mesmerized by the sight of stupidity.

At the same time, commercial stations make a king’s ransom in election years from political ads. In fact, one salesperson from a Northern Michigan network affiliate recently told me his only concern was the squeezing-off the airways of his regular local advertisers because he’d have to work so hard to get them back.

And, as if their election money orgy wasn’t indolent enough, commercial broadcasters don’t even want to have to report to the FCC the legally required political advertising information in a timely manner. The FCC proposed they start using an easy and expedient online data base to file their reports so interested parties and reporters could quickly access the data. The current system is a strictly hand-written paper format which is stored in old-fashioned file cabinets. The stations complained, claiming they don’t have the time or resources to file their political ad reports electronically. CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and Univision joined forces and sent a letter to the FCC stating that electronic “public files would greatly burden broadcasters for no significant public benefit.”

Prior to the Citizens United ruling, many commercial stations had been struggling. But now these local markets are enjoying a boon in political dollar revenues. Stations that had been teetering on the brink have suddenly become attractive investments opportunites for acquistion and merger-minded Wall Street types. Their public broadcasting cousins can’t help but take notice of their financial success.

And now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has opened Pandora’s Box to similarly struggling public broadcasters, making them vulnerable to the temptation of market forces with the money of politics and the politics of money. Programming choices could fall victim and become the dictum of the politcal sponsors of whom they mustn’t run afoul.

You may tell your public broadcasters not to accept political ad dollars through this online petition at SaveTheNews.org.

The Koch brothers shouldn’t live on Sesame Street — it’s just not right.

Amy Kerr Hardin blogs at democracy-tree.com

by P.D. Lesko

Fifth Ward Council member Carsten Hohnke has had enough. In his email to constituents, Hohnke told readers he was stepping down after two terms to “spend more time with his family.” A classic political dodge. Norman Fowler, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, was supposedly the first politician to give the “spend more time with the family” line when he resigned in 1990.

Chuck Warpehoski, the Director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, stepped humbly forward in sack cloth & ashes, tefillin and a Tibetan monk’s robe to threw his bishop’s mitre into the ring. Warpehoski has never held elected office, is young and has garnered support from several of the usual Hieftje Hive Mind Collective suspects.

ICPJ has been described by those familiar with it as one of Ann Arbor’s non-profit sacred cows. According to the group’s web site, “ICPJ empowers people of faith and people of conscience in the Washtenaw County/Ann Arbor, Michigan area to act on their moral and religious values to build a better world.”

ICPJ tax returns reveal an organization where spending on salaries as a percentage of gross receipts jumped from 48.4% in 2005 to 67.2% in 2007. Tax returns filed with the IRS show that in 2010 ICPJ took in $120,326 primarily from contributions, and spent 75% of its gross revenue on salaries and benefits for staff.

While the organization lost $9,053 according to the 2010 tax forms, Board members rewarded Warpehoski with a raise in his modest pay—a salary that in 2010 amounted to 35 percent of the organization’s total revenue.

Stop peeking behind the curtain, and Chuck Warpehoski looks pretty good on paper, as did Think Local First Executive Director Ingrid Ault, who ran against Third Ward incumbent Stephen Kunselman in 2011.

Warpehoski (left) is a Gen Y Poster Boy, 30ish, and of the opinion that “smart growth” is the Holy Grail of development. Smart growth, for those who have missed the bus, as it were, is the political principle whereby Ann Arbor taxpayers invest in more development projects such as Ashley Terrace (went bankrupt) and Near North (affordable housing units being built for only $384K each, including money from taxpayers to offset the costs of the private developer).

Along with his wife, Nancy Shore, he’s busy Reimagining Washtenaw Avenue, a political plan based on a tax increment financing (TIF) scheme that would skim more tax dollars away from public schools and city services and give the money over to private developers. In short, Chuck Warpehoski is up to his ears in the support of local development funded through public-private partnerships.

These kinds of partnerships are a staple food of conservative political groups such as ALEC. ALEC and its supporters seek to reshape the political landscape into gardens of plenty for business interests at the expense of education, middle-class and the poor. Nancy Sacola writes in The Atlantic, “To itself, ALEC is an organization dedicated to the advancement of free market and limited government principles through a unique ‘public-private partnership’ between government and the corporate sector.”

Warpehoski has said he wants to bring moderate “religious voices”—including his one imagines— back into politics.

Read Warpehoski’s interviews, op-eds and comments regarding local politics posted to various web sites, and a picture emerges of a man prone to lapses of moderation.

In a 2004 interview, Warpehoski says that, “My work chose me… it was a calling. Martin Luther: ‘Here I am, I can do no other.’” Later in the same interview, he blurts out: “As director of ICPJ, I get paid and I see the volunteers who sit through meetings I wouldn’t be at if I wasn’t paid to be there.”

In a May 2011 entry on his blog, cleverly titled the WarpReport, he writes:

“….Failure to engage other perspectives paralyzes us to be able to confront issues….”

Fourteen months later, he published an op-ed dripping with sarcasm and disdain titled, “Three ways to kill improvements in public transit in Washtenaw County.” The piece begins: “Dear transit opponents, even though I’m on the other side of the issue from you, I’d like to offer some advice.”

Comments from readers picked up on Warpehoski’s deliberate failure to “engage other perspectives”:

“The dripping sarcasm of this op ed does nothing to promote healthy public discussion of the public transportation issue.”

“I know that this opinion is written from a sincere public-spirited conviction, but I regret its negative tone. Mr. Warpehoski should acknowledge that many of us who have raised concerns about the current plan to institute a new regional authority (under Act 196) and transfer AATA’s assets to it are, in fact, transit supporters, not transit opponents.”

In 2008, he wrote an upbeat op-ed that slyly urged readers to give to charity, in particular “not to forget justice.” He writes, “Finally, charity is important now, but don’t forget justice. Caring for the people hurting in this recession is important, and we also need to address the causes of poverty and the structures that were leaving people behind even before the recession. That means supporting groups that are advocating for policy changes to provide for the common good.” (Such as ICPJ, per chance?) In the same piece, he urges readers to: “Live within your means.”

Under Warpehoski’s leadership in 2008 ICPJ lost $3,300 on revenues of $115,258—a small amount to be sure—but problematic for an activist writing newspaper op-eds urging others to avoid the moral pitfall of over-spending.

Chuck Warpehoski, while undoubtedly committed to religious tolerance, alternative transportation and social justice is, perhaps, a victim of hubris. It’s common among progressives in Ann Arbor who view dissent among the ranks as unhealthy (he says as much in his blog). His involvement in a local political policy-making group driven by an ALEC-inspired public-private partnership scheme is evidence of a young man blind to the fact that local politicos are throwing social justice under the bus to get money for the projects their campaign donors want to build.

Whether Chuck Warpehoski is blinded thanks to being incredibly naive or politically ambitious remains to be seen.

by Joseph DiSano

It’s the time of year when every wannabe pundit and political Nostradamus unveils their prognostications on this year elections. Guess what? No one knows for sure, and those that claim to are lying. A common prediction you will hear from every player in the Pundit Olympics is which party will claim control of the Michigan House of Representatives in January 2013. I am going to be honest as a political consultant can be. I don’t know—at least not yet.

So no predictions from me, but here are some of the factors to consider if you want to make your own predictions.

First up would be to look at the current political climate here in Michigan. Control of the State House has as much to do with the top of the ticket as it do with any other factor. No one knows yet if Mitt Romney is going to play in Michigan next fall. If he doesn’t, this could play into Democratic control of the State House. State House candidates rarely drive turnout, and without a vigorous battle for Michigan’s electoral votes, tens of thousands of Republicans may sit out Election Day and give Democrats an advantage.

The next factor to look at is money. This is a factor that will almost always result in GOP advantage. Just look at the cash-on-hand numbers of Democratic candidates and GOP candidates and the numbers will be shocking. Add in the Bobby Schostack-led GOP money machine and the GOP will have enough money to wage political warfare regardless of the intensity of Romney’s activities in the state.

The next factor—and probably the most important factor—is the quality of individual candidates. There are many elements that determine candidate quality. The tenacity to raise gobs of campaign cash, the ability to fake sincerity and a relentless work ethic all add up to a quality political candidate. This is a factor that doesn’t tip the scale for any political party on a whole. Instead, it is an advantage born out of the political trench warfare of visiting voters at their doors and squeezing donors for every penny they’ll give.

So here are a few races whose outcomes will determine if Speaker Jase Bolger keeps the gavel or has to pass it to a Democratic successor.

52^nd District—currently held by GOP State Representative Mark Ouimet. The new configuration of this Washtenaw County district helps Ouimet, but not as much as he would like. He has a top-tier challenger in Saline Mayor Gretchen Driskell, who is proving to be a top-notch campaigner. The edge currently is held by the ethically challenged Ouimet due to the size of his campaign war chest.

71^st District—this suburban Lansing district is currently represented by ex-Charlotte Mayor Deb Shaughnessy. Like many GOP freshman, Shaughnessy has taken many controversial votes that may prove troubling to voters this November. Shaughnessy’s opposition is former State Senate staffer Andrea Cascarilla. Cascarilla has to face two primary opponents in August, but the smart money is on Cascarilla to win and give Shaughnessy the fight of her life.

103^rd District—GOP freshman Bruce Rendon has drawn an unexpected but talented challenger in national Democratic operative Lon Johnson. Johnson is a Michigan native who is married to Julianna Smoot, the Deputy Campaign Manager of President Obama’s re-election campaign. Johnson is a political heavyweight in his own right though. He managed Congressman John Dingell’s re-election campaign in 2002 and raised money for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. This is a race that bears watching closely straight through to November.

At this point, there are at least two dozen races that could flip parties in November. There are too many factors to make a prediction on partisan control. And many of those factors are far beyond the control of the candidates. Right now, the best course of action for candidates (and their supporters) is to forget what they can’t control and focus on the factors they can control (money, door-to-door and organization) and hope for the best.

And that’s not a bad position to be in six months from Election Day.

by Amy Kerr Hardin

Like to win a cool quarter million dollars?  You may be in luck if you are a socially conservative artist.

ArtPrize, a community art contest founded by Rick DeVos, kicked-off its 2012 call for entries this past week. There are just a few caveats to keep in mind though: you must make something very, very big, totally predictable, and preferrably just a bit more than cheesy.

Last year’s big winner was a 13 foot tall Jesus, on the cross, cleverly titled “Crucifixion.” Its claim to fame was its utter resemblance to about 10,000 similar works produced about 500 years ago. Even adored art critic, Sister Wendy, would likely say: “yawn.” Yet by popular vote, in western Michigan — the bible belt of the state, tall Jesus took the door prize at the biggest church raffle ever.

Previous ArtPrize winners include an over-sized bronze of Gerald R. Ford, native son to this uber-conservative and mostly Calvinist side of Michigan. Most entries have proven to be nothing more than pedestrian pieces whose only notable feature was their ridiculous “god-sized” scale and cheese-based theme.

ArtPrize begs the question: How do we define art?

My daughter paid me a surprise visit home from college this past weekend. As always, we got caught-up on her latest social and academic adventures, including the bizarre and fantastic things she’d recently found on the internet. Being a dedicated aficionado of Tumblr, she shared images of the world’s cutest and the world’s ugliest bunnies (yes, there really is an ugly bunny), then she showed me a YouTube video which she found hilarious. It was performance art.  (I know, I know, me too…ugh).

In it we find a woman in her mid-20s, of prodigious girth and indeterminate ethnicity, wearing a seriously ill-advised LBD and stilettos, standing before a five by ten pavement of one-pound butter bricks arranged in a neat square. Queue-up the music.

(pause…okay, we’ve set the scene…so let’s all just take a moment to close our eyes and try to envision her possible ”performance”…stilettos, cubes of slippery butter, large woman…

…take your time.)

If you simply can not even imagine what kind of thing could have happened, then you are probably a social conservative.

But if you tend to lean liberal in your social politics, then — hello, yes you guessed it! She stiletto-stomped the butter as if in a dairy-based small animal snuff flick, only to fall repeatedly in the buttery goo with a resounding Mad Cow thud each time.

Art or waste of dairy product?

Tolerant acceptance versus utter disgust of the butter-dance girl relies on a slippery cognitive scale, rooted deeply in human evolution as demonstrated in our social politics and divergent definitions of what is “art.”

There is plenty of proof that the neurobiology of art and politics are intricately and inescapably woven into our DNA. A study published in Current Biology indicates that social conservatives have larger amygdalas than liberals. This is the part of the brain responsible for fear and primitive emotions. They also possess a smaller anterior cingulate cortex, the section of the brain that provides an individual with courage and optimism.

Further research indicates these attributes are reason for the measurable behavioral differences between social conservatives and social progressives. Liberals tend to to be open to new experiences and ideas, more tolerant of conflict and ambiguity, better prepared to deal with conflicting information, more accurate in their assessments, and highly supportive of scientific innovation. Whereas conservatives prefer a structured approach to life, applying a single-minded model to decisions and thought processes, with a tendency to stubbornly hold opinions beyond their usefulness. Conservatives routinely block-out what they perceive to be “distractions.” In politics those “distractions” often turn-out to be what liberals refer to as “facts.”

Formal scientific study of the conservative mind dates back to the landmark 1950 research of Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford, that examined the correlation between right-wing authoritarianism and individual fascist tendencies. Many cried foul at the time insisting that psychological traits can not be directly linked to political views. A more recent meta-analyis conducted by the American Psychological Association, using 88 studies with 22,818 subjects, confirms that conservatism is indeed directly related to specific personality traits. The analysis concluded that the right-wing mind is dogmatic, closed to new experiences, intolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, structured and orderly, adverse to integrative complexity, resistant to change, and oriented to achieve social dominance.

These biases are not confined to politics — they permeate every aspect of our lives, including our sense of aesthetic adventure.

The “Painter of Light,” Thomas Kincaid, who died this month, left a legacy of creating a vast marketing empire based on his sickly-sweet sentimental paintings of idealized villages. Claiming to be a born-again Christian, Kincaid capitalized on the archetypical aesthetic that social conservatives are drawn to so readily. His work represented fantastical scenes of a completely imaginary and idealized past, depicting cozy cottages all-aglow with the safety of hearth and home set in villages that could only exist in the dreams of the simple-minded.

Kincaid’s work unapologetically appeals to the values of faith, family and home. They are predictable, non-threatening and purposefully not provocative in the slightest — and Christian conservatives snap them up to the tune of $100 million in sales per year. His art adorns the hearths of the Hummel figurine lined mantles of  five percent of American households. They are willing to pay up to $10,000 for a limited edition lithograph. At its peak his “studio” was churning-out 500 pieces a day.

Kincaid knew he was on to something and marketed himself accordingly. He is quoted as saying: “People who put my paintings on their walls are putting their values on their walls.” As with most artists, his work is now worth more after his death. If there had been a means for Kincaid to take it with him, he certainly would have. He was a capitalist first, and a Christian as a distant second.

Bad art like Kincaid’s is flying off gallery walls, albeit, “galleries” that are located between The Gap and Bath and Bodyworks at the mall, leaving the quality, one of a kind, artwork to gather dust and for their creators to find day jobs at that mall.  It is tempting to blame the slump in the “real” art market solely on the economy. We all know that the arts are the canary in the coal mine indicative of the health and vibrancy of a culture and its economy, but maybe there’s more to it than money. As conservatism is on the rise, and becoming more stubbornly strident than ever, contempt for innovative and provocative art is also on the rise. Galleries that once sold fine art by skilled artists have now turned to marketing baubles and trinkets to stay afloat.

Conservatives certainly have not cornered the market on bad art. For the most part, they limit themselves to inoffensive kitsch. Many of the worst examples of art hale from the far left. The butter-dance girl “art” is not alone. In fact, it’s mild compared to some of the work that’s intended to offend the viewer. We’ve all seen the much decried art that is annually trotted-out and stamped with a scarlet letter by conservative lawmakers, especially as their budget deadlines loom, declaring them reason enough for a wholesale defunding of the arts. Citing these raunchy pieces is a time-tested tactic of the right. Politicians know that conservatives hold a special contempt and distrust for art. They are hard-wired to be suspicious of anything new or innovative. They simply can not help themselves.

And there is plenty to offend them.

From Damien Hirst’s macabre jewel-encrusted Crystal Skull to Maurizio Cattelan’s La Nona Ora, depicting the Pope being hit by a meteor, there exists a whole array of esoteric crap designed to fit almost anyone’s bad taste or delicate sense of outrage, but all for a price. On the tail of the Vatican’s uproar over La Nona Ora, Cattelan’s piece sold at auction for $3 million. It pays to offend.

Some of these edgy artists have tapped a new market — one which actually satirizes the kitsch so prized by the artistically-challenged conservative collectors. Others have embraced the artistic cheese whiz in its most honest and pure form without the filter of satire. They celebrate tacky art with a condescending affection, all while looking down their noses at its very essence. There’s both a collector’s market and a museum dedicated to these works.

Bad art is everywhere. Several years ago I attended a juried exhibit at a respected museum in my town. Among the winners were a piece of crumpled tissue stuck to the wall and a work with three small boards nailed together, entitled Three Sisters. The latter took the top prize with a gushing account of its provocative artistry from the juror — not a word of which I understood. On a sad note, the tissue entry experienced a catastrophic installation failure and fell to the floor. The artist was unaware that the white sticky-tack she used simply does not have the adhesive power of the blue variety. She should have asked a teacher. Tragic, really. Although, my daughter would have laughed.

So what is art?

Don’t ask an art critic, or an artist, nor a collector or a politician. They simply don’t know.

Ask a Neurobiologist.

Amy Kerr Hardin blogs at Democracy Tree.