“Every four years, at about this time, we begin to hear louder and louder appeals for…unity….

“But the pattern of a Presidential election remains the same: first, there is a campaign in which the candidates denounce each other and seem to appeal to some sort of unstated principles; then, when the election is over, the appeals become, in effect: now let’s forget all about principles…unity comes first.

AFP

“How will you adjust to it? First, there is a business lobby, but you don’t mind it, it helps your boss.  Then, there is a labor lobby, but you don’t mind it, it helps you.  Then, there is a farm lobby, but you don’t notice it, it’s too remote from your activities.  Then, a neighbor on the next block forms a group demanding better roads—and two blocks further, a woman forms a group demanding better schools.  Another group demands free lunches for all schoolchildren—and a rival group demands free textbooks.  Your windows are smashed, one night, by the group of the local juvenile delinquent, or ‘problem-adolescent’:  they shout ‘nonnegotiable demands,’ which you cannot quite untangle, but you gather it has something to do with ‘Youth Power.’  The residents of the local Old Folks’ Home form a group, demanding ‘Senior-Citizen
Power.’  The old-maid file-clerk at the office, whom you can’t stand because she can’t keep the files straight, is given a promotion—with the help of a group that demands the ‘Liberation of Women.’  You have no time to keep track of it all, you notice only that your taxes keep rising and rising—and your money keeps buying less and less….

“You fall behind in your mortgage payments, but your property taxes keep rising and rising. You consider giving up your house and renting one in a new development, five miles away.  But the localbird-watcher’s group is suing the developer, demanding that the land he cleared be turned into a public park.

“Then an educational group decrees that you cannot send your children to the local school, which so much of your property taxes has gone to pay for, so your children are bused to a distant town—a daily trip of two hours going there and another two hours coming back.  This, you are told, will achieve racial integration.  You had never thought of it before, but you become race conscious and try to untangle your own ancestry.  You find it so mixed that you cannot qualify for any of the groups into which your community is splitting:  the Afro-Americans, the Chicano-Americans, the Italo-Americans, the Jewish-Americans, the Irish-Americans, etc.  And you—you are just a mongrel American, a title of which you would have been proud at one time, but which is becoming dangerous.”

The Ayn Rand Letter
Vol. II, No. 1 October 9, 1972
“A Nation’s Unity”

I choose these quotes because as an artist I know that no matter what year or century my work is created, it will be recognized if the work has universal significance.  For example, I doubt that Ayn Rand would ever have envisioned the term “illegal immigrants” when she wrote ‘Chicano-Americans’ as opposed to the modern influx of immigrants from Mexico.  I suspect she would have called them simply ‘immigrants’.  After all, Ayn Rand was an immigrant from the Soviet Union, got her American citizenship just in time not to be deported back to that hell.

Today we see all of Rand’s examples as facts of life in America, particularly in regard to the Obama/Hillary ‘unity’ pact displayed in the Democratic Party.

In my previous article on “A Cure For Deafness and Dumbness!” I showed what Obama means by “change”.  And I meant it.  What is Nazism but National Socialism?

Now his current slogan is “Unite Through Change”, although who knows how long that will last, as the expediency of the
moment dictates.

I noticed during Hillary and Obama’s get-together that the stock market fell some 40 points.  And what I saw in my mind
was an image:

Bread Lines during the Great Depression

This is an image of Americans united through change.  This is what their ideal vision harks back to, “particularly when something is about to be put over on us.”  ibid.

And if you wonder why so much of the Democrats’ vision has already become apparent over the past two years, just remember who took power over the House and Senate two years ago.

“There is no such thing as truth,” explains Hitler, (which brings to mind Bill Clinton’s well known derivative formulation, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”) “either in the moral or in the scientific sense.” Or as Goebbels puts the point: “Important is not what is right but what wins.” (emphasis mine.)

“The needs of a state,” says Hitler,”…are the sole determining factor. What may be necessary today need not be tomorrow. This is not a question of theoretical suppositions, but of practical decisions dictated by existing circumstances. Therefore, I may―nay, must―change or repudiate under changed conditions tomorrow what I consider correct today”

‘In their pragmatist capacity, they stress action, expediency, and change more than God and faith….’ (emphasis mine)

Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, Hitler’s War Against Reason, (chapter 3) p. 59-60, 1982.

Photomanipulation by Robert Tracy

Does this remind you of anything? Say, the American Democratic party and it’s nominee for the President of the United states Barak Obama?

I urge my readers to pick up Leonard Peikoff’s, The Ominous Parallels and read it as fast as you can.

Obama doesn’t say much, does he? Nothing much one can get a hold of because he’s so “charismatic”. Well, so was Hitler and Rasputin. But Obama is saying these very things that Hitler said.

You read Peikoff’s book and you’ll be able to hear it.

It came to my attention from a recent buyer of my book, The Art of Robert Tracy, about a concern of my signing the book in pencil, not pen, about the importance of permanency in Art.

She wondered if that signature would fade over time.  It won’t.  That signature will last longer than the book.  That’s because the graphite in my art pencil is a permanent thing.

I tried to reassure her of this by stating that “In all of my work I aim in part for longevity.”

I’m not a teacher but there are things a self-taught artist must learn on his own.

As the World Turns
Robert Tracy
Oils on canvas
18 x 18″
2007

Now in this painting I was dying to use “Sap Green” for the leaves.  Sap Green is one of the most intense and lovely colors of green that the artist has at his disposal.  And I mean he must dispose of that tube of color for it will fade or turn to black in a relatively short time.  He can replicate that color by mixing phthalocyanine blue and either transparent ochre or cobalt yellow dulled with a touch of burnt sienna.

This is what I did for the leaves in the painting.

Now what about the equally exquisite color for the sky in my picture.  One would use Prussian Blue, a deep intense blue, transparent and of extremely high tinctorial power.  The finest grades of Prussian Blue are rare on the market are fairly permanent except when used in thin glazes, which is precisely what I meant to do in this picture.  But Prussian Blue is not permanent.  It will fade out in thin layers.  And it gives the painting a lower key than when another color of blue is used, such as the all important color Ultramarine Blue  (I used Ultramrine plus Cobalt Blue).  However, Prussian Blue too can be replicated, or rather reproduced with the modern synthetic-made Phthalocyanine Blue.  The most intense and transparent Blue pigment on the market is made from Lapis Lazuli, made from the precious stone.  One can buy this pigment from various art supply sources but they never give you the price–they say “call”.  Guess where the best of this pigment comes from, or used to?  From the mines in Afghanistan.  I did call once years ago and the price was over the price of gold.

I stared for a long time at the version (he painted several versions of this subject) of Böcklin’s “Isle of the Dead” at The Metropolitan in N.Y.  I saw no way he could have achieved so deep and rich a blue night sky unless he had used Lapis Lazuli, but I don’t know for sure.  And this picture doesn’t come close to the depth of his blue night sky.

The Isle of the Dead
Arnold Böcklin
Oil on board
74 × 122 cm
1880

The artist must research his materials; get the best of materials and supplies that he can afford and think of his work as something that’ll  last for centuries.

Send your kid to a private school? Or home teach? The first is risky, especially if it’s a religious school where your child’s mind will be mystified. The second is good if you know what you’re doing. The worst is a public school where your child’s mind will simply be destroyed. The best is a Montessori School. That’s what we did for our two daughters as long as we could. And the cost was high. And we couldn’t always afford it so I’d make drawings and paintings for the school in trade for tuition.

from Wikipedia:

“The Montessori method is an educational method for children, based on theories of child development originated by Italian educator Maria Montessori in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is applied primarily in preschool and elementary school settings, though some Montessori high schools exist.

“The method is characterized by an emphasis on self-directed activity on the part of the child and clinical observation on the part of the teacher (often called a “director”, “directress”, or “guide”). It stresses the importance of adapting the child’s learning environment to his or her developmental level, and of the role of physical activity in absorbing academic concepts and practical skills.”

Although Maria Montessori was a Catholic she did not inculcate any religion in her method.

The Composer
Robert Tracy
Acrylics on canvas
10 x 15″
1983

I put this painting up on my site at devianART and received this information from a         
comment from an Italian: “Some years ago, before we Italians started to use Euro, we had
the portrait of Maria Montessori on our paper money.” As well the Italians should have
done because Montessori was a true genius.

At my site on deviantART I also submitted an old drawing I had made of one of the tools, a
Trinomial Cube, used in Montessori schools. When I made the drawing my interest, as an
artist, was in the interesting perspective study of the cube. I had a vague idea that the child
will learn higher mathematics, by some sort of osmosis when he solves this cube. What the
child does is open the box, take off the lid, remove the cubes then put them back together
again.

Trinomial Cube
Robert Tracy
Pencil
10½ x 10″
1975

I, who do sometimes forget my multiplication table, have the greatest admiration for
mathematicians. And I don’t claim to really understand this beautiful Trinomial Cube. So I
asked. And this is the answer I got from a real mathematician.

“This is for *hank1 [my ID name at deviantART], who drew a really cool sketch of a math
principle called “Trinomial Cube”. He requested an explanation of what it was, and so I
took a second to draw one up. It’s not really art, per se, but, in my opinion, mathematics and
art have a lot in common.
Here’s how this thing works.
1. Say you have two numbers added together, like “a” (the length of the green segment) and
“b” (the length of the red segment). Adding those two numbers together, you get “a + b,”
which is like a longer segment made from putting the green and red segments together. In
order to square (multiply by itself) that combined length, you could treat it like a situation of
area (”square-footage” for us Americans).

2. So, let’s imagine we have a room that is (a + b) long in one dimension, and (a + b) long in
the other dimension. We would multiply these two lengths together to get the total area of
the room. If we knew how long “a” and “b” were, we’d just do this using one number for the
total length, multiply it by itself, and get the area. But Algebra exists (more or less) to work
with numbers that we don’t know, so we have to do something else. In Algebra classes, this
multiplication step is often taught using the “FOIL” method. That method multiplies
everything in the first (a + b) by everything in the second (a + b). So, we times both “First
terms” together (”a” times “a”), then the “Outside terms” together (first “a” times last “b”),
then “Inside terms” together (last “a” times first “b”), and then both “Last terms” together
(”b” times “b”).

3. Looking at how this FOIL thing translates into the area problem, we can break it down
into four smaller area problems. The green section is where we multiply “a times a,” and the
two brown sections are where we multiply “a times b,” and the red section is where we
multiply “b times b.” This gives us one section of a^2 area, two sections of a*b area, and one
section of b^2 area. In Algebra, putting that last sentence together would be written “a^2 +
2ab + b^2.”

The only difference between this problem and the (a + b + c) problem of Hank1’s drawing is
that we only dealt with two numbers (a binomial) multiplied together and his is dealing with
three numbers (a trinomial ) and cubing them together (multiplying “a + b + c” by itself
three times). This means that instead of area, we will be calculating a volume (like how
much space for air there is inside a large, square-cubic room). This will create 27 smaller 3-
D boxes. Hank1’s drawing shows the 3rd step in my explanation drawn out, but not labeled.
The answer, incidentally, will be “a^3 +3ba^2 +3ca^2 +b^3 + 3ab^2 + 3cb^2 + c^3 + 3ac^
2 + 3bc^2 + 6abc,” which means “one box of a*a*a and three boxes of b*a*a and three
boxes of c*a*a and…and six boxes of a*b*c.”

I understand none of this explanation, but find it interesting that art and math can both be so
beautiful.

It’s easy to fight against Socialized Medicine.  Lost once, Hillary! 

To fight for the producers that keep our country alive is not so easy.  Americans are quick to blame Oil Companies for the current, temporary but hurtful plight on American families’ wallets.  Harder will be to fight for all of U.S. and world-wide industry and commerce with its emerging Capitalism.

It’s easy to destroy the pursuit of happiness that comes in a simple product like a cigarette.

The Artist’s Father
(Robert C. Tracy, USN, WWII, US Army, Korean War)
Robert Tracy
Oils on canvas
9 x 12″
1989

Because the propaganda against such pleasures as a smoke or a drink, whether alcoholic or any other drink or an Oreo cookie–they all have long-winded govenment warnings on the package–has been accepted as truth.

Makes some Americans a little scared to walk out the door.

When I Was a Boy, America Was a Better Place
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

(Full article HERE)

“…[I]t is difficult to come up with an important area in which America is significantly better
than when I was a boy. But I can think of many in which its quality of life has deteriorated.

“When I was a boy, America was a freer society than it is today.
“When I was boy, what people did at home was…their…business.
“When I was a 7-year-old boy…I was responsible for myself.

Photo of this Blogger at age 7.

“When I was a teenage boy, getting to kiss a girl, let alone to touch her
thigh or her breast (even over her clothes) was the thrill of a
lifetime.

The Kiss
Francesco Hayez
Oils on canvas
1859 

“When I was a boy, Time and Newsweek were well written and…it would have been inconceivable for Time to substitute anything for the flag planted by the marines on Iwo Jima.

Graphic by Robert Tracy

“Can we return to the America of my youth? No. Can we return to the best
values of that time? Yes. But not if both houses of Congress, the
presidency and the Supreme Court move the country even further leftward.
If that happens, many of the above noted changes will simply be
accelerated: More laws restricting ‘offensive’ speech will be enacted;
litigation will increase and trial lawyers will gain more power; the
American military will be less valued; trees will gradually replace the
flag as our most venerated symbol; schools will teach even less as they
concentrate even more on diversity, sexuality and the environment;
teenage sex will be increasingly accepted; American identity will
continue to be replaced by ethnic, racial, gender or ‘world citizen’
identity; and the power of the state will expand further as the power of
the individual inevitably contracts. It’s hard to believe most Americans
really want that.”

“The kind-hearted government was fed-up, and the country was informed that, from this day on, any person who by word or act sought to harm or discredit the State, would be executed or interned. Inasmuch as the prisons were already too full, both for these slanderous criminals and for the persons whom the kind-hearted State had to guard by ‘protective arrest,’ there were immediately to be opened, all over the country, concentration camps.”Sinclair Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here“, 1935, p.216 (SC)  You read that right, published in 1935.

“Every moment everyone felt fear, nameless and omni-present….And with the coming of fear went out their pride.” ibid, p.219

Marvin Steel is a very fine artist. His love of the Flamenco singers, guitarists and the life style of these exotic people is a sight that uplifts and shows an important and really wonderful segment of society–one perhaps not well known and not typically American at all.

A few personal experiences on smoking

Cigarette smoking is a terrific mind booster. When working on a project it induces motivation that one may or may not gain without it.

And there’s a ritual about it that’s better than a habit. For example, I smoke 5 cigarettes a day―up to 12 when I have a rare visit. I love that ritual of smoking ½ a cigarette; put it down and come back for two drags. Put it away and come back to finish it off hours later. I happen to have a M.D. who tells me that I’m in no harm and doing no harm in the few cigarettes I have each day.  Financially:  In the end a carton of cigarettes lasts me nearly a month. This is about the cost I remember when I quit in the 1980’s. I quit because I couldn’t afford the .$50 a pack.  Now at nearly $5.00 a pack it amounts to about the same, or less.

About quitting smoking

It’s the easiest thing in the world.  Never mind the propaganda about the difficulty of it.  The experience of quitting is a delight.  You feel like you’re a child again, with all the healthy unconcern with cigarette smoking.

Homework
Robert Tracy
Oils on canvas
14 x 11″
1985

I can’t stand the taste of black licorice when I smoke. When I quit, that’s what I “smoke”.  I rediscover the taste of that wonderful odd strange delicacy of licorice. I get a cold so seldom. When I do, I simply stop smoking for the duration of the cold. Take extra Vitamin C and the cold is barely a cold, unlike I suspect the miserable colds that non-smokers experience. I quit smoking for eight years during the 1980’s and then twice in the 1990’s for a year at a time. Why?  In a way for the opposite experience that smoking offers one.  It’s true that quitting smoking in time grants one the same experience of motivation that smoking does.  Perhaps more so; one has more time to devote to his work. That ritual of smoking takes time no matter how short in duration it is.  As to the medical science on the harm of smoking (never mind “second-hand” smoke) I don’t see the evidence. Individuals will die from it.  Others won’t.  I suspect that most know of individuals who lived long lives enjoying their smoking.  And others who didn’t live so long as a direct (as far as medical science can tell) result of their smoking. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll enjoy my smokes as long as I can.