There is something attractive about defrocking a figure of faith-and-family-values virtue, particularly one of great commercial success who has endeared himself to an endangered minority: the American middle class. The late Thomas Kinkade, who died of unnamed causes Friday, made an easy target. The self-anointed "painter of light" specialized in idealized scenes hearkening to a more …
Continue reading High Contrast: Thomas Kinkade’s Art, Life & Controversy
As if we needed to add to the strain of the already-perplexing Colony Collapse Disorder that continues its silent kill of European honeybees worldwide, a late-year news item from Bloomberg portrays a New York judge taking a delinquent EPA to task for turning a blind eye of approval toward Bayer's latest bee killer, environmental advocates say. Why care? Because those honeybees pollinate our crops. So the honeybee goes, so the human population goes. Do we really need another bug spray — another nail in our own coffin? It's time we got schooled in the art of smart consumerism. It's a new year, a new decade, and it's not too late. Self empowerment, anyone?