While the world comes crashing down, TMZ celebrates two years of celebrity harassment on behalf of the hypnotized populace...

"To me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic Terrorists." - Pat Robertson endorsing Rudy Giuliani

The Pat Robertson guard of the Christian Right stokes the fiery flames of apocalypse and damnation, placing its support behind terrorist-slayer Rudy Giuliani.

The answer is here, the echo of my blood-haunted madness. And no longer does anything resound to me out of of ruined creation except this one sound, out of which millions who are dying accuse me of still being alive, I who had eyes to to see the world, and whose stare struck it in such a fashion that it came as I saw it. If heaven was just in letting this come about, then it was unjust in not have annihilated me. Have I deserved this fulfillment of my deathly fear of life? What's looming there, invading all my nights? Why was I not given the physical strength to smash the sin of this planet with one ax blow? Why was I not given the mental power to force an outcry out of desecrated mankind? Why is my shout of protest not stronger than this tinny command that has dominion over the souls of a whole globe.

I preserve documents for a time that will no longer comprehend them or will be so far removed from today that it will say I was a forger. But no, the time to say that will not come. For such time will not be. I have written a tragedy, whose perishing hero is mankind, whose tragic conflict, the conflict between the world and nature, has a fatal ending. Alas, because this drama has no actor other than all mankind, it has no audience.

The Final Prayer from George W. Bush:

I have sinned against You by being heartless,

And I have sinned against You by speaking recklessly.

I have sinned against You openly and in secret,

And I have sinned against You through offensive talk.

I have sinned against You through impure thoughts,

And I have sinned against You through empty confession.

I have sinned against You purposely and by mistake,

And I have sinned against You by public desecration.

I have sinned against You through foolish talk,

And I have sinned against You wittingly and unwittingly.

Merciful God, take pity, redeem me and save me, show me compassion.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker could grab an hour of prime television time only by slinking into the safe foxhole of Fox News, where Brit Hume chaperoned them on a gloomy, bunkerlike set before an audience of merely 1.5 million true believers. Their "Briefing for America," as Fox titled it, was all too fittingly interrupted early on for a commercial promising pharmaceutical relief from erectile dysfunction. - Frank Rich, NY Times

The media blinds us with its speed and energy, capturing our consciousness and fragmenting it into thousands of splintered shards and bits and pieces of information... submerging us into a dizzying Underworld of pulsating rhythm and cascading showers of sound and unimagined trivia... until our minds are purged, spent, exhausted, and we no longer have a thought in our head, only the distant echoes of a deep repetition.

On the eve of the 6th anniversary of September 11th, The War between the Gods rage on, a Holy War between East & West, a War played out in the Theater of Salvation for those who yearn for eternity from the fires of Apocalypse. Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush, the two chief strategists at battle in their fundamentalist Jihad, have locked Horns around dangerous ideologies centered on the idea that the Great Struggle is the sure path to Heaven. Each is blissfully confident in their knowledge that the other is doomed: there is not even a crack of light here for discussion. Only the path of destruction, attack, reprisal, terrorism, bombs, insurgents, surges, and war.

Perhaps one day the two will meet up in their Eternity, where they will have plenty of time to reminisce and ponder the havoc they had created on Earth. But meanwhile, we, the rest of the Civilization of Man, sit back for the next video to come out on YouTube, or the next televised speech on CNN, in order to catch the latest installment in this mad dash to Eternal Oblivion.

For nearly three years, I have descended into the fires of America's Hell, I have traveled the highways through burning cities, I have captured the silent sighs of cotton fields, I have seen the light streaming down through ominous skies, I have witnessed the apocalyptic ravings of Texan cowboys, I have been caught in the desert twilight when all seems forgotten and lost, I have seen it all and now I tell my story of America, just how far we have fallen since those Towers were breached, ash and smoke and fire raining down all over us, it never stopped, it never ceased to burn our eyes, filling us with dread and fear of an unknown force, a grave danger in the dark, lurking, ever-present, closing in around us.

Smothering.

They have completed the task: they have engorged themselves, drained the blood of the nation to the point of congestion. Of course their unfailing service to the People, the faith-based initiatives, the deliverance of freedom to all corners of the world... was the facade they hid behind while consuming massive quantities of political power to feed the base. Now the bloated brain, Karl Rove, can return to Texas to lick his chops. Bush will soon be following right behind him, as soon as the sun sets low on the nation, we'll watch him ride off into that bloody sun, a trail of carnage left behind... utterly satiated.

The hulking shell of Interstate 35W through downtown Minneapolis in a giant pile of rubble in the rushing waters of the Mississippi.

The cost of maintaining the war in Iraq for two years would be pay for the rebuilding of every bridge, dam, highway, and power grid in America. The fear of an elusive enemy fueled by our own arrogance breeds a more looming, menacing enemy, one that lurks here at home, that hides beneath our feet each and every day, the enemy that is the hubris and inability to invest our resources in decaying cities, the poor, the environment, and yes, those highways and bridges ready to plunge unsuspecting victims into the abyss.

"We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge." - National Intelligence Estimate, July 2007

9/11 was a psychic shock to America's collective consciousness, which according to the latest NIE report, is fading into a distant memory... posing a dire threat to the Government's ability to exploit the attack for political purposes. They who would reinforce fear among the US population now face the realization that the era of September 11th may be coming swiftly to a close.

Meanwhile, the ideological war, which resulted in 9/11 in the first place, continues to rage between the Middle East and the West. "Violent Islamic extremists," the report concludes, "... are becoming more connected ideologically... which points to the possibility that others may become sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence as legitimate."

How do we confront deteriorating conditions? Fear and war breeds more hatred and cultural divisiveness. We announce our own National Intelligence Estimate based on the power of reason and human intelligence, an awakening, a pervasive force of transformation:

"We assess almost certainly that a greater understanding of how activities of the alienated are driven by an overwhelming confrontation with forces more powerful than their own will result in the recognition of Empathy: cultural, philosophical, emotional, cathartic Empathy.

"Headlong fall... perilous... thrown down... violent hurry... excessive suddenness... descent. " - Oxford Dictionary definition of precipitous

The menace of the 21st century is not the quagmire of Vietnam in the 1970s, is is the precipitous fall of America's descent over the precipice into the Abyss, where we continue to plummet. Yes, this is no quagmire, events move at the speed of cable news, before they expire in the 24-hour news cycle, only to re-emerge as new catastrophic particles hurtling through time and space.

No one knows where it will all land, but one thing is sure, the consequences of the actions taken by those who brought us down will be judged, and will be waiting for them at the bottom.

In celebration of the 4th of July, President Bush declared independence from the rule of law. He commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby as "excessive," despite the fact it was consistent with most others who have been sentenced for perjury in front of a grand jury. Today we can take heart in our nation's birthday and the inalienable rights of the President's loyal staff. As the Declaration now reads:

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the President to dissolve the political bands which have connected the People with another and to assume the powers of the earth..."

"His faith is strong... He seeks guidance like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God." - Michael Novak, "The Imperiled Presidency," Washington Post

As the world crumbles around him, reality caving in on itself, his ship sailing into oblivion, the President's rudder stays fixed, on course, never wavering, never doubting, all in the face of events as they unfold. His faith comes from the almighty, that beacon of light illuminating his world, clarifying his thoughts, bolstering his confidence despite relentless war, defeats in Congress, plummeting polls, and a general desire among most Americans to have the nightmare over with.

It is with great consternation that the man in this precarious predicament receives his solace from God, his most trusted counsel, as he leads us along with him to the final judgment, the day of reckoning, where we will all have to take stock of the toll left behind in the wake.

“The market is so hot, and the demand is so great, it’s getting harder to find great art.” - Art Basel, June, 2007 NY Times

In this season of Art festivals, Venice, Basel, and Documenta, I have decided to stay here in Washington and tend to the more pressing issues of our season in Hell, nevertheless, news continues to stream in from Europe, where the usual coterie of collectors, dealers, and hungry art patrons are in search of "Great Art." Two years ago we found the 2005 Venice Biennale an elusive, slippery idea, as we conducted a Situational Tour through the Venetian canals and narrow alleys. Eventually we wound up at the Giardini and completed the task of reclaiming the American Pavilion. Now the task is clear: great art must be erased and in its place, an art that mediates between a crumbling political landscape and what is left of the deteriorating hope in the power of art.

It's getting harder to find great art because it is getting harder to make art speak above the rising decibel of noise of the world art clamoring for great art.