Obviously, the better move would be to throw sunflowers against Warhol's paintings of soup cans.

They picked a painting covered with glass. No damage was done. Its fine.

They did?! I wondered briefly and then assumed it wouldn't have been a story in that case! That's hilarious. Good job, kids.

But also, supergluing their hands to the wall is funny, too. Am I getting the right message?

PETA-style tactics strike me as fundamentally counterproductive but then I'm not doing anything particularly productive there either ( I drive a hybrid! My recycling is flawlessly rinsed and flattened! Whatever.), so I don't feel like I can really throw stones. I will say that my initial response to people supergluing themselves to a wall is to just let them sit there stuck for a few days.

Unless it's my bathroom.

This doesn't discredit them, but it is interesting context: their money is from a foundation itself funded by a big Getty heir. So to some extent foundationland is their audience.

(This Getty heir, to be clear, is not someone currently in oil.)

I suppose if they wanted to do something meaningful that would really get people angry they could superglue themselves to the middle of a busy intersection.

Getty packed in spring water has fewer calories.

Canvassing for democrats in a purple state or working a phone bank in either the primary or general election would have a more concrete, positive impact. While alienating far fewer people.

This is theatrical resume-padding that likely harms the cause more than helps it.

I tend to be sympathetic to futile, ridiculous gestures like this. At least the concept of global warming gets into the media this way.

But I reflexively recoil from this kind of language:

"What is worth more, art or life? ... are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?"

Van Gogh and climate action aren't mutually exclusive.

11.1: Go me.

@13 Indeed! Go you!

They say they are more interested in life than art, but this is very art school in methods. Should take inspiration from the climate hero spook who did in Nordstream.

I just got a text asking for money for Peltola. She was described as pro-fish.

It's an accurate and important descriptor. Did you hear we just lost a billion crabs?

Crabs are many things (convergent evolution), but not fish.

I loved Peltola's platform: pro-choice, pro-fish, pro-worker. That's it! That's all of me! I should check whether she is selling shirts, and I NEVER buy shirts with messages.

I totally get the thinking behind harmless soup on paintings. 'You don't respect what you're doing to me for the rest of my life? I don't respect your painting.' I also don't believe in second-guessing activists (like with "defund" language) since they're doing the work and I'm doing very little. I mean, what has Greta Thunberg changed with her very excellent speeches? Nothing is working, so do more new and maybe also taboo things. I still think that The Youngs should strike at their Boomer parents by boycotting Thanksgiving and Christmas. Family holidays are some of their only leverage; something that Boomers want more than lifestyle convenience.

I also really hate the speculation about how Other People will react. I think they're all code for people's personal hesitations. We saw it most with electing Barack Obama in the primary, where it was 'oh, I'd vote for him, but those Other People would never vote for a Black man with that name.' Fuck all that. Speak for yourself and don't guess how Other People will react.

I should check whether she is selling shirts

She is!

But those don't have her perfect platform on them.

They don't? The back of this one seems pretty close.

They don't? The back of this one seems pretty close.

There's another one that has it on the front but in smaller type.

That's not close enough to get me to wear a shirt with a message.

Fair enough.

Writer of books known to the blog writes, which I think well-put: "If you want the kind of massive mobilization that might possibly result in anything happening about the climate, you are going to have to accept that sometimes some teens might do something cringe. They are going to do it whether you like it or not."

I USED TO BE IN FAVOR OF GLOBAL COOLING BUT EVER SINCE THOSE KIDS THREW SOUP ON THE GLASS COVERING OF A PAINTING I'M OUTRAGED ON BEHALF OF VAN GOGH

I just hate eating tomato soup.

I'm kind of curious how they got the soup can in. Hidden under clothing?

Or is the National Gallery not one of those museums where they make you check your bag? It's been 20 years since I've been there.

Maybe there's a constitutional right to bare cans.

Maybe you mean common law?

I mean, what has Greta Thunberg changed with her very excellent speeches?

She just got the Germans to keep their nuclear plants on, so there's that.

I mean no disrespect to Ms. Thunberg.

@28

28 was also Matt Taibbi's response, almost verbatim.

I forgot he was still writing things in public. Back when I read his stuff, the incoherence seemed to be confined to his use of metaphor.

The specific response I was referring to. Looks like he's done a bunch of other tweets along the same lines.

@38 He apparently believes that the protestor's behavior will cause the protestor's audience to disregard the protestor's message out of spite. Do you see this as a risk? If not, why not?

I don't really have an opinion on the soup thing. Obviously any activism carries some risk of backlash which may or may not be worth it.

Can you even buy a Buick Electra that will run that long?

Leaving a bunch of Buicks idling probably wouldn't create a backlash if only because it would seem like a normal day in an American parking lot.

You don't really see many Buicks these days.

All soup comes with the risk of backsplash. If you can't stand the heat, get out.

I thought it was pretty dumb and counterproductive, but I'm less against it now that I know about the glass.

I can throw soup at glass. It does not hurt me.

Did they know about the glass?

The internet says they did.

Better than throwing glass in someone's soup.

I feel like using canned soup is just showing off. You can get bags of soup and that would have to be really hard for security to spot going in.

You don't really see many Buicks these days.

I feel like I see a ton of Buicks. Since GM axed most of their brands, all the cars you used to see that would have been Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles are now Buicks.

I feel like most of the cars I see these days are Japanese. Definitely could be a regional effect.

51: I don't know Spike's town in particular, but I know the State Capitol area. There are plenty of Japanese cars. Not as many German cars as Boston. I think Spike's point is a kind of like evolution by population bottleneck. The population of people who want American cars hasn't grown and may have shrunk, but because there are fewer American car choices at that price point, more people have gone with Buicks..

I see a lot of electrics in my town, but about 5 minutes down the road, there is a guy who owns a septic system installation business. He has an older (like 19th or early 20th century) house and he built himself a free-standing 5-car garage, he's got a Ford F650 on a 300 flatbed (according to Tim). It looked like he was out joyriding at one point. One evening, he as out and it looked like he was trying to accelerate and put the truck through its paces. Tim says he drives by sometimes and the guy is sitting in the truck which he parks outside in his driveway. I think an F650 might be excessive even for a guy who installs septic systems

30: I am pretty sure the National Gallery doesn't check bags, certainly not if you know about the trick of going in the side entrance where there is almost never a queue rather than the front entrance where there is almost always one. (See also: the Natural History Museum.)
They probably will now, which is a shame.

30: I am pretty sure the National Gallery doesn't check bags, certainly not if you know about the trick of going in the side entrance where there is almost never a queue rather than the front entrance where there is almost always one. (See also: the Natural History Museum.)
They probably will now, which is a shame.

I thought the Taibbi thread had some responses that make the useful distinction between making the conversation about climate activists rather than about finding ways to deal with climate change. From 54, it sounds like lots of people are going to get to spend lots of time standing in line thinking about how activists have changed their day.

leah sottile's current podcast, burn wild, is pretty much exactly about the issues of how env activists chose to try & effect change, the effectiveness or lack thereof of different approaches & varying state/non activist responses thereto.

i was once at a getty mansion for a dinner it must have had some snooty-worthy cause behind it that i cannot now recall. i was seated next to a remarkably tedious & self important vc even among the class so fair dos dude. i clearly succeeded at uninteresting him in me, my firm, etc, as my then employer subsequently stopped pushing me relentlessly to go to those types of events.

there were var paintings not behind glass. in general not a fan of overheated decor (puddling curtains, gilt gilt gilt) but suppose might have to give it up to the choice to install a memento mori cabinet in the entry hall when your dominant personal aesthetic inspires a desire to check for a pulse.

the live music was pretty good.

I'm not a fan of that kind of busy decoration either. Our house is apparently mid-century modern but with too much random shit.

What's a DOS dude?

Someone who made their money at Microsoft, maybe?

Some of us still use the command prompt.

fair do's - phone typing in cab apols

That's actually less clear than before to me.

Like hair do's for blonds.

foiled apparently in my effort to be fair to the tedious vc dude lol

I don't know any VC people anyway.

John Durham is the worst prosecutor since whoever kept facing Perry Mason.

Actually, that guy was better because he had the actual crime down right and usually managed to have the guilty person in the room even if accidently.

Moby, have you seen this? Seems like your kind of thing.

Thanks. Looks interesting. I'll try when I'm not on a phone.

66 After Tet they were thinner on the ground.

67 At least the news stories about the guy have stopped saying how well respected he supposedly was. For those of you who haven't yet seen The Report, Durham's off-screen uselessness is worth an extra laugh today. I bet I said that last time too.

I admit I'm still a bit disappointed that the pee tape wasn't found.

Maybe if Ukraine marches to Moscow.

I also don't believe in second-guessing activists (like with "defund" language) since they're doing the work and I'm doing very little.

This begs the question "Are they doing the work?" I think the parsimonious explanation is that they're preening for their peers, not that they have a remotely serious theory of change that they are enacting.

TBH I don't trust the tactical, political instincts of people who think Nancy Pelosi is the primary barrier to stopping climate change. Or who think that replacing Joe Manchin with a liberal in the Democratic primary will result in adding a liberal to the Senate. I don't blame youth for believing patently stupid things, but I don't see why adults who know better are feting them with money and praise.