Inside the debt reduction talks

 

There seem to be few if any photos from the inner chambers where deliberations about the looming calamity of an Obama/Congress debt "deal" are taking place.

To fill the gap, this painting, Francisco Goya's "Duelo a garrotazos" (duel with cudgels), 1819-1823, with two young men, legs stuck in the mud, perpetually flailing away at each other, captures the spirit of what passes for "serious" economic and policy thinking in Washington, D.C. these days.  It's one of the works in Goya's series of "Black Paintings" produced after he'd withdrawn from his career as artist for the Spanish crown.

I wonder, which of today's artists and works adequately convey the deranged, rudderless trajectories of American social, economic and political life as the new century unfolds?  One nominee would certainly be David Simon and his masterful series of Goyaesque video black paintings, "The Wire."