A Protest By Design, Leading to a War of Words

Designer Michael Rock on the snubbing of Laura Bush's breakfast: "If you see this as an act of resistance, it's a pretty minor one." (Ari Marcopoulis - Ari Marcopoulis)

A handful of designers snubbed Laura Bush last week when she hosted a breakfast for the winners of the National Design Awards. Five honorees in the graphic design category skipped the July 10 gathering and sent the first lady a letter saying they were "compelled to respectfully decline." Their beef? Good design means "words and images must be used responsibly, especially when the matters articulated are of vital importance to the life of our nation" -- and they felt the Bush administration had "seriously harmed" political discourse.

"If you see this as an act of resistance, it's a pretty minor one," said awardee Michael Rock , a partner at the New York firm 2x4 and a professor of design at Yale University School of Art. While honored by the prestigious award (the design Oscars) from Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Rock said yesterday he's professionally offended by the president's "cavalier" use of Sept. 11 imagery in campaign ads, fake news columns and newscasts, and the suppression of "returning war casualties." He and his fellow designers will pick up their prizes in October at the museum gala.

Michael Bierut wrote about the flap on industry blog Design Observer, hoping to stimulate a thoughtful debate about artistic responsibility and protest. Instead, a flurry of vitriolic comments:

"The Bush Administration has used the mass communication of words and images in a way that the undersigned DO NOT LIKE. Please. Get over yourselves."

"It does not take a leftist view of politics to understand that the Bush administration has bent information and muddied communication to fit its political ends."

"Leave it to mindless, knee-jerk ideaologues [sic] to turn something that is decidedly non-political into an opportunity to grind some political axe."

From there, the news predictably leapt into the blogosphere, where conservatives and liberals have been slugging it out on the subject for a week, much as they did in 2003 after the first lady canceled a White House poetry symposium when some invitees announced plans to read antiwar poems at the event.

Yesterday the first lady's spokeswoman, Susan Whitson , declined to comment because she has not seen the letter.

Said Bierut yesterday: "I thought at the outset that this was a particularly subtle issue with good, articulate arguments on either side, and was chagrined to see how quickly it escalated (or degenerated) into the usual screaming. If the future of political discourse lies in the blogosphere, as some people claim, be very afraid."

GET THIS!

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If you kept seeing the same tough-looking blond hottie circling Capitol Hill -- don't worry, Pink was not casing the joint. The singer (in town for that 9:30 club show reviewed on C1) left the Hotel George for the steam room at Results gym -- riding her own bike. But she got the address wrong, ended up pedaling around lost for more than an hour and never made it. To make it up to the Results folks (who were hovering on VIP standby), she gave owner Doug Jefferies backstage passes.

Allen Iverson may be one of the finest athletes of his generation, but a rapper stole his thunder in softball on Saturday. At the celebrity game hosted by the 76er's charitable foundation in Bowie, Iverson hit a grounder, but platinum-seller Nelly sent a homer over the fence. Turns out he's something of a ringer, having won an MVP trophy in a St. Louis amateur league. He was playing for Iverson's "all-star" team, which won 7-3 over a WPGC team, despite the no-show of promised stars such as Gilbert Arenas .

Luciana Pedraza , the Argentina-born wife of actor and horse-country dweller Robert Duvall, was among 40 people taking the oath of citizenship at Homeland Security offices in Fairfax last week. "I'm happy to be part of a great nation," she said in a statement.

She's Standing by Her Fish Story

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(Scott Minor)

The one that didn't get away: Sen. Lisa Murkowski caught this 65-pound Alaskan king salmon on July 7 at the Kenai River Classic, hosted by the other Republican senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens . Guys on Capitol Hill say the lawmaker must have had help reeling it in, but her office swears she did it by herself.

QUOTED

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"There's nobody in the world like me. I think every decade has an iconic blonde -- like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana -- and right now, I'm that icon."

-- Paris Hilton, somberly assessing her place in history for the Times of London