What Grover Norquist Got Wrong About Burning Man
I have at least two things in common with anti-tax activist and Washington-insider Grover Norquist.
The first is that we’ve recently attended our first burns, which is to say we’re both newly minted Burners, as in, we have both just returned for the first time from Burning Man, the annual gathering of about 70,000 artists, interlopers and their ilk in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, a dystopian/utopian event dedicated to celebrating radical inclusion/expression/self-reliance/hugging and just about anything else people want it to be.
Burning Man has hosted more than a few high-profile capitalists over the years but few, if any, have been as controversial as Norquist, the the founder and wonk-president of Americans for Tax Reform who served as a key Republican ally and supporter of George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich. But on Tuesday, Norquist wrote compellingly about his experience at “Burning Man,” as he adorably renders it (in quotation marks).
Upon learning of the intentions of Norquist, a high priest of the square community, Vanity Fair declared “The Day Burning Man Died.” I can happily report that his attendance did nothing to prevent me from getting some minor chiropractic work done last week at a camp in the desert called “Porn and Donuts.”
Burning Man is, as both a mass phenomenon and an individualized experience, literally beyond description, and I wouldn’t presume to speak for or about the entire community, if you can call it that. But as I wistfully shake the playa dust off my sleeping bag, I must say from one baby Burner to another: Grover, Vanity Fair is full of moop, I think you got it mostly right and I’m glad to have you on the team.
More at link
http://time.com/3264611/grover-norquist-burning-man/
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