Finding the US artist Ed Ruscha and Idea #116 is Conservatism

Standard Station by Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha
I was browsing a magazine yesterday and noted a work by Ed Ruscha, I wrote his name down and lost the bit of paper. The exercise in finding it again was instructive, I tried to recall what I remembered of the work:

I got in my mind that the name wasn't Rothko but was like Rothko
I recall that he was Californian (he was in fact born in Oklahoma but moved to California)
I remember that the picture was of a gas station.
I thought that the sign said Shell (it was Standard).
I looked in Google images and found it.
The work that had intrigued me was Standard Station (painted in 1966) it is also worthy of note that President Obama presented a signed Ruscha print  (Column With Speed Lines) to UK Prime minster Cameron in 2010.
You can read the fascinating chronology of Ed a pop art pioneer who continues to produce work at the age of 75 here.
(I was pleased to see that a link to Hopper's works is acknowledged by critics)

Idea 116 is Conservatism

As we saw politics is described often as a line from left to right, somewhere on the right the parties labelled as Conservative live.
The Conservative parties include many of the European Christian Democrat parties, the US Republicans and (of course) the UK Conservatives.

Conservative parties are considered to be the parties that embody beliefs in traditional authority but it was worth noting that there are (at least) 2 brands of conservatism manifested in mainstream politics which can but don't have to co-exist:
1) Social Conservatism - this tends to favour family values and may reject alternative lifestyles (like same sex marriages).
2) Economic Conservatism - this is where Conservatism rejects overt state encroachment into industry and the market (although it is worth noting that Conservatism often favours a large military and is comfortable the spend of public finance this requires).