The artist John McEnroe says he's encouraged "that a single object can still provoke thought and action" - referring to the towering stack of crimson intestines, or slippery sausages, or whatever they are, plopped on a pedestal near the pedestrian bridge at Interstate 25 and Platte Street.

He's correct, of course: Ghastly pieces of public art - especially when they carry possible phallic overtones - do tend to "provoke thought and action." And also complaints, for that matter, from taxpayers - who resent the $53,000 price tag - and pedestrians who must endure the visual insult.

"Most public art is sort of designed to please the public," McEnroe told the Rocky. "But it should be as good as the art in a museum."

Oh, heck: a failure on both counts.

It is always possible, of course, that the public may fail to appreciate a genius who strides forth in advance of his time. Perhaps National Velvet, as McEnroe dubs his work, will someday be hailed as a masterpiece. But forgive me for suspecting that another outcome is somewhat more likely: that a later generation will marvel at how Denver officials could take seriously a work that appears to be nothing so much as a strange and mischievous jest.

Some 'monopoly'

John Mackey has a point. The CEO of Whole Foods wonders why, if his company is the fearsome monopolist the federal government imagines, that sales haven't soared since its merger last year with Wild Oats.

In fact, he says, same-store sales are down.

"How can a monopolist have negative same-store sales?" Mackey asks. "The whole thing is ridiculous.

"There's only one place Whole Foods has a monopoly, and that's in the imagination of the lawyers at the Federal Trade Commission."

Whole Foods this month sued the FTC over its continued efforts to unravel a merger with Boulder-based Wild Oats - a merger that a trial judge originally approved. That ruling should have ended the matter. Instead, the FTC - propelled by a surreal belief that Whole Foods threatens to corner the market on premium organic food in cities such as Denver and Boulder - pursued the case, and an appeals court unexpectedly sided with the government.

The upshot: Whole Foods might be forced into the costly exercise of trying to untangle - or at least abort - the integration of two grocery chains that is substantially complete.

And for what? Supposedly so that customers won't be hostage to the "higher prices, reduced quality and fewer choices" that the government implausibly predicted would follow the merger. Yet with so many grocery options available to the public, Whole Foods would have to be crazy to think it could treat customers with disdain once it gobbled up a rival.

Alas, it is too much to expect a federal agency to entertain second thoughts about punishing a first-rate company at a time when consumers are trying to economize and, according to The Associated Press, "the rotten economy is eating into sales of organic foods." To the contrary. The FTC has scheduled the Whole Foods case for an administrative trial in February.

At least the company isn't deluding itself. Its lawsuit compares the FTC to the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, who famously declared, "First the sentence, then the evidence."

Maybe the judge will award Whole Foods points for gallows humor.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.