Rattling around in my didn't-sleep-last-night head...

Every time I hear someone say "I don't listen to so-and-so, because (insert political differences or moral behavior here)" about a musical artist, I want to ask the same questions.

1. Does knowing that Van Gogh was a nutter who cut off his ear and sent it to a woman make his paintings lesser works of art?

2. Did you know that Ernest Hemingway married 4 times? Or that Dorothy Parker was an alcoholic? Do those facts diminish their respective bodies of work, or are they still great authors?

3. If it weren't for the gigantic magnifying glass of the media on celebrities in general, you might not know that they were really screwed up in an area(s) of their personal life or didn't agree with your political views lockstep. However, if you heard their music and liked it, would that really make you a bad person somehow?

My experience is that when we dismiss someone for foibles that are often either the source of artistic talent or the result of it, we miss out; and when we close our mind to someone with a different opinion than our own, we become small-minded and intolerant.