The Fragmentation Of History

[Fifty150]

Recently, the Oak Park, Illinois Library board voted to destroy a 1930s ice skating mural for the unforgivable sin of excluding
figure skaters of color, which, of course had caused hurt feelings and severe trauma. So, the mural had to go.

Murals are a particular flashpoint for this type of thing. Several years ago, our then-governor ordered the removal from the lobby of the State Department of Labor a series of panels depicting Maine's often-troubled labor history, on the grounds that it created an uncomfortable and adversarial environment for businessmen having dealings with the Department. These snowflakes with their safe spaces.

Murals, especially WPA product are generally very high quality and quite often uniquely styled.

Art, is subject to interpretation. Porn is "art". To me, it's a 1st Amendment issue. Artists have the right to expression. Removing or covering a mural, in my mind, is censorship. It's like burning books, or smashing "Rock N Roll" records. Some may recall how the music industry was forced to put warning labels on certain recordings. Motion pictures are rated.

Maybe those public murals are serving their intended purpose.

Why weren't there skaters of color in the 1930's? Where do we come from as a society, and where do we go? Is figure skating now an event which is open to every race?

If there is a mural of factory workers, and it doesn't look good, what does the actual factory look like today? Can we walk into a factory, and see happy elves building toys in Santa's workshop? Do we find jolly midgets making candy for Willy Wonka? Do we need a mural to constantly remind us that factory workers deserve safe working conditions? Or that children should not be working in factories?

Maybe the truth hurts. George Washington did own slaves and killed Native Americans. Washington helped found a nation which - well, we all have our own views of Native Americans losing their land and being placed on reservations. That US policy extended into the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii was a sovereign nation. Should we just cover that up, and pretend that it's not true? Do we cancel Washington, and just teach future generations that The USA became a nation independent of The British without mention of Washington? Or sugar coat Washington as a great founding father, without mention of slaves and Native Americans?

But then again, art is subject to interpretation. I shrug my shoulders and shake my head, when it comes to a painting of a can of soup. But I have a print of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's "A Friend In Need" on prominent display for all guests in my home.

 

[Harp]

Personally I can't get worked up about taking down statues or changing names. Statues and names are not history. They're merely how people in power at any given time choose to interpret history, and while that interpretation itself is of historic interest, it should come as a surprise to no one when that interpretation changes as time passes.

In the wake of Taylor v Northam and subsequent remove of Richmond's Robert E Lee statue from its
pedestal base note begs comment as to assigned statuary speech and the settlement of grievance.
Mencken's quip: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,
and deserve to get it good and hard," encapsules much but omits much; namely, the good old fashion
proverbial pedestal, the soap box-which is not to be confused with constitutionally protected free speech.
But if statuary is to be knocked off pedestals it's about time some folk gave up the ghost and stepped
down off the box. Give up the wood. Burn it.

And, of course, there are those souls in search of cause whom will begin to nail a cross for themselves.

 

[GHT]

Occasionally, a poorly informed history teacher might suggest that Christopher Columbus was trying to prove to a sceptical world that the earth wasn't flat but round. Unfortunately, this teacher has fallen for one of the most baseless myths about ancient people in history. Hardly anyone in history seriously thought that the earth was flat.

It's a modern myth that the ancients somehow believed in a flat earth. Even the ancients could see that the twilight glow during sunrise and sunset formed an arc over the horizon. They could also see that the top of an incoming ship at sea, viewed from the shoreline, appeared before the rest of the boat. These and other clues suggest a curving landscape consistent with a spherical earth.

In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of the Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. We know that ancient Greek scientists recognised that the Earth was round, spherical, by at least 2,700 years ago, because the idea of a round Earth was being taught well before 500 B.C. by the famous Greek mathematician Pythagoras, for whom the Pythagorean theorem is named. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

If you're not persuaded by the evidence, check out the Flat Earth Society. You'll fit right in. Meanwhile, be sure to avoid buying a ticket for an around-the-world cruise. It's just a scam organised by round-earth profiteers.

 

[Fifty150]

The George Washington High School mural situation is actually very complex.

The fight pits John Rothmann, George Washington High School Alumni Association, versus Alison Collins, SF Board of Education Commissioner.

The grudge match is now into "the championship rounds". Apparently, there are 3 board members who vote in lockstep, and they are at the center of 3 controversial issues. The George Washington mural, cancel culture name change of 44 schools, and the Lowell High School admissions policy.

3 members of The Board of Education decided that 44 schools were named after offensive people. Without examining 44 individuals, and why naming a school after that person is offensive; the bigger picture is that the school district can't spend millions on a name change blitz. It benefits not one student at Francis Scott Key elementary to tear down the stone masonry on the front of the building, just to remove the name etched into the stone. Those kids need millions of dollars of school supplies. Computers, paper, pencils, books, kick balls. At a time where they could not come up with a plan to reopen schools safely, they decided on a name change policy which would have cost millions of dollars to change every sign, granite work on buildings, buy new stationary, all new team sports and and band uniforms, and new scoreboards on ball fields.

Lowell High School was an academic school and had a merit based admissions policy. You had to have a near perfect grade point average, be involved in student body activities, have recommendations from teachers and counselors, etc. Zero consideration for sports abilities. So without special consideration for athletes, the student population was mostly White and Asian. 3 members of the school board decided that merit based was unfair, since apparently the hardest working kids in the city being rewarded with admission, somehow left out kids who did not perform as well academically. In order to make the world a fair place, a "lottery system" admission was implemented to balance racial diversity. Which means that there is a lottery, and that an equal number of different races are admitted to balance the student body. This system removes a certain number of students of certain races, so that more students of another race can have equity.

Of course, the elephant in the room, is political correctness run amok. The haves, versus the have nots. The perception of race division and social economic class division. Somewhere, lost in all of this, is what benefits the students. Nobody is actually considering how any of this madness actually helps 1 kid.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The world would be a better place if we just named schools "P. S. 123" or something. I never went to a school named after a person, unless "Franklin D. Central" existed somewhere, and it had not a whit of impact on any element of my education.

Honor-naming of buildings after individuals is little more than a way of pretending to do something meaningful to "represent their legacy" without the expense and committment of actually doing something meaningful. Or it's just a cheesy, groveling quid-pro-quo because the honoree gave a big donation, the equivalent of naming a ballpark after an insurance company. And then in fifty years or so, when the name has become an embarassment, or nobody remembers/cares who the honoree was, you have to go thru the pretense all over again. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of intellect.

 

[Harp]

In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of the Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. We know that ancient Greek scientists recognised that the Earth was round, spherical, by at least 2,700 years ago, because the idea of a round Earth was being taught well before 500 B.C. by the famous Greek mathematician Pythagoras, for whom the Pythagorean theorem is named. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

It Is the geometer's business to know that circular wounds heal more slowly;
The physician's to understand the reason why.

Aristotle, Posterior Analytica

 

[Fifty150]

in fifty years or so, when the name has become an embarassment

It didn't take 50 years. There was a dispute over naming a transit station, before it was completed and open for riders.

 

[Fifty150]

Most people have never heard of Rose Pak. Pak had no earned income, and hasn't filed a tax return since the early 80's. Pak died owning real estate in one of the most expensive markets in the United States, and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in small bills.

$256,000 in cash, was found by The Medical Examiner, and booked into property by Police Department.

 

[Haversack]

I wonder what the mortuary's marching band will play if they ever have the funeral procession.

 

[Fifty150]

In a modern city with such vintage political corruption........It's like living in 1921, not 2021. A State Senator and City Supervisor were incarcerated. Various City Department Heads, and several influential private citizens, are currently being prosecuted by The FBI. The Department of Justice just fined the local cartage operation $36 million for an assortment of charges relating to bribing government officials. Several other companies are on trial for their part in bid rigging city contracts, and other charges of corrupting city officials. There are construction companies with no employees, who win bids on government contracts, specifically for the purpose of subcontracting the work to real construction companies who will actually do the work. There are "suppliers" to city departments that have no employees or even supplies. Everything is ordered from them at inflated prices, then they place the orders from places like Costco and have it delivered. It's just like when the Federal Government pays $500 for a pencil - the seller collects $500, then sends a regular $0.10 pencil from a stationary store, and pockets $499.90.

Pak worked briefly as a "journalist" back in The 70's. Since then, she had no visible means of support, no W-2's from employment, no interest or dividend income from investments, or filed a tax return. What she did, and did better than most people, was deliver campaign contributions and votes. Even at the legal limit of $500 per donor, she could walk in with a quarter of a million dollars all in $500 checks. What some people don't realize, is that at political rallies, they pass the basket like a religious service. They have the same boxes with a slit, where someone could simply drop money in. Untraceable cash is collected, and often not reported. In certain communities, like nursing homes or in Chinatown, they register everyone to vote, then "harvest" all of the Vote By Mail ballots. You're too old and senile, or you can't read or write English? No problem. They will take care of the voting for you. If you can imagine, not only the Chinese in Chinatown, but in every ethnic community. You can literally hold and deliver 10% of the total vote count. And you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in small bills. So you barter with that.

A simple exchange would be if a certain person was elected with the help of someone like Pak. That person will then divert those city contracts and purchase agreements to people affiliated with Pak who made the "political contributions" which Pak delivered. A simple "quid pro quo".

 

[tonyb]

The world would be a better place if we just named schools "P. S. 123" or something. I never went to a school named after a person, unless "Franklin D. Central" existed somewhere, and it had not a whit of impact on any element of my education.

Honor-naming of buildings after individuals is little more than a way of pretending to do something meaningful to "represent their legacy" without the expense and committment of actually doing something meaningful. Or it's just a cheesy, groveling quid-pro-quo because the honoree gave a big donation, the equivalent of naming a ballpark after an insurance company. And then in fifty years or so, when the name has become an embarassment, or nobody remembers/cares who the honoree was, you have to go thru the pretense all over again. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of intellect.

At an institution of higher learning (which shall remain unnamed) a joke among the faculty and staff and even some of the student body was that the elderly university president, given to long-winded reminiscences (every one a tale with himself at its center), would step down after he saw his name on every building on campus.

Here locally the major university medical center and health sciences schools (it’s a huge complex, what with the hospital and clinics and classroom structures and all) quite prominently bears the name of a major benefactor. Indeed, that name is now shorthand for the whole shootin’ match.

If the primary motivation for a certain fast-food chain’s philanthropy was to provide lodgings to the families of kids undergoing inpatient medical procedures and not promoting the chain itself, it wouldn’t name those lodgings after itself.

I’m not so much offended by those sorts of self-promotion anymore as amused by them. In the first two examples, I can’t help but think it’s an attempt at cheating mortality, which is its own brand of pathetic. It’s akin to the largest monument in the cemetery.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's always a bit poignant when the largest monument in the cemetery is cracked, weedy, overgrown, and you can barely read the name on it. No matter who you are, someday it'll be as though you never existed at all.

 

[Haversack]

Cue Shelley:
"...My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!..."

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Which is not to say that I dislike cemeteries.

Whenever I get back to the greater Madison, Wisconsin area I pay a visit to the graveyard behind the Catholic church in Ashton, where my father, who died when I was four months old, is planted.

The oldest graves there, the ones nearest the church building, bear markers in the German language. A century and a half of exposure to Upper Midwestern weather has eroded those markers such that some of the engravings are getting harder to read. Not even granite lasts forever.

When I was younger Ashton was way out in the country. The graveyard was surrounded by cornfields. Now it’s becoming another bedroom community outside of Madison.

Nothing lasts forever. I regard those grave markers in much the way coastal Indians of what is now called the Pacific Northwest regarded totem poles. They weren’t meant to last forever. They are put there to remind us that nothing does.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
Which is not to say that I dislike cemeteries.

Whenever I get back to the greater Madison, Wisconsin area I pay a visit to the graveyard behind the Catholic church in Ashton, where my father, who died when I was four months old, is planted.

The oldest graves there, the ones nearest the church building, bear markers in the German language. A century and a half of exposure to Upper Midwestern weather has eroded those markers such that some of the engravings are getting harder to read. Not even granite lasts forever.

When I was younger Ashton was way out in the country. The graveyard was surrounded by cornfields. Now it’s becoming another bedroom community outside of Madison.

Nothing lasts forever. I regard those grave markers in much the way coastal Indians of what is now called the Pacific Northwest regarded totem poles. They weren’t meant to last forever. They are put there to remind us of that.

When we travel one of our activitiies is touring grave yards. They are amazing repositories of local history. ....especially the well kept very old one. Easy to spot the waves of immigration by ethnicity, plague years/wars....overall fascinating way to spend an hour or two.

 

[belfastboy]

At an institution of higher learning (which shall remain unnamed) a joke among the faculty and staff and even some of the student body was that the elderly university president, given to long-winded reminiscences (every one a tale with himself at its center), would step down after he saw his name on every building on campus.

Here locally the major university medical center and health sciences schools (it’s a huge complex, what with the hospital and clinics and classroom structures and all) quite prominently bears the name of a major benefactor. Indeed, that name is now shorthand for the whole shootin’ match.

If the primary motivation for a certain fast-food chain’s philanthropy was to provide lodgings to the families of kids undergoing inpatient medical procedures and not promoting the chain itself, it wouldn’t name those lodgings after itself.

I’m not so much offended by those sorts of self-promotion anymore as amused by them. In the first two examples, I can’t help but think it’s an attempt at cheating mortality, which is its own brand of pathetic. It’s akin to the largest monument in the cemetery.

My alma mater...Simon Fraser University...named after a famed Scottish explorer in Canada's west had pretense of becoming a football power and playing in the Rose Bowl. Years back they changed the name of the sport's team mascot from the "Clansmen" (yes with a 'C') shortening it to 'The Clan'....I suspect in a few years time it will be changed again as The Clan is still just a touch too tribal for today's sensibilities.

 

[Harp]

My alma mater...Simon Fraser University...named after a famed Scottish explorer in Canada's west had pretense of becoming a football power and playing in the Rose Bowl. Years back they changed the name of the sport's team mascot from the "Clansmen" (yes with a 'C') shortening it to 'The Clan'....I suspect in a few years time it will be changed again as The Clan is still just a touch too tribal for today's sensibilities.

Illinois v Virginia; now this self same second the Illini are behind the Cavaliers seven points.
Lovie Smith got fired as head coach, new blood coaching staff.
Chief Illiniawak got whacked. The Cavaliers, I assume are christened Stuart Loyalists that lost to the
Cromwellian roundheads, so there is plenty of ground for offense and necessary correction here, or
so it seems. A rapacious, disorganized, violent, misorgynist, disorganized rabble riding to whose rescue?
The statuary speakers will strike again. It's only a matter of time.

 

[belfastboy]

Illinois v Virginia; now this self same second the Illini are behind the Cavaliers seven points.
Lovie Smith got fired as head coach, new blood coaching staff.
Chief Illiniawak got whacked. The Cavaliers, I assume are christened Stuart Loyalists that lost to the
Cromwellian roundheads, so there is plenty of ground for offense and necessary correction here, or
so it seems. A rapacious, disorganized, violent, misorgynist, disorganized rabble riding to whose rescue?
The statuary speakers will strike again. It's only a matter of time.

I think the next logical step is to rename the university itself as Simon Fraser was a white hegemonic colonial patriarchal sumbitch.

 

[Harp]

I think the next logical step is to rename the university itself as Simon Fraser was a white hegemonic colonial patriarchal sumbitch.

My kinda guy.

 

[belfastboy]

My kinda guy.

He did look good in a kilt!