Sad

[Steve]

(09-19-2017 09:06 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 07:32 PM)Steve Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 06:34 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  

(09-19-2017 05:29 PM)Thomas Kearney Wrote:  http://wtop.com/dc/2017/09/man-charged-c...l/slide/1/

Someone used a penny to carve something into a pillar on the Lincoln Memorial

HYPT MAEK? Does anyone speak Russian. The article didn't provide a translation from what I saw. I also read that the student was surprised that he was in trouble an didn't know that defacing a national monument and damage to public property was unacceptable.

Appalling. I find it difficult to believe that he was surprised that he could get in trouble. Maybe surprised that he got caught.

"At the monument, the officer saw and heard Bakirov scratching the penny into the pillar and asked him what he was doing.


"Sorry," Bakirov reportedly said, and then tried to walk away.
Lincoln Memorial Vandalized With Red Spray Paint
The officer ordered him to stop, and after the second time, Bakirov did.
He apologized and said he "didn’t know that you can’t do that," the report says.
"Am I in trouble for doing this?" he asked."


Source: Man Vandalized Lincoln Memorial With Penny, Causing Permanent Damage - NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/...z4tBGUnMpV
Follow us: @nbcwashington on Twitter | NBCWashington on Facebook
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/...40633.html

Well if that's what happened, that makes me even more sure that he knew what he was doing was wrong.

[Darrell]

(07-28-2013 12:22 PM)Liz Rosenthal Wrote:  Is it so hard to imagine that acolytes of DiLorenzo, presumably white and middle class, might feel motivated to deface something as prominent and majestic as Washington DC's Lincoln Memorial, knowing as they do that Lincoln "unnecessarily" got us into a bloody war in which three-quarters of a million people died?

I, for one, find that pretty hard to imagine. I seriously doubt that DiLorenzo's acolytes are motivated to deface monuments - even those erected to one they perceive as a tyrant. Of course anything's possible, but I'd be very surprised if the Lincoln Memorial vandals have ever even read anything by Tom DiLorenzo.

[L Verge]

It's never going to end, folks...

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2...1710050122

[L Verge]

Mark Twain took a hit years ago for Huckleberry Finn. Anyone want to bet that his statues will be the next targets?

[Christine]

This commentary today seemed to fit this thread.

“All are welcome—no exceptions” reads a sign on Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, but the congregation doesn’t really mean it. Somebody very specifically is not welcome here any more—our first U.S. president.

This is the church that in 1773, George Washington helped create with his donation and the place where he had purchased a family pew. So connected was he to the place that after his death his family Bible was donated to the Church.

Long has this church been an icon in this tradition-steeped Washington DC town that visitors have come to see where Washington went to worship.

As of last week, caught in the frenzy of redefining and tearing up the past through tearing down memorials, Christ Church is taking down a plaque about George Washington that has hung to the side of the pulpit for over 150 years. It is going down with another plaque in memory of Robert E. Lee that has also hung in the Church.

Now there may be many good reasons why hanging the plaque about Robert E. Lee could be debatable, but George Washington?

The church leaders announced it was pulling down the plaque to its one-time vestry man because, as they said in a letter to the congregation, “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome. Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques.”

Of course, you can guess why Washington’s plaque had to go. It was because he was a slaveholder and though he was the only major Founding father who freed his slaves upon his death, this stain upon him marks him as anathema to the congregation.

It is easy from our present stance and value system to criticize the past, a complex and complicated time with pressures we don’t entirely understand, but nobody can disagree that slavery is detestable. Still even in Washington’s own time the Reverend Richard Allen, who co-founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, eulogized, “To us he has been the sympathizing friend and tender father. He has watched over us, and viewed our degraded and afflicted state with compassion and pity—his heart was not insensible to our sufferings.”

So while Washington was flawed, as were his times, throwing out his plaque is also a nod toward tossing away everything else he and the other Founders stood for. Disrespect them and it is not far to disrespecting our American Founding in general—what was and continues to be in the history of the world–revolutionary views about human freedom, inalienable rights granted by our Creator Himself, the rule of law and the dignity and worth of each human being and the responsibility that all have to determine their own lives.

Ironically, the very freedom to take down his plaque was granted and grew from the Revolutionary War that Washington led. When the people wanted to make him king, he utterly refused the honor and instead defined for us what being the President should mean.

Throw out the flawed in history and you also expunge some of the most important leadership and ideas that have ever been created. In fact, if you throw out the flawed in history, who is left? And make no mistake this belongs to a larger impulse to disdain America which has become the mode in too many places and in too many elite circles across the country.

Did George Washington feel “unsafe” when he was tasked to put a rag-tag army together to fight the formidable British fleet in Boston? Did he feel “unsafe” when, at the end of the hard winter of 1775, initially no man stepped forward to re-enlist? Did he feel unsafe when he crossed the Delaware in unforgiving cold and peril? Unsafe or not, he braved inestimable hardship in a war fought by an impoverished underdog army where victory was never just a given. Thank heaven, quite literally, that he didn’t say that he felt unsafe and scurry home.

As one writer noted of the Christ Church parishioners, “’Unsafe’ seems a bit extreme. Would the individuals who feel unsafe seeing Washington’s name also feel endangered when handling a quarter or a dollar bill?” Do they feel unsafe visiting the city named for the man? Apparently they do it all the time as it is right next door. Make no mistake “unsafe” in this case is not an emotional state, but a political weapon." Maurine Proctor

[L Verge]

I don't know who Maurine Proctor is, but all praise to him/her! We have truly reached the epitome of stupidity, imo - just what our enemies are hoping for. My father-in-law (who was a WV coal miner) once looked at my former husband (who was working on his PhD) and said, "The more education you get, the dumber you get." Right now, I hold similar feelings against those who are supporting the destruction of our country's foundation.

[My Name Is Kate]

Some of these malcontents who don't appreciate this country and its founding, might feel safer in places like Venezuela and North Korea. I'm all for sending them there (along with those who cave to their demands).

[J. Beckert]

If the mere presence of a plaque or statue makes one feel unsafe, a visit to a Psychiatrist is in order. This country is turning into a bad "The Walking Dead" episode.

[BettyO]

The candidate just elected governor in VA (not MY choice!) stated last night that as of January 18, 2018 the first thing he is going to do is to remove the statue of Lee and others from Monument Avenue because they are "offensive"..... I pray that they are somehow protected and cannot be removed.

Funny that for about 125 years they were never offensive until now.....

[L Verge]

While being held hostage in a AAA service center yesterday while my car's computer was receiving TLC, I was forced to watch The View. The opinions expressed by some of those "learned ladies" made me feel threatened and insecure -- can we remove that show from the airways?

The one redeeming feature of the whole hour was an interview with Donna Brazille, who was discussing and defending her new book, Hacks, as well as the corruption and deception within her own party that she encountered when trying to serve as chairman of the DNC. In my opinion, the politics that is affecting our country today (from all angles) makes me much more insecure than the politics and statues of 150+ years ago.