Open Bar: Subpoenaed by Congress, but still refusing to testify

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How's the angel?
[referring to Faust's progeny]

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This ones called "Blue Banana"

[Faust]

How's the angel?
[referring to Faust's progeny]

Shes happy out, windy in the evenings, lots of smiles and likes being sang Daisy Bell to.
Havent got a good routine on sleep yet, we alternate every second feed and that was fine until last week but being back working full time and up most of the night means my brain has basically turned to sludge

[minuspace]

Glad to hear she's happy! It's windy here too, one guy taking advantage fantastically with some sunbeam-like sailboat, whipping about with a bright yellow sail. Otherwise, sorry to hear about the sleep, I can be a dick and look at what I used to take, to catch maybe a few hours that are at least restful without inhibiting necessary responsiveness when required.

[Cramulus]

welp, my fiance is back in the office

so I'm back to eating lunch shirtless, over the sink




la vida dolce

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Please allow me to re-update your firmware, it's "la dolce vita." Not some sweet Spanish waste.waist


ETA


I see what you did there

[Trivial]

Sigh, right when my Dad started to sound like a decent human, he got an article about the Junipero Serra statue being taken down and is parroting residents of Idiotsville again.

[Juana]

Earthquakes are always weird. Esp bc we don't normally get them (maybe once a year) and they seem to usually be at night.

Sigh, right when my Dad started to sound like a decent human, he got an article about the Junipero Serra statue being taken down and is parroting residents of Idiotsville again.

Dude founded nearly half the missions and the missions were a bad time for California Indigenous folks. The fuck. And it's just a statue.

[Elder Iptuous]

Is it the prevailing view on the board that there is no valid arguments against the statue destructions?

It doesn't seem simple to me.

Hmm... Perhaps it would be more effective to erect statues of these historical figures showcasing their flaws.  The opposition could rail against the ideas conveyed, but they would not have the righteous indignation that is lent by witnessing the destruction of historical public property.

[Cramulus]

that's probably a good thread topic

[hooplala]

Is it the prevailing view on the board that there is no valid arguments against the statue destructions?

It doesn't seem simple to me.

Hmm... Perhaps it would be more effective to erect statues of these historical figures showcasing their flaws.  The opposition could rail against the ideas conveyed, but they would not have the righteous indignation that is lent by witnessing the destruction of historical public property.

If the flaws are actually depicted in some manner (not sure how that would work in every case), I can see there being benefit. But if it's just a plaque under a regular statue, I would argue it's still glorifying the subject of the statue.

I haven't taken a poll around the board, but I will go on record as stating that I don't believe there is a decent argument against the statue destruction.

[altered]

Is it the prevailing view on the board that there is no valid arguments against the statue destructions?

It doesn't seem simple to me.

Hmm... Perhaps it would be more effective to erect statues of these historical figures showcasing their flaws.  The opposition could rail against the ideas conveyed, but they would not have the righteous indignation that is lent by witnessing the destruction of historical public property.

Problem:

If you see a statue of a man, you don't know who, brutalizing another person, what is your take on who that man was, and what it says that there is a statue of him, and especially of him Doing That?

Firstly, the man was either a hero or a monster. The fact there is a statue of him proves the hero part, we don't lionize and celebrate monsters. So whoever he's brutalizing clearly deserves it.

In statues with a power dynamic, the one in charge is always, always the good guy. They're so hard and expensive to produce that there can be no risk of misstatement. I beg you to find a historical example of the inverse: you will not be able to. The closest you can get is purely colonizers and slavers and traitors being venerated for their perceived positive role, everyone else is a symbolic, mythological, or real world hero.

Why?

Statues are an effigy. The depicted figure is metaphorically standing right in front of you, witnessing you just as you are them. Statues on a pedestal are glorified, by the very fact they're on a pedestal. Standing on the ground, they're meant to be naturalistic. Their permanence says "this is how it should be" or "this is how it is."

About the only way you could put these statues on display without glorifying the people they depict is by building a statue jail to contain them, or sculpting a rubbish heap to mold them into. Depicting their horrible actions only makes the statues' very existence more cruel, a louder and harder to ignore taunt to those who were affected by those actions, even indirectly.

[Cain]

I wouldn't mind the statues being put in a "museum of horrible shits from the Confederacy and otherwise", if it were going to be framed that way.

Especially in the case of the confederate "war heroes" statues, most of them were either put up during the 2nd wave of the KKK (early 1900s) or the Civil Rights Era, precisely to snub black people and minorities anyway, so I'm not especially heartbroken to see people reacting as they should to being snubbed: losing their shit and tearing stuff down.

[Elder Iptuous]

I was picturing Andrew Jackson killing an Indian.
Facial expression can send the correct message.
It doesn't negate the good things he did. But acknowledges the horrors.

[Nibor the Priest]

If the flaws are actually depicted in some manner (not sure how that would work in every case), I can see there being benefit. But if it’s just a plaque under a regular statue, I would argue it’s still glorifying the subject of the statue.

I haven’t taken a poll around the board, but I will go on record as stating that I don’t believe there is a decent argument against the statue destruction.

Paraguay came to an interesting compromise with this statue of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner: