From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Jan 30 2002 - 18:18:39 MST
> > America's puritan attorney general, John Ashcroft (who apparently thinks
> > dancing is against god) has had the bare breast on a statue of justice
> > covered up for reasons of decency:
> >
> > http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/2002/01/30/FFXB14EK0XC.html
> >
> > I suppose it's a step forward from the Taliban; he hasn't had the statue
> > blown up yet...
>
> ... I have to say I don't see the problem here.
>
> John Ashcroft doesn't like the bare-breasted statue of Justice. He makes
> the decision to have the statue covered up while he's Attorney General.
> In what way is this bad? As far as I can tell, he's just optimizing his
> personal space according to his preferences. Sure, it would be wrong if
> Ashcroft tried to impose this preference on others, but the above article
> gives no evidence that he has done so or plans to do so.
I might agree if it were his house, or even his office interior. But
the exterior of public buildings is public art. That statue cost a lot
of American tax dollars to build, and it's /ours/, not his. And the
fact that he spent 8,000 more of our tax dollars to deprive us of its
esthetic value is even worse.
Legally, he probably does have the discretion to decide how to spend
the justice department's budget on art, and he can make judgments about
the esthetic value of that art. But when generations of his predecessors
all worked hard to create and preserve that particular piece, it seems
something of a slap in their face to vandalize it. At least his change
is removable so they next AG with more sense can fix it.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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