Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Mall-ted MLK

I didn't know until the other day they were adding a sculpture of Martin Luther King to the National Mall in Washington, but ever since he was canonized it was only a matter of time. It's only another step in filling in the Mall's green space with buildings and monuments to one ethnic group and victim class after another. Ehh.

But this thing? As St. Martin was known to say, "Great God almighty!"

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Even Stalin would have been embarrassed to put the equivalent in the middle of Moscow. The Chinese would shy from a monument to Mao on such a scale -- although, America being what it is today, its creation was outsourced to a Chinese sculptor.

If this photo gives an accurate impression of the relative size of St. Martin's colossal torso and the people you can barely make out in the lower right, ...

Excuse me, I've just been in an earthquake. Blimey O'Riley!

First one I've experienced since the 1980s. A very disconcerting business when walls and floors start quivering like Jell-O.

... Where was I? Oh, yes, the MLK Hulk. I've seen sculptures of Roman emperors that were less imposing. Only Constantine's statue, his cogitating bit now in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museum, might have measured up to MLK's.

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Someone hand me the National Mall checklist, please. Let's see. Recent additions: National Museum of the American Indian -- check. National Museum of African History and Culture -- check. National Museum of African Art -- check. Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. Women in Vietnam Memorial.

I expect the Latino Museum deficit to be fixed shortly (unlike every other deficit in Washington) -- it's proposed to be installed in the old Arts and Industries building, formerly dedicated to American inventiveness.

Who's left? Oh, yes. Mark my words: a dozen years from now, the cracks in the Jefferson Memorial will be patched with duct tape, while the new LGBT Museum's opening ceremonies will feature Elton John on roller skates pounding away at a 50-foot be-glittered piano.

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2 comments:

yih said...

First if you're going to 'honor' MLK, that post is going to need A LOT more plagiarizing!
Like this: We're just saying that he was also a plagiarizing butthole.
What's the Problem?
For starters, his own university admits that his doctoral thesis, the very foundation of his career, was significantly plagiarized. Seriously. They had an official inquiry and everything.
"We had many of the same professors, we worked in the same atmosphere during our graduate studies," said John Cartwright, an MLK scholar and member of the committee that investigated his plagiarism allegations, "under no circumstances would the atmosphere under which he did his work condone what Doctor King did. It's incredible. He was not unaware of the correct procedure. This wasn't just done out of ignorance."
Despite clear findings of plagiarism, the committee did not recommend he be posthumously stripped of his title, due to Dr. King's incredible services to the world. And due to their extreme fear of being beaten and castrated by hordes of angry MLK groupies.
The first allegations of King's plagiarism were hushed up, denied, or 'excused' by academia. However, the accusations continued to flow in. This timeline shows how the realization of King's plagiarism unfolded. Not only was his dissertation plagiarized, but many of his student papers and sermons were stolen in whole or in part from other writers.
The staff of the King Paper's Project at Stanford even admits that, "King's plagiarism was a general pattern evident in nearly all of his academic writings."
Is That All?
Perhaps the most notable example of King's plagiarism was the general tone, and several select lines from his famous "I Have a Dream," speech. Theodore Pappas presents a detailed accusation in his book, Plagiarism and the Culture War. Most of the issue centers around the closing lines.
Here's how King's speech ended;
"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, 'My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.' And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."
Compare that to a much earlier speech by another Civil Rights activist, Archibald Carey:
"We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans: My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride From every mountainside Let freedom ring!
That's exactly what we mean--from every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia--let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States, but for the disinherited of all the earth--may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, LET FREEDOM RING!"
Blatantly cut-n-pasted from 'Cracked.com'

Anonymous said...

Hail to the King!