COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, March 04, 2018

“Sometime after Martin Luther King had a dream, and before President Barack Obama gave us hope, it was Marion Barry that brought opportunity to Washington, D.C.,”

Marion Barry, D.C. ‘Mayor for Life,’ memorialized with statue

A bronze, larger-than-life statue of late D.C. politician Marion Barry was unveiled Saturday on Pennsylvania Avenue, memorializing the controversial so-called “Mayor for Life” mere blocks from the White House outside the city building where he worked during his decades in public office.

Erected outside the John A. Wilson Building, the seat of D.C. local government, the eight-foot-tall statue portraying a smiling, waving Barry constitutes “a fitting tribute in this city that he so loved,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at Saturday afternoon’s unveiling.

Born and raised in Mississippi, Barry moved to D.C. in the 1960s while working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, one of the era’s most prominent civil rights groups. He ran for city school board the following decade, and in 1974 he was won a seat on the District’s first elected city council.
Barry, a Democrat, ultimately served four terms as mayor and spent 16 years on the city council prior to passing away in 2014 at the age of 78.

“Sometime after Martin Luther King had a dream, and before President Barack Obama gave us hope, it was Marion Barry that brought opportunity to Washington, D.C.,” said Ms. Bowser, a fellow Democrat elected mayor in 2014.
“He embodied the spirit of Washington,” Ms. Bowser said. “Where you can fall down and get back up…Where you fight hard and speak up,” she added.
Indeed, Barry’s arguably best known outside the Beltway not for his accomplishments during his decades in office, but rather over his 1990 arrest for crack cocaine possession that resulted in six months behind bars. The incident anything but derailed his political career, however, and Barry was re-elected mayor hardly two years after completing his prison sentence.

Mr. Barry taught us do not ever give up hope, because as long as you’re waking up on this earth, there can be a comeback,” said Ms. Bowser.

Chairman Phil Mendelson said the statue of Barry is the first to honor an African-American on Pennsylvania Avenue, a historic roadway that also hosts the White House as well as every presidential inaugural parade.

“It’s exciting because we are placing a statue to a District of Columbia hero on Pennsylvania Avenue, the nation’s avenue, and in so doing we are reminding everybody that this is not a federal city but a local city with real people and real issues,” he said during there unveiling. “This is an exciting day because we are erecting a statue to an African American hero in the nation’s capital on the nation’s avenue. There are few statues commemorating African Americans in our city, and none on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Some may ask, how could somebody with controversy get elected and re-elected and then get memorialized with a statue?” asked Mr. Mendelson “Well, an essential part of good governance is human relations. Marion Barry connected with people. Marion Barry helped people through thick and thin,” he said.
The Barry statue was designed by artist Stephen Weitzman and selected by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities from a pool of 13 submissions.


Built in the early 1900s, the Wilson building has housed several city offices since after the Home Rule Act established the D.C. government in 1973. Then a council member, Barry was shot in the chest while in the Wilson building in 1977 during a two-day standoff perpetrated by a radical Muslim group.

44 comments:

  1. Way past time for a bronze statue of OJ Simpson

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  2. Bronze featuring Rev Wright before Obama took office, Obama, and the scumbag "artist" who fluffed him after he left.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Treyvon Martin in his stylish hoodie deserves a statue too. He coulda been Obama's son.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The USS Carr Varl Vincenr is docked in Vietnan.

    I knew this was coming.

    We can be friends against the Chinese.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      USS Carr Varl Vincenr

      Take an aspirin and rush to the hospital.

      .

      Delete
    2. I had already corrected it, Sir !

      You didn't need to do so, and with a superior snotty attitude, either, Sir !

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. I'm off of warfarin today, my first day warfarin free.

      We used to us warfarin to kill the rats of the farm.

      DON'T OD ON WARFARIN

      They checked my blood/warfarin everyday I took it.

      I managed to get out of the house and go for a drive with the wife yesterday.

      Delete
  5. .

    The Italian Elections

    We've seen articles posted here about the Italian elections. Even so, I would say most of us really don't know much about them or who is running. Many in Italy are also probably confused. So, as an introduction to all the players...

    [[[ Public Notice Announcement ]]]

    Every thing you need to know about the Italian elections but just didn't care enough to ask

    .

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    Replies
    1. .


      See the video for the details.


      .

      Delete
    2. One Italian village baked a big village celebratory cake after they kicked the migrants out of their village !

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    3. Migrants were not invited to the cake/celebration.

      Delete
    4. I give a little hop and say: "I feel shitty" unlike the elder on the ad who gives a little hop and says" " I'm nearly 72 and I feel GREAT !"

      I am improving however.

      Delete
    5. .

      Must be an Italian thing.

      They did the same thing (a huge tiramisu) back in '22 when Il Duce came to power.

      .

      Delete
  6. What are the indications of a minor strike?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have wonder that very thing myself.

      Delete
    2. Warning:

      Dr. Quirk is really a dr. quack.

      He only has a QD, not an MD.

      Delete
    3. He wouldn't know the difference between warfarin and Comidin.

      Delete
    4. Drink lots of water.

      No booze.

      Delete
  7. Don't take aspirin if you are on warfarin.

    You might bleed out.

    Take Tylenol/acetaminophen --NOT aspirin.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm excited excited excited about the Oscars !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Going to take a tranquilizer before they start, so's not to have a heart attack.

      Delete
    2. I'm still pissed the dropped "Q Does Dallas" down to porn form drama.

      Delete
    3. At the very least they could have created a new category:

      Drama-Porn

      It certainly kept me on the edge of my seat.

      Delete
    4. Me-Me DaDaFelonyMisDemenoirThatGalSal and othersSun Mar 04, 04:52:00 PM EST

      Kept us all excited too, waiting for the great ending, the final act, the old faithful.

      Delete
  9. .

    No Exclusions, Only Exemptions

    Trump trade adviser: No countries excluded from tariffs.

    White House trade adviser Peter Navarro says no countries will be excluded from upcoming steel and aluminum tariffs set to be imposed by the Trump administration, including the United States' greatest allies.

    "There's a difference between exemptions and country exclusions," Navarro, the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "There will be an exemption procedure for particular cases where we need to have exemptions so that business can move forward, but at this point in time, there will be no country exclusions..."


    Translation: We have no trouble calling every other country in the world trade cheaters. However, if our actions come back to bite us in the ass, we may exempt some of them.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/navarro-says-no-exclusions-on-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs/ar-BBJRgSn?ocid=spartanntp

    .

    ReplyDelete
  10. An Italian town bakes a cake… to celebrate booting out migrants
    JAZZ SHAW Mar 03, 2018 4:01 PM


    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/03/03/italian-town-bakes-cake-celebrate-booting-migrants/

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have wonder...

    "I became an artist—and thank God I did—because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life."

    https://www.google.com/search?q=viola+davis+the+only+profession+that+celebrates+what+it+is+to+live+a+life&rlz=1CAACAO_enUS720US720&ei=wHGcWtmqCpTijwOD_LVo&start=10&sa=N&biw=1200&bih=536

    ReplyDelete
  12. Where's Harvey?

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvey+weinstein+2017+oscars

    ReplyDelete
  13. He's not getting into my glory.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I got reservations from better people long as my Calendar runs.

      Delete
  14. Marion Barry was a coke head freak.

    All he deserves is an unmarked grave.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whatz that ?

      I don't want any part of it.

      Sounds unnatural.

      Delete
    2. https://www.google.com/search?q=Phallus+impudicus&rlz=1CAACAO_enUS720US720&oq=Phallus+impudicus&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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    3. Amazing that farmer Bob has never smelled one.
      Unforgettable.

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    4. "The phallus impudicus or stinkhorn mushroom not only smells ungodly,
      it also looks like something out of an X-rated movie."

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    5. "The fruiting structure is tall and white with a slimy, dark olive colored conical head.

      Known as the gleba, this material contains the spores, and is transported by insects which are attracted by the odor—described as resembling carrion."

      Delete
    6. In Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg), the psychologist Dr. Krokowski gives a lecture on the phallus impudicus:

      And Dr. Krokowski had spoken about one fungus, famous since classical antiquity for its form and the powers ascribed to it -- a morel, its Latin name ending in the adjective impudicus, its form reminiscent of love, and its odor, of death.

      For the stench given off by the impudicus was strikingly like that of a decaying corpse, the odor coming from greenish, viscous slime that carried its spores and dripped from the bell-shaped cap.

      And even today, among the uneducated, this morel was thought to be an aphrodisiac.

      Delete