{"id":13484,"date":"2023-12-27T16:29:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T16:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=13484"},"modified":"2023-12-30T10:33:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T10:33:45","slug":"american-art-and-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=13484","title":{"rendered":"‘American’ art and architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Many years ago, your ‘umble scribe remembers a fellow pupil in German class being admonished as follows by Mr. Wreford, our teacher: “Boy, you are arrogant in your ignorance; and ignorant in your arrogance!<\/em>“<\/p>\r\n\r\n

That same mixture of arrogance and ignorance can still be found today: if anything more easily thanks to social media<\/p>.\r\n\r\n

Which brings us to Twitter – now rebranded X by rich man-baby Elon Musk – and the account of Jesse Kelly, the conservative talk show host<\/em> of The Jesse Kelly<\/a> talk radio show.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Being a professed conservative, Jesse is naturally a very patriotic man, as can be seen from the following tweet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\"Post\r\n\r\n

American<\/em> art and architecture, Jesse?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Somehow you failed to engage brain before tweeting and have ended up with you foot lodged firmly in your mouth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

In case Mr Walker happens to be passing, here’s a quick history lesson on the Statue of Liberty or Liberty Enlightening the World<\/em> or even a Libert\u00e9 \u00e9clairant le monde<\/em> for reasons which will soon become all too apparent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The statue itself is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, which was was dedicated on October 28, 1886.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

So far, so American.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Now things start to change, so pay close attention, Jesse! \ud83d\ude00<\/p> \r\n\r\n

The statue is a figure of Libertas<\/em>, the Roman<\/em> goddess of liberty holds a torch above her head with her right hand, whilst in her left hand she carries a tablet inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776, in Roman<\/em> numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken chain and shackle lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication, the statue became a symbol of freedom and of the United States, particularly welcoming to impoverished European immigrants arriving by sea.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

There are still more European connections to come, so don’t nod off just yet, Jesse!<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The statue was designed by the French<\/em> sculptor Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Auguste Bartholdi<\/a> the metal framework on which its copper outer skin was hung was built by Gustave Eiffel<\/a>. yet another Frenchman<\/em> Jesse might just have heard of due to some ironmongery<\/a> he left lying about in central Paris. That’s Paris, France not Paris TX<\/a>, by the way, and should not be confused with the 1984 film<\/a> of the same name by German<\/em> director Wim Wenders.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Just one more little history lesson on the Statue of Liberty left now, Jesse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The heavy Gallic references might provide a hint of what it might be: the statue itself was a gift to the USA from the people of France<\/em>. Where else?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Update 28\/12\/23<\/h6>\r\n\r\n

Your correspondent is not the only person to have pointed out Kelly’s mistake, as reported by Raw Story<\/a>, which notes that a community note was added to the Kelly’s original post in which readers added context to Kelly’s image, stating very much the same as above, but in more temperate tones.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

However, even this gentle correction did not go down well with the MAGA mouthpiece, who responded as shown below.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\"Kelly's\r\n\r\n

Your colors<\/em> may not run, Jesse, but here’s a bit of free advice: when you are in a hole, particularly one you’ve excavated all on your own, stop digging and put the shovel down. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, your ‘umble scribe remembers a fellow pupil in German class being admonished as follows by Mr. Wreford, our teacher: “Boy, you are arrogant in your ignorance; and ignorant in your arrogance!“ That same mixture of arrogance and ignorance can still be found today: if anything more easily thanks to social media . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,17,15,34],"tags":[36,10,22,20,35],"class_list":["post-13484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-oddities","category-politics","category-social-media","tag-comment","tag-facepalm","tag-language","tag-politics-2","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13484"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13504,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13484\/revisions\/13504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}