by I don’t watch the news anymore. When I read the Times I immediately scroll down past the main stories. The news is relentlessly bad and I can’t take it anymore. He demeans the office on a daily basis. In the window the Sex and the City building on Bleecker Street.
Hey, you know me, I’m riding shotgun on the Dump Drumpf train, but that sign quotes a lousy poem written by a society lady whose rich friend finagled her political connections to get it tacked onto a dumpy statue that is the product of an opportunist egomaniac who, thanks to Joseph Pulitzer’s yellow paper, was able to hoodwink the American public into idealizing his scheme to accept as a “gift” from “the people of France” an object that they (the Americans, penny by penny) actually ended up paying for. That poem — those words — mean nothing: they are not part of any mandate, public policy, or party platform. Nobody voted on it, no consensus was taken before it was glued in place on the base of the statue. I do wish people would stop using those words as if they were entrenched in our country’s constitutional values: I know that this poem somehow has gained some aura of authenticity, but as far as that goes you might as well quote the lyrics to “I’m a Little Tea Pot”. They’re real, too, and about as binding as far as a statement of moral obligation goes.
Ohmygod. You should write an article about that!! I had NO idea!! Seriously.
Except I do still like the sentiment, and like to think it is an ideal we aspire to. But, in reality, we had camps for people we don’t want here. And now we deport them.
Interesting:
http://time.com/4652666/statue-of-liberty-give-me-your-tired-poor/
also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus
Meanwhile, I have the poem Jabberwocky stuck in my head.
Jabberwocky is awesome.
Thanks for the links, Julia!