How Ukrainians Are Saving Their Art

Ukraine’s cultural heritage seems to be a target of Russian military agression, a violation of the the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property. Violations are considered war crimes. Ukrainians are taking measures to defend their country’s historic relics, paintings, and monuments. A Vox video by Marie Cascione and Kim Mas.

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Biden Uproots Trump’s ‘Garden of Heroes’

Disgraced ex-president Donald Trump once told the Times of London he had no heroes, but, nevertheless, he ordered erection of a National Garden of American Heroes before his Mar-a-Logo exile.

Nevermind that he had no location or budget. He wanted to honor the men and women who made America great, people like Daniel Boone, Kobe Bryant, William F. Buckley, Jr., Johnny Cash, Whittaker Chambers, Buffalo Bill Cody, Davy Crockett, Walt Disney, Milton Friedman, Lou Gehrig, Dr. Seuss, Barry Goldwater, Billy Graham, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Sam Houston, Whitney Houston, Steve Jobs, Vince Lombardi, Annie Oakley, Elvis Presley, Ronald Reagan, Babe Ruth, Antonin Scalia, Fulton Sheen, Shirley Temple, Alex Trebek, John Wayne, and Cy Young.

Historians think that’s a bad idea. So does current president Joe Biden, who rescinded the Dead Celebrity Garden order.

More:

“Biden kills Trump’s sculpture garden of ‘American heroes,’” Nick Niedzwiadek, Politico

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Image (alternate “Heroes Garden” concept) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Trump Executive Order: Create a ‘Garden of Heroes’

Two days before fleeing the mess he made in Washington, lame duck Donald Trump issued an executive order “establishing a statuary park named the “National Garden of American Heroes,” his reaction to the removal of statues celebrating America’s racist past. In keeping with his deep reverence for America’s history, Trump’s imaginary garden is planted with tributes to 244 legendary dead Americans like William F Buckley, Johnny Cash, Alex Trebek, Vince Lombardi, Walt Disney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Daniel Boone, Kobe Bryant, Johnny Cash, Whittaker Chambers, Julia Child, Henry Clay, Roberto Clemente, Buffalo Bill Cody, Samuel Colt, Davy Crockett, Barry Goldwater, Billy Graham, Charlton Heston, Alfred Hitchcock, Bob Hope, Audie Murphy, Annie Oakey, Elvis Presley, Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Norman Rockwell, Babe Ruth, Fulton Sheen, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Shirley Temple, Sam Walton, and Cy Young, as well as founding fathers like John Wayne.

Also included are some notable personages who might object to inclusion in this Trump-ordered hodgepodge were they not conveniently expired: Muhammad Ali (Muslim and Civil Rights activist), Hannah Arendt (analyst of Totalitarianism), Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker movement), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (liberal feminist jurist), Samuel Gompers (labor leader), Woodie Guthrie (radical songwriter), Helen Keller (suffragist, pacifist, radical socialist, ACLU founder), Edward Murrow (journalist), environmentalists Ansel Adams and John Muir, and Civil Rights icons Medgar Evers, Barbara Jordan, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Rosa Parks, for example.

Don’t get too excited about this. The Executive Order doesn’t specify a site for the “Garden of Heroes,”and there’s no funding, either. In other words, it’s a typical Trump construction project.

More:

“Trump orders creation of ‘Garden of American Heroes’ amid backlash over monuments,” Martin Pengelly, The Guardian

“I Beg Your Garden? Trump Adds ‘Hero’ Names To Statue Garden Unlikely To Take Root,” Barbra Sprunt, NPR News

Executive Order 13934 Revised, January 18, 2021

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Image (alternate “Heroes Garden” concept) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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An Empty Vessel in the Big Apple

Hudson Yards has opened, a new office, upscale condo and luxury shopping development built over an active trainyard on New York’s West Side. The city and state chipped in $6 billion for the project, but maybe that’s not as bad as it sounds.

What is bad, undeniably, is the 150-foot-high, 16 storey, copper-covered selfie magnet looming over Hudson Yards plaza called Vessel. The structure, consisting of 154 flights of stairs, may be a perfect metaphor for New York: you keep climbing but get nowhere.

Eisenhower Memorial Given Final Approval

After a 17 year struggle, the National Capital Planning Commission granted unanimous approval of the Eisenhower Memorial design. The tribute to America’s former duffer-in-chief will be constructed on East Potomac Park Golf Course at Independence Avenue and Sixth Street SW. Construction tees off this month.

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Image (“Eisenhower Memorial, artist’s concept”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license. Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Removing Confederate Monuments

“I didn’t start the problems with race in this country, but I did force the people of New Orleans to confront them,” reflects Mayor Mitch Landrieu. 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival.

The monuments:

• Battle of Liberty Place Monument – erected 1891 to commemorate the Reconstruction era “Battle of Liberty Place“. Removed April 24, 2017.
• General Beauregard Equestrian Statue – erected in 1913. Removed May 17, 2017.
• Jefferson Davis Monument – erected in 1911. Removed May 11, 2017.
• Robert E. Lee monument and circle – erected in 1884. 60 ft. column with 12 ft. statue on an earthen mound. Removed May 19, 2017

More:

‘The Confederacy lost and we’re better for it’: New Orleans mayor,” USA Today

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Eisenhower Memorial

A newly-revised design proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial is now on the Web. The Eisenhower family, Washington residents, and most people with functioning eyeballs hated previous designs. The memorial effort has plodded along since 1999, for 13 years. The US finished World War II in 4 years; Ike was president for 8.

Walls of Washington

“Security concerns have transformed Washington, taking a city envisioned as the physical embodiment of the openness of American democracy and turning it into a garrison town that is increasingly inaccessible to the general public.”