Posted by panch from pool0025.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.210.25) on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 at 9:48AM :
I called him a week back to see how his meeting with the mayor of Chicago went. The guy can't help himself...he's a born liar. He's just gotten used to never being challenged, he believes no one is going to follow through, is going to check up on him...investigate his claims. I believe it for a fact that he hasn't spoken with the mayor, that he has no intention of speaking with the mayor and that the mayor doesn't want to speak with him. He's been saying this for three years now..."Maybe I should just have a cup of coffee with the mayor and solve this whole thing". yeah...,right.
John has decided that the Shumirum belongs on the campus of Northwestern Univeristy in Evanston. The trouble with that plan, aside from being just plain silly, is that Evanston is a different city, and meeting with the mayor of Chicago doesn't solve any problems in Evanston. Michael Lash, the driector for Public Art for Chicago has said over and again that the monument was given to them, they have the letter, and they are going to wait for as long as it takes to install it. They aren't about to give it up.
John just wants to be the one to do it...he wants to get his way. It is his greatest achievement, if you can call it that, that he will destroy anything he can't appropriate and put to use to glorify himself. The city gave us a perfectly excellent location for the monument, seven years ago.,..but then why does John Nimrod exist if no one needs him...so he said "no" and has been threatening the city with a vague promise of legal action if they install the Shumirum where it was supposed to go seven years ago.
I have the Shumirum, fortunately, and it isn't going anywhere. John has also promised to threaten any other city we try to install it in, and so I'm left with a monument that isn't going anywhere, and can't be stored indefinitely. last year a certain person asked to buy the Shumirum for a private sculpture garden. I refused, but am rethinking it. Better somewhere than nowhere...and i could use the funds to make up for what I lost at the hands of these patriots and leaders from hell.
So, I told John a couple of days ago. I received a call from someone who said I should call Nimrod...he has too much "pride" to make a call himself. Not having any, I called him. The last time we spoke he mentioned just having received a letter from me. he hadn't had a chance to open it when we spoke then...didn't know it was a summons notifying him that I was suing him...for real. By this last conversation he'd read the summons.
"Fred, I can't work with you if you're going to be suing me and everybody else."
"John, what makes you think I want to "work" with you? It's been your idea to hold up the Shumirum and it's your idea to place it at Northwestern".
"Well, I'm about to talk to the mayor, and I'm getting ready to write a letter to..."
"John...you've been getting ready for years now. I wont wait any longer...the Hammurabi is gone...that leaves the Shumirum to dispose of".
He threatened to sue the people who buy it...I told him they don't run in the same circles and he would never hear of them. These kinds of people don't advertise. We ended by him saying there was a letter now coming to ME from him, certified mail, in which he would outline, "what we will do". yeah...okay, whatever you say, oh Senator!
I will sell it. I've waited long enough and the wait hurt other projects. It didn't do my pocketbook any good either. The nominal Assyrians among us who want us to remain pig ignorant and poverty stricken in every way will seize upon this as proof that I want to "make money" in order to support my "lifestyle"...as Jackie called it...you know, feeding my children...that kind of strange enterprise....they do so because they know money would allow us to do much more, and they don't want us anything but to remain the abject Poor...a reminder of what we "suffered for Christ", at the hands of them dreaded Muslims. If we succeed, if we get away from our history of loss and degradation...what will happen to Simele??? How will they get us all to weep on cue once a year...how will they justify their existence when there is no one around to blame...or when we are receiving grants for cultural events or attracting donors from the corporate scene and from among ourselves? What will these people do if we start building and revitalizing our Heritage?...they will hate it!
I'll wait for the letter.
-- panch
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