Posted by panch from host-148-244-221-7.block.alestra.net.mx (148.244.221.7) on Monday, April 08, 2002 at 7:39PM :
In Reply to: Re: Kha B'Neesan Festival - Dohuk, Northern Iraq posted by Raman from internet.walgreens.com (63.73.199.69) on Monday, April 08, 2002 at 4:49PM :
Excellent observations. As far as I`m concerned it is a waste of our energy to get a part of Iraq back. Not that these things can`t be done...if the Jews bounced back after the War to get Israel, anything is possible. But we aren`t Jews...we even got the short end of THAT stick!
These monuments are stones thrown in water...we have no idea of the ripple effect they might touch off. I just know that, absent something besides the farce our leeders make of us right now, we need to concentrate on kindling into fire the spark of passion that is in so many of our children...a spark that can be snuffed out as easily as it can light a conflagration. Come to think of it Wilfred should call his magazine the "Extinguisher" of Assyria, not the "Spark". But that`s another depressing story...and Sarguis is working on that "end".
I just now that had there been a chance for me to see any Assyrian anything as a kid growing up, it might have meant a lot...what exactly I don`t know...but without that something...I had to wait to stumble by accident on our ruins in a museum when I was 30. And I don`t want our children to hear only of how great we WERE and how we should just be grateful to be alive now...though barely and "what can you expect after Simele?"
We have it in us to make a better showing. We all now my talent is no great shakes...but look around out there...you don`t have to be a Da Vinci fer chrissakes. And we aren`t asking anyone to sell their favorite child, or even their German Army Staff car.
The monument is just bronze, just metal. In the case of the Hammurabi it wasn`t even metal, just fifty bucks worth of plaster...not worth a dime because the soul had been ripped out of it. I`ve picked a price level that will require 75 people to pony up...No one can tell anyone else in this community that we don`t have that many people who can afford to buy a bronze sculpture...it isn`t as if I was just telling them to fork over cash. They get a sculpture priced less than any comprable piece they`d find in a gallery, if they ever went into one. But we have to begin to plant the seed in our children early...that having bronze sculpture around the house is no big deal...nothing so damn amazing, as Jackie seems to think it is.
There is no way I could afford $2000 myself right now...I understand all about financial difficulty etc. But people could pool together, or go hit up a rich relative. There is no doubt that we can get the thing installed...and there shouldn`t be any doubt that I am motivated and serious...so what`s the big problem?
Whassmatter...don`t we want some good press? Are we just supposed to fade out with a whimper...is THAT what all that noise and effort all those centuries and millenia was for...so a Nimrod or Golani or worse yet a Jackster with a hot pooter could determine what we do and when and how?
If I am forced away by Jackie`s hot crotch...what kind of message does that send to any other Assyrian who might actually aspire to do something for this Heritage and NOT for a frustrated Broad who has political ambitions requiring our stinging cheeks slapped left and right, mounted atop a veritable turret of a head.... be used as a launching pad for her career out where the folks that "matter" live...the white ones.
Someone told me Jackie would do more for us than an Anna Eshoo. I don`t buy that. She had the chance to show her mettle. If she really had our interests at her bottom line, instead of the interests of her bottom, she would have graciously accepted the fact that I wasn`t interested, allowed someone besides her brother to sing at the unveiling, and bowed out so that the really important issue could have been played out. Then I might have been willing to believe that she could put our interests above her own needs.
I said she doesn`t mind it if we benefit from something intended entirely to benefit her in the end...and that if a few crumbs fell our way, well, she wouldn`t begrudge us those. But the whole point of the Shumirum Monument and San Jose...to Jackie, was the opportinity it gave her to convince us all that only she could pull off such a difficult thing...that only her contacts could get this silly monument accepted...and also the opportunity it gave her to walk in on people in city government letting them all know what she was doing...what she was capable of doing...how much "her" people looked to her etc. When her game didn`t play it was fuck the "Art"...the hell with the convention and all the work I`d done and anyone`s expectations to see at least one more example of the best we produce...screw the Shumirum if she couldn`t have it her way, and screw me when I wouldn`t screw her.
Now that`s a policy for Gratness if I ever heard of one...and Atour Golani, the pygmy of Assyria backed her ass up all the way, which is about as far up on her as he can reach. Hell she could have tucked the whole of him right in there and left me out of it altogether.
-- panch
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