The Story of the Statue of Liberty

The French, Egyptian and American connection.

The Story of the Statue of Liberty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty


While on a visit to Egypt that was to shift his artistic perspective from simply grand to colossal, French sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi was inspired by the project of the Suez Canal that was being undertaken by Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who later became a lifelong friend of his. He envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the entrance to the canal and drew plans for it. It would be patterned after the Roman goddess Libertas, modified to resemble a robed Egyptian peasant, with light beaming out from both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. Bartholdi presented his plans to the Egyptian Khedive, Isma'il Pasha, in 1867 and, with revisions, again in 1869, but the project was never commissioned because of financial issues then troubling the Ottoman Empire.

Soon after John Wilkes Booth was killed by one of his captors, Frédéric Bartholdi (according to legend) was enjoying dinner with friends in Paris. Commenting how good it was that the U.S. Civil War was over and how terrible it was that Lincoln had died, one of Bartholdi’s friends (Edouard de Laboulaye) had an idea. What if the people of France, gave the people of America, a monument to commemorate liberty? And ... what if they gave such a gift during 1876, the first centennial of American independence? France, after all, had played a key role in helping America to win her revolutionary war. Enthused with the idea, Bartholdi visited America and ultimately sketched his conception of such a monument.

The first small terracotta model was created in 1870. It is now exhibited at the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon. The first reduced scale bronze replica was given to the city of Paris by Americans residing in the French capital on May 13, 1885; the statue was originally located in the Place des États-Unis and was moved to the Île des Cygnes in 1889. It was agreed that in a joint effort, the people of the United States were to build the base, and the French people were responsible for the statue and its assembly in the States. In France, public donations, various forms of entertainment including notably performances of La liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty enlightening the world) by soon-to-be famous composer Charles Gounod at Paris Opera, and a charitable lottery were among the methods used to raise the 2,250,000 francs ($250,000). In the United States, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and prizefights assisted in providing needed funds.

Meanwhile in France, Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the statue's copper skin to move independently yet stand upright. The good-looking French widow of an important American, Isabella Eugenie Boyer, the wife of Isaac Singer, the sewing-machine industrialist, was called upon to be Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and was designated a National Monument on October 15, 1924.

The Statue of Liberty functioned as a lighthouse from 1886 to 1902. As a lighthouse, it is the first in the United States to use electricity. Birds, attracted by the original torch, sometimes became disoriented from the light of the flame. It was once discovered that more than a thousand had been fatally injured in a single day.
The bronze plaque in an exhibit on the second floor of the pedestal is inscribed with the sonnet:

"The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

It has never been engraved on the exterior of the pedestal, despite such depictions in editorial cartoons. The first two lines refer to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes. The bronze plaque in the pedestal contains a typographical error: the comma in "Keep, ancient lands" is missing, causing that line to read "'Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she", and noticeably altering its meaning. The name "Mother of Exiles" was never taken up as the statue's name.

In 1889, Americans who were living in Paris gave that city a smaller version of Liberty. The thirty-five foot monument is located near the River Seine and faces west, toward its sister.
http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/national_treasure/national_treasure_ch6.htm

Hundreds of other Statues of Liberty have been erected worldwide. A smaller replica is in the Norwegian village of Visnes, on the island of Karmøy, in Rogaland County where the copper used in the original statue was mined.

A Statue of Liberty replica at Odaiba, overlooks the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo Bay. There is a sister statue in Paris and several others elsewhere in France, including one in Bartholdi's home town of Colmar, erected in 2004 to mark the centenary of Bartholdi's death; they also exist in Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Brazil and Vietnam; one existed in Hanoi during French colonial days. During the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Chinese student demonstrators in Beijing built a ten meter image called the Goddess of Democracy, which sculptor Tsao Tsing-yuan said was intentionally dissimilar to the Statue of Liberty to avoid being "too openly pro-American." At around the same time, a copy of this statue was made and displayed on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., in a small park across the street from the Chinese Embassy.

The sculptor James Alexander Ewing's most prestigious commission was for the carving of the Glasgow City Chambers' Jubilee Pediment, its apex group of Truth, Riches, and Honor, and the statues of The Four Seasons on the building's tower. The figure of Truth also is known as Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because of its close resemblance to the similarly posed, but very much larger, statue in New York harbor.

The Statue of Liberty is located in the harbor of New York City, on the Jersey side (but that's another story), on what was originally called the Oyster Islands, which includes Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Black Tom Island. Both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty have become powerful symbols of the freedom and opportunity that awaited millions of men, women, and children when they legally immigrated to America from around the world.


Don't Be Blue

Think Happy Thoughts

Don't let it bring you down.

If someone should hurt you and say a thing unkind,

Remember those happy times, and keep these thoughts in mind.

For everyone that makes you cry, there are three who make you smile,

And a smile will last a long, long time, but a tear - just a little while.

Don't let someone who hates the world, cause you to hate it too.

Behind those stormy clouds is a golden sun, and a sky that's full of blue.

If someone said a thing that's cruel, don't dwell on it or let it get to you,

Your achievements are greatly numbered, and your faults - are very few.

So, if life gets you down or a certain person should act a certain way,

Think of those who love you and are loved by you, and don't let it spoil your day.


DON'T BE BLUE

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN

 

Motivated Photos

 

 

 

Change you can believe in: The 1st Federal Sales Tax E-V-E-R and next the New Value Added Tax




Intentional Misrepresentation of the Health Care Reform Bill.

 

Lawmakers never read the Health Care Reform Bill they mandated into law or else they conspired to hide the 19 new taxes found in the Health Care Reform Bill.

In their zeal to pass a health care reform bill that is designed to make health care coverage affordable and available for more than 95 percent of Americans, Congress hasn’t explained very well the hidden tax bombs that the bill contains.

You will only be allowed to deduct medical expenses in excess of 10% of your Adjusted Gross Income. Currently that number is 7.5%.

If you buy a house and live in it for 20 years and the value goes up over 250k, a 4% tax will be levied on your proceeds from the sale of your house, which will go to cover Health Care costs.

Medicare payroll tax goes to 6.15%.
New Medicare payroll tax of 3.8% will be applied to interest, dividends, capital gains and other investment income for couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The bill also increases the normal Medicare payroll tax from 1.45% to 2.35% for the same individuals.

3.8% tax on payouts from annuities
Investors who buy stocks and forget about them for more than a year will see an increase of almost 20% in taxes owed in 2010.

If you purchase a wheelchair, you will pay a 2.3% excise tax.

Pharmaceutical companies will be allowed to pass a $3 billion annual fee on to you.

Part of the bills is The Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS Act), Americans will find between $150 and $250 taken out of their paychecks each month to cover this program nobody knew about.

Penalties on individuals.
Individuals will pay a yearly penalty of $695, or up to 2.5 percent of their annual income, if they cannot show they have purchased a government-approved health policy.

Penalties on families.
Families will pay a yearly penalty of $347 per child, up to $2,250 per family, if parents cannot show they have purchased a government- approved policy.

2.9 percent tax on medical aid devices.

This appears to be the FIRST - Federal Sales Tax - in the United States.
Tax on tanning. Imposes a 10 percent tax on services at tanning salons. Business owners will collect the tax from customers and send it to the federal government.

The START of..........................

THE - 1st FEDERAL SALES TAX,           (E V E R)

WITH MORE TO COME ! ! !

Don't Be BLUE



UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE AWRY

 

 

This is from 9 years ago AND COUNTING.
We should all look to Malmo, Sweden, as an example of the problems of uncontrolled immigration and political correctness gone awry.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/938

Malmö, in Sweden, set to become the first Scandinavian city with a Muslim majority, within a decade or two, has nine times as many reported robberies per capita as Copenhagen, Denmark.

It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a “war,” and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such.

Some talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden, the country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration.

Although it is not stated, most of the immigrant perpetrators are Muslims. In one of the rare instances where the Swedish media actually revealed the truth, the newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported several years ago that 9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden came from Muslim countries.

The 2010 Jihad in the streets of France looked like the early skirmishes of an impending Eurabian civil war, brought on by massive Muslim immigration and Multicultural stupidity. Law and order is slowly breaking down in major and even minor cities across the European continent, and the streets are ruled by aggressive gangs of Muslim youngsters.

At the same time, Europeans are paying some of the highest taxes in the world. We should remind our authorities that the most important task of the state – some would even claim it should be the only task of the state – is to uphold the rule of law in exchange for taxation. When enough people feel that the system is no longer working and that the social contract has been breached, the entire fabric of democratic society could unravel.

What happens when the welfare state system breaks down, and there is no longer enough money to “grease” the increasing tensions between immigrants and native Europeans? There will be massive unemployment, and tens of millions of people will feel angry, scared and humiliated, betrayed by the system, by society and by their own democratic leaders.

European leaders decided that therefore what they really needed was a European Union that would obviate their need for nationalism.

They took all the wrong lessons from World War II and continue to apply them, while ignoring the only lesson that’s really relevant from World War II, which is that you have to choose good and defend good, and fight with the intention of defeating evil. We have to be able and willing to make moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil — and that is something that both the Europeans and Obama refuse to do.

Nationalism isn’t evil. British nationalism hasn’t been evil. French nationalism isn’t evil. Polish nationalism isn’t evil. American nationalism wasn’t evil and has never been evil. Contrary to Obama’s actions, American exceptionalism isn’t evil.


http://www.atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/



DON'T BE BLUE
(Holding my breath)



Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and the one-eyed monkey.

Updated 3/31/2017

 

Golda Meir got it wrong.
 Only because of the basic prejudice of the Jews vs Arabs mentality, when she said in 1957, "We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

It should have been,
"We will only have peace with the Muslims when they love their children more than they hate non-Muslims."


Not all Arabs are Muslim and not all Muslims are Arabs. Most of all, not all Muslims are the same.
The tolerant majority are just that, tolerant, but the fundamentalists hate not only other Muslims, the extremists hate everyone.



Terrorism, like any other hateful prejudice, from the KKK to Louis Farrakhan´s Black Muslim's to Hamas and Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and now ISIS and Boko Haram, and the newly formed Black KKK, and their ilk, should be dealt with by force, since force is the only language they speak. These terrorists are the cannibalistic kind, it's as if they eat their young, when they use them as human bombs and practice polygamy, so they can make more human bombs. It's no wonder they treat women worse than cattle.



The 2011 bombings in Moscow were a precursor of things to come in Europe and therefore destined to happen in America, if we continue on the road to socialism and "political correctness" infesting our politicians. There is no place for "political correctness" in a war on terrorism. Whereas it may be thought of as politically incorrect to put all members of any group in the same category as those in the group that are true terrorists, you MUST start somewhere since they will not police themselves. Let them sort it out when they complain that they are not terrorists, and prove it to the world by exposing their own terrorists within their ranks.



The place to start would logically be with the leaders of the group, except when the leaders can not truly lead because the followers will not except their leadership. Whether it's the religious leaders or the political leaders, the truth is that Islam is more about politics than it is about religion. It's also more about being afraid to allow their own people to come out of the Middle Ages and into the modern moralistic world.


Politics and religion are so intertwined that they can not be separated and the leaders are so powerless, they can not change it. Sadly and more important is that they don't want to change it because then they will lose their power and grip on their own people.


Islamic fundamentalists still rule by fear and the fear mongers are the fanatical religious leaders that hide in the shadows of evil and worship Satan, but call him Allah.


All religious leaders need to take a stand against Satan's followers.
Any terrorist who wages war for their God has fallen away from the teachings of their church, synagogue or mosque and is now in league with Satan, the god of evil, the god of hate.







DON'T BE BLUE
(Holding my breath)

FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY GOT SLAPPED RECENTLY

You can avoid evil, 

but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding evil.

For the John Galt that lurks inside

March 22 2010

House passes health care bill on 219-212 vote

American business, the motor of the global economy, was dealt a deathblow by the Marxist coup delivered by the Demo-rat party. The numbers are staggering. AT&T, the largest telephone company in the country, will take a one billion dollar hit in the current quarter as a result of this economic attack on America.

Verizon Communications, the second biggest U.S. phone company, told employees that tax burdens under the new law would likely filter down to employees.

Other companies that announced health care reform related charges include Deere, a maker of farm equipment, which sees a US$150-million charge for its current quarter, and Caterpillar, which warned of a US $100-million charge.

Unemployment will increase as companies, both large and small come to terms with the intended consequences of socialism, and the intention is to redistribute wealth.

Implementing a doctrine that has no plan to pay for it will eventually cause anarchy among the citizens that will be required to foot the bill, especially when the leaders decide to do it now and fix it later. While they are fixing this one, they will soon try to include the millions of undocumented immigrants in this plan and include them in our welfare system.

We should never allow a law that costs more than a billion dollars to be passed with less than a 2/3 majority.


Don't be Blue
(Holding my breath)