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Dinosaurs Of Bronto
Dinosaurs Of Bronto
[Steve Sailer] "P.J. ORourke visits the Field Museum in Chicago (via Five Feet of Fury): €śThe sculpture of a Masai spearman facing off against a crouching lioness has been shunted to a lonely corner, lest someone somehow take offense. Nowadays offense is taken€“snatched and grabbed€“as if offense were something valuable to own.€ť I believe hes referring to Malvina Hoffmans spectacular lifesize 6€˛-8€ł tall sculpture of a naked Nuer tribesman. The Nuers are elongated Sudanese Nilotics, like their cousins the Dinka, famous for 7€˛-6€ł basketball player Manute Bol. Barack Obama Sr.s Luo tribe are more distant cousins. Its a natural mistake to make since you are supposed to be ignorant these days about what people look like. Youre supposed to celebrate diversity, but not know about it. Institutions like the Field Museum have gone to a lot of trouble to de-educate the populace. As I wrote in VDARE.com in 2002: Malvina Hoffman has been called €śthe greatest American artist youve never heard of€ť and €śthe American Rodin.€ť She studied under Auguste Rodin, the greatest sculptor since Bernini, and Gutzon Borglum, creator of Mt. Rushmore. Her style was more realistic than Rodins, which helped drive her out of fashion in a 20th Century art world obsessed with abstraction. In 1930, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago commissioned her to create 91 full size bronzes and 13 marbles depicting in exquisite detail the €śThe Races of Mankind.€ť She traveled the world to complete this most titanic sculptural project undertaken by any American woman ever. (Heres her Bushman woman and baby.) In 1933, the Hoffman exhibit opened in the Field Museums spectacular custom-built €śHall of Man.€ť It was a major part of the Chicago Worlds Fair and remained a popular institution for decades afterwards. But it was shut down in 1968 because, well, because it was 1968. Hoffmans collection was broken up. A quarter of it is now in Cedar Rapids. When I last visited the Field Museum in 1999, only about half the statues were on display, and many of those were pushed into dark corners, often without labels. The magnificent 6€˛8€ł Nilotic Nuer warrior, with proportional masculine endowment, was down in the basement next to the dusty souvenir-making Mold-o-Vac and Penny Squeezer machines. Last time I was at the Field Museum a decade ago, the Nuer and the two stuffed man-eating lions who killed 130 Indian construction workers in East African in 1898 (as shown in the 1996 Michael Douglas-Val Kilmer movie €śThe Ghost and the Darkness€ś) were stowed away in the basement with each other. ORourke goes on: The brontosaurus has been pushed to the back (that is to say the front) of the main hall and isnt called a brontosaurus anymore. (Doubtless offense was taken by Chicagos Bronto-American community.) Damn, I was sure Id published something with €śBronto-American€ť in it, but the closest I can come up with is from my 2001 review of €śJurassic Park III.€ť Before you rush out to see €śJurassic Park III€ť based on my stirring endorsement - €śIts a lot less annoying than the last one!€ť - please note that I cant seem to recall anything that happened in either of the first two dinostravaganzas after that first glorious scene of a sunlit grassland with brontosauruses peacefully munching away. All I can remember after that is a lot of gnashing of really big teeth. €¦ Still, there are some cool new flying pterodactyls in €śJP III€ť that try to turn the cast into birdfeed. Yeah, okay, I know a lot of you out there are right now firing up your email clients to inform me that they arent €śpterodactyls,€ť they are €śpteranodons,€ť and those big galoot herbivores arent €śbrontosauruses,€ť they are €śbrachiosauruses.€ť Sorry, but thats what I called them when I was a kid and I see no reason to change now. I mean, what did I miss that would change the name of creatures that havent been around for 65 million years? Did some brontosaurus Jesse Jackson call a press conference to announce that from now on he wanted to be called a €śbrachiosaurus€ť and that anybody who forgot and referred to €śbrontosauruses€ť was terminally unhip? I bet that when even dinosaurs like me finally start calling them €śbrachiosauruses,€ť they are going to pull another switcheroo and announce that we are arent supposed to call them €śbrachiosauruses€ť anymore, but now instead theyll be €śdinosaurs of bronto.€ť http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2008/...urs-of-bronto/ -- Message posted using http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/ More information at http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/faq.html |