New York cash plea for Lady Liberty

[emad]

From The Guardian

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, has launched a nationwide appeal for funds to reopen the Statue of Liberty, because he says the city cannot afford adequate security, due to budget cuts.
"Lady Liberty", a gift from the French, whose torch symbolised hope to millions of immigrants over the generations, has been closed to the public since September 11, and will remain so unless the city can raise $5m (£2.94m).

A credit card firm and a coffee business have agreed to provide much of the money, which will go to improve fire and emergency facilities and provide more exits at the statue's base. Many New York legislators are angry that they had to ask at all, after the federal government offered a 10% rise in the operating budget for Liberty and Ellis islands - home to the statue, and the centre that processed immigrants and is now a museum of immigration.

"It's great people want to open Lady Liberty again, but the city shouldn't have to go around with a tin cup to keep monuments open," said Carolyn Maloney, chair of the task force on homeland security for the House of Representatives' Democratic caucus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1094257,00.html

[soothsayer]

1. Now there's a metaphor for what's going on in the U.S.

No liberty for us anymore under dumbya

[Don_G]

2. Fund Raising Would't Be A Problem

If it wern't for the fact that Chimpy has declared a war on "peace and prosperity" in the US. Let Dimbo pay for it out of the Billions he's handed the private contractors.

[pfitz59]

3. Bloomberg is a billionaire.......

perhaps he can pull a Carnegie or a Turner, and donate the money himself! I get angry every time some slimy rich mo-fo begs the public for money! Let Bush* pay for it! He let 9-11 happen!

[TexasMexican]

4. New Jersey

Doesnt New Jersey own the Statue of Liberty now?

[Rex]

5. Lady Liberty will be sporting endorsments

look for a whole slew of slogans to be hung and glued all over her backside.

"It's the American way - take a symbol of Democracy and prostitute it for every consumer cent you can get", said Billionare Bloomberg.

[R Hickey]

7. Shorten the skirt of Lady Liberty if she is to be a corporate whore

Get the tin snips out and shorten her skirt, and lets have her winking, and lets smear some red lipstick on, and give Miss Liberty's frowning face a leering "Hello Sailor" expression.

America has given away it's liberty to giant corporations, so why shouldn't this symbol now resemble a large-boned cheap hooker trying to be coy?

If it weren't for John Ashcroft, I would predict that before Bush leaves office, that the statue could have no skirt at all, with perhaps only a tightly-synched copper cable, surrounding her privates, simulating a gargantuan string bikini.

If not that, we should at least expect the new scantily clad colossus to sport a crudely-welded giant-bronze-feather, or since the island is the entry to New York, maybe the corporations will design some sort of stratigically placed giant-bubble-blowing-contraption, like with the Marboro Man's smokerings...

[ldf]

8. excellent visual, R Hickey

lady whore, beckoning to all in the harbor, with:

"shorten her skirt, and lets have her winking, and lets smear some red lipstick on, and give Miss Liberty's frowning face a leering "Hello Sailor" expression"

that so represents american at this point.

that would make an excellent political cartoon. surely a good graphics artist could put that together.

[lostnfound]

6. Scrap heap? n/t