Sometimes I despair:
[E]ight lifelike lion statues across from what soon will be Arizona's largest cineplex apparently are a bit too lifelike for some tastes.
Guarding the entrances of a children's water fountain park at a high-profile West Valley retail project, the concrete beasts are depicted raising their rumps in the air, each with a terror-stricken ram trapped under its body in what some perceive as a sexually suggestive pose. And as work crews point out, the lions' tails are swished to the side, leaving their, er, pride in plain view.
Glendale Councilwoman Joyce Clark hasn't seen the statues, but doesn't think they're appropriate for a family park.
"I can see children getting an instant lesson in the birds and the bees, which maybe their parents wouldn't want them to have," she said. "It wouldn't make sense to put something so salacious there." [emphasis mine, Source]
Clark hasn't seen the statues. No surprises there. And I'm guessing she's in favor of cutting the tackle of every living male animal roaming around out there or, for that matter, in zoos. After all, we wouldn't want to given an "instant lesson in the birds and the bees" anatomy lesson. So for Ms Clark:
Comments
Posted by: Friend Fruit | October 21, 2006 9:51 AM
See? That's exactly what we told you would happen if gay marriage was allowed anywhere--interspecific sex. And what is it that your picture shows? My children asked me, but I don't know, because my mommy and daddy never explained antything like that to me. I just bet the person responsible for those awful statues is a Darwinist!
Posted by: mark | October 21, 2006 10:31 AM
Ms. Clark should invite John Ashcroft to the grand opening of the cineplex so he can ceremoniously cover all the "naughty bits" on the statues.:)
Then there's the case of Sydney McGee. As reported in the September 30 edition of the New York Times:
...Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child's parent complained, the teacher was suspended. Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and "bashed."
She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: "During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations." It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged. The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.
In a newsletter e-mailed to parents this week, the principal and Rick Reedy, superintendent of the Frisco Independent School District, said that Ms. McGee had been denied transfer to another school in the district, that her annual contract would not be renewed and that a replacement had been interviewed.
The article goes on to state:
John R. Lane, director of the museum, said he had no information on why Ms. McGee had been disciplined. "I think you can walk into the Dallas Museum of Art and see nothing that would cause concern," Mr. Lane said. Over the past decade, more than half a million students, including about a thousand from other Frisco schools, have toured the museum's collection of 26,000 works spanning 5,000 years, he said, "without a single complaint."
Posted by: Sean | October 21, 2006 3:06 PM
What really gets me about this is that you have to already be aware of sex and 'sexual poses' (fucking positions) to percieve the statues as sexual in the first place. Kids who don't know about sex actually can't "get an instant lesson in the birds and the bees." All this article has really said is that some idiotic parents were willing enough to have sex and copulate successfully, but are still so repressed that any thought of it disturbs them. Why is it families, in their sense, are founded on people fucking, and then sex is a taboo? Ridiculous.
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October 21, 2006 4:31 PM
Yes, i would prefer some more tasteful statues of lions actually persecuting the poor Christians who object to everything in this country myself.
If they want to feel persecuted, then come on, let's give them some good reason to feel that way.
Posted by: donna | October 22, 2006 4:29 PM