Saw this after it was finished a few years back. It sure stands out when you drive past it. We didn't take the time to go in, we didn't want to take valuable time away from our visit to the Icelandic Phallological Museum just blocks away.
http://phallus.is/en/

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I went to the pinball museum in Vegas and they talk about the history of some of the machines; I think I remember that in the early days some of them were used for gambling and they got banned; then the games became skill games, but there were still a few that from all appearances were skill games, but if you landed in the right spot the owner would pay you out illegally

I would thoroughly enjoy a small museum full of these.

I believe this is from the James Bond exhibit at the Spy Museum: https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/exquisitely-evil/ . I remember it being pretty effective in person.

It's div-EYE-siv, not div-e-siv, you fucking inbred hick moron.

And plenty don't want to get rid of the confederate flag because it's divisive. It's because it represents slavery and oppression.

Look, if you feel this is "white washing history" (an argument so ironic it's almost some kind of amazing meta-criticism on itself), then just think of the confederate flag like the swastika.

Should we forget it? Hell no... it's an important part of history and we should see it in books and museums and movies.

That doesn't mean we want the fucking thing hanging on every street corner.

@newtboy --

Yarr. I had a pretty long response typed up, and then accidentally clicked on a link and lost it.

So here's a short version:

I agree with you on pretty much everything, but "all statues and other monuments celebrating the insurrection should go" has some caveats for me.

Civic places like government buildings, city parks, etc.? Yeah, they should all go (including the State flags that incorporate the stars and bars). But museums (which you noted you are OK with), battlefields, and even a landmark or two like Stone Mountain I feel can be re-purposed so they aren't necessarily "celebrating the insurrection" so much as "reminding us of the evil that can exist in the hearts of men -- even men that some people respect".

Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly said "It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another." Easier to remember that for Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, given that their roles in the Confederacy are pretty defining aspects of their legacies. But it remains true for some people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many other founding fathers that were also slave owners, even though we often conveniently forget that aspect of their history.


--EDIT--
Oh, by the way, I love that Malcolm Reynolds quote from Firefly, and there's a rather similar one made by the Hound in the (leaked) S07E06 episode of Game of Thrones:
"Every lord I've ever known has been a cunt. Don't see why the Lord of Light should be any different."

Not as relevant as the other one, but I liked it.

Well, only a racist would celebrate them because of their racism. Good people might celebrate their accomplishments despite their racist actions, depending on their severity of the actions and on the greatness of the accomplishments.

Most confederate sympathizers I've known celebrate the confederate largely because it left and opposed the Union, not in spite of it. The see the absolute refusal to compromise as a merit. When ones biggest claim to fame is also their most infamous crime, it's difficult to reconcile or ignore.
I certainly agree, accurate history trumps sentiment, but history, particularly complicated and emotionally charged history is best represented in museums and text books, not celebrated with gaudy statuary in public spaces dedicated to a shameful part of our history and presented as if it were a proud chapter and these losers and traitors were really heros.

I'm part way there. In government buildings, city parks, etc., sure -- take 'em down. State flags incorporating the confederate flag? Yeah. Probably time to change.

Civil war battlefields / memorials? Leave 'em up. Stone Mountain? Leave it. Placards noting that these people fought for the wrong side, for wrong reasons (90% of which boils down to slavery) can / should be included. Make it clear that the efforts of these people to try to keep slavery around were evil and wrong.

I've seen it noted that there are no monuments to Hitler in Germany. True, but reminders of the terrible Nazi legacy remain, in Germany and elsewhere. Concentration camps remain, still standing as a reminder of the human capacity for evil. Nazi flags, logos, and equipment remain in museums.

In China, images and monuments to Mao are everywhere. In spite of the fact that even the Communist Party there admits that his policies and actions were terrible -- the devastating Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etc. Some Chinese can remember and celebrate the good that Mao did (perhaps a small list) while simultaneously acknowledging his extremely tarnished legacy.


I think that being very quick to say that ALL people on the Confederate side of the Civil War were evil and wrong while their counterparts in the Union were clearly the "real Americans" is entirely too easy. The CSA was founded almost entirely in support of a very evil primary goal -- to keep slavery around. But the people in it, even the people running it, were different from the people on the other side mainly due to accidents of birth location. They fought for what they thought was necessary / right. They were wrong. But, they were real Americans -- and acknowledging that they could have been wrong in that way reminds us that the potential to end up on the wrong side of history also exists for us.

They should be housed in museums ... time to move forward people.

Holy Fuck!! Google "Trump Bonwit Teller":

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90137202/hey-remember-when-trump-destroyed-precious-art-history

New York Times:
"Plain as the building might be, the entrance was like a spilled casket of gems: platinum, bronze, hammered aluminum, orange and yellow faience, and tinted glass backlighted at night. In 1929 American Architect magazine called it “a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store.”


"Upon learning about the historic building’s imminent demolition, and recognizing the cultural value of its ornamentation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art convinced Trump to remove portions of the historic facade and donate them to the institution."

"Soon he was backpedaling, after realizing that it would take two more weeks and $32,000...to properly take the reliefs off the building. Using his fake alter ago, a “Trump spokesperson” named John Baron, he told the New York Times in 1980: “The merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the efforts to save them.” His construction workers chopped up the metalwork with torches and let the sculptures fall to the ground to crack into smithereens."

Two, 15 foot high, irreplacable, Art Deco bas-relief sculptures smashed by Trump to save $32,000 in costs to remove them.

That's a Hoplite (Mi-2), our nearby helicopter museum has one. Paint job is neither Polish nor East German though, so I'll go with Ukraine or maybe Belarus.

Of course, as plane geek, if you are West Coast---
I have never been to Paul Allen's personal museum...but want to go!

http://www.flyingheritage.com

Have you gotten there? (Everett, WA)

If you visit NYC, be sure to check out the Intrepid Museum (it's an old aircraft carrier with lots of planes and a space shuttle).

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