2020 Miscellany #10—rather be a mule

Would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a mule?

—Swinging On a Star

There is a statue alongside the Ohio&Erie Canal in Independence of a mule. Mules would pull canal boats

walking with handsome friends

Karma (L), Cassius (R)

It has been reported, that Parma High before 1936 was nicknamed 'Greyhounds'.  Currently the school nickname is 'Redmen', and it may be on its way out.

Foto shoot over

painted outside appliance repair on Union in Cleveland

2020 Miscellany #9

car with sighthounds (whippets, greyhounds)

Lakewood, on the back of a bank

one of at least two such stencils, this one on a brewery's garage door

I've posted another sign on this corner, and no we are not.

Columbus

Bump Taylor Field, Glenville

 

St. Agatha existed from 1945 to 1975, when it was merged (absorbed) into St. Aloysius. Earlier an attempt of closure was stopped by the congregation showing up on the lawn of the bishop's mansion in Bratenahl. It has become the St. Martin de Porres Center. This had to be an entrance into the elementary school. The opposite side of the building has an identical one.

Zum Schifflein Christi

The first German congregation in Cleveland was Zum Schifflein Christi, Little Ship of Christ, by 1834. It had numerous splits, mergers, and buildings. It's impressive building was began in 1924 in Glenville. It has merged out of existence. This stone remains.

Below the rose window, and above the door arch reads, "First Evangelical Church". Generally, the German word for Protestant is Evangelical. To the left is a stone, in which the lettering is unclear except for the name "Ebenezer", with the name of one of the merged congregations. To the right is the Schiflein Christi stone. Most German churches, prior to World War I, had German inscriptions. Schiflein Christi [yes, two different spellings] is the only German wording here. [yes, two different spellings] Notes found on internet suggest the building became in 1957, First United Church of Christ. Since 1967 Greater Friendship Baptist has made it their home. There is a stone plaque, that lettering does not photograph well at all, for the mortgage burning in 1983. First time, i saw such.

 

 a peak through a screened door window in the time of the virus

 [viewed from the outside] would like to know the story of this scene

There is no outside protective windows. Some damage came from outside, and tape covers the missing glass in the windows.

Commememorate

On July 4th 1863, the Confederates were defeated. Grant took Vicksburg in the west, and the day before Lee lost at Gettysburg. But they would not recognise and admit defeat, they continued the war for almost two years. I have not encountered a 4th of July ceremony/celebration to say this. To-day, in the United States, the rebellious losers are better respected. But, here is one that we can mock...

Perhaps, the most ridiculous Confederate statue is one next to I-65 in Nashville. Jack Kershaw was James Earl Ray's lawyer. In 1998 he carved a statue out of polyurethane with a butcher knife. It was of slave trader, Confederate cavalry general, and first grand wizard of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was chosen at the Maxwell House (yes, later known for coffee) Nashville in 1867. The statue head is as nearly as big as his thorax and abdomen combined, his face is a Hallowe'en horror. His horse and he are covered in foil, and occasionally there is a dump of paint on the statue. There were some 30 other Forrest statues in Tennessee, one was taken down in Memphis after the racist/nazi rally in Charlottesville in 2017.  

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postscriptum:  7.55 p.m. 7 December 2021. The owner of the property has died. His will's executor has had the statue taken down. [click]

statue removal from demonstrations

George Floyd was tortured unto death by the Minneapolis Police on May 25th. One of a series of such extra-judicial killings by police of people, usually black men. Police brutality has long been a civil rights issue, especially in the black community. The movement, Black Lives Matter began in 2013 after vigilante George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Street demonstrations began after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. The demonstrations were rekindled after Floyd's killing, and they spread worldwide.

As a side effect of some violent demonstrations, that separated from non-violent protests, statues have been toppled. The first targets have been Confederate statues, then it expanded to other representations of racists, and slaveholders, and sometimes whatever was there.

Yesterday, an equestrian statue of General Stonewall Jackson has been removed in Richmond Virginia. Also, yesterday, a second statue of Christopher Columbus has been removed in Columbus Ohio. The first one had been vandalised. There is another statue of Columbus by the state house.

In the states that remained loyal to the Union, statues and memorials began appearing soon after the conclusion of the failed war of secession. The statues of the rebellious traitors started to appear more than a full generation after the war surrender. That Jackson statue was raised in 1919. The immediate aftermath of the war included the freeing of black slaves, and of the recognition of constitutional rights of all black people. Those freedoms were chipped away at, and by the late 1890s the successors to the confederates were thoroughly entrenched. The false myth of the noble lost cause was successful. Four years of a lost war, was followed by an incubation of romanticising antebellum power. NAACP was formed in 1909. The three years with the most new Confederate statues were 1909, 1910, and 1911. The year most Confederate statues (36) removed was after the White Power/Nazi Demonstration in Charlottesville Virginia 2017. Long time ago, i read the person most often depicted was Robt. E. Lee. The second was Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first leader of the Klu Klux Klan. Those public statues were all treasonous, and all a message to black people "you do not matter".  The Germans have not made statues to the twelve year Nazi heritage. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe statues were taken away of  Communists.

Some changes are happening. The police have not been reformed. At times in the response to demonstrations against police brutality, police have demonstrated brutality [click].  Donald Trump has egged on brutal police responses, and wants to protect the statues. Black Lives Matter has been demonised by 'conservatives', who have more sympathy for property than any concern for the injustices that caused the eruptions. The biggest slam is that they are Marxist. There are many chapters of a de-centralised movement. Individuals may be Marxist, but that is immaterial to the cause. For some days, Trumpsters were blaming the violence on Antifa. The police could not find antifas to arrest; occasionally they had to arrest right wing thugs, sometimes they would tip them off to stand clear. Another thing that bothers these people is the painting of the phrase "Black Lives Matter" on the street.

Ettore Boiardi was born in Italy, and went to Paris, then London, then New York before he was eighteen. Eventually, he became a restaurateur in Cleveland. By 1928 packaged products were sold and distributed beyond Cleveland, under the name of Chef Boyardee. In America, at this time, Italian food, spelling, and pronunciation was exotic. ConAgra now owns the brand, and they have a statue of Boiardi in Omaha.  Recently, someone using the name "sammy pizzano" put on an internet petition to replace Cleveland's Columbus statue with Boyardee, it was sarcasm. Local Italians were not amused.

Someone took off the tip of Chris's nose (sometime after 2017). Cleveland's statue of Columbus is kitty korner from Holy Rosary (an Italian parish).Cleveland's Columbus Parade used to be downtown, it is now in the Little Italy neighborhood. His statue gazes at the church.

High up the facade of Holy Rosary is a statue of Mary, and other statues. This year she has ivy about her.

About seven years ago a statue of General Milan Štefánik was placed in the Slovak Cultural Garden, it had been in a traffic island below the Art, and Natural History museums. Since he was a minister of war, some people were not happy with him being in a peace garden. In this pose he looks like a birdwatcher.

With all the statue vandalisations, and removals someone has made this cartoon. Is the toon asking people to see what they are doing? It had already happened in Cleveland.

Auguste Rodin's "TheThinker" outside of Cleveland Art Museum was bombed on 24 March 1970. At the time, local police blamed the Weather Underground. It is not known who was responsible.

2 of  2 essays, the previous concerned ethnic advertising

human logos,

or some changes in ethnic advertising

 Land O'Lakes began in 1921 as Minnesota Cooperative Creameries Association.  Mia was painted in 1928 by Arthur Hanson. She has been revised overtime to be clearly dressed as an Ojibwe on Red Lake Minnesota. April of this year, the company announced the end of the maiden, because some consider her a racist caricature.

There are some products that use caricatures of Europeans.  A meat packer started selling Old Dutch Cleanser in 1905. Before that, they used it in house to clean the fat and other offal from the slaughterhouse floors. Dutch housewives had a reputation for cleanliness. It has been bought and sold a few times, once Greyhound Bus owned it.

In 1889, a flour mill in St. Joseph Missouri began packaging pancake flour mix with the excess flour they milled. The name, 'Aunt Jemima' came from a vaudeville poster. The character represented an antebellum slave cook. Quaker Oats bought the company in 1926. June 17th, of this year, as the first to respond to the George Floyd murder, the product will have a new name and graphics.

Quaker Mill Company(Ravenna, O) was the new name of German Mills American Oatmeal Company(Akron). A co-owner read about Quakers, and thought a Quaker would be a good image. Advertising is opportunistic, and derivative. Whatever is available, and suits someone's taste is appropriated. Sales, and profit are the chief concerns. There is society, and there is politics, but really there is money. If a decision is influenced by societal, or political pressure; it is influenced to ride the wave, and steer only towards the direction of money.

original Betty Crocker

I remember a grade school teacher mention  that Betty Crocker was fictional, but Duncan Hines was a real person. Washburn-Crosby, predecessor to General Mills, created the character in 1920-1. The first portrait was painted in 1936 by Neysa McMein, there have been several new Bettys since then. Whenever the company wanted a change they had one, none an improvement over the first.

1 of  2 essays, the next concerning statues