good dolphin wrote:
Spaulding wrote:
Big Chicagoan wrote:
Who gives a shit? Presidential Libraries are a joke. Its disgusting that taxpayers have to pay to construct a shrine to shitty politicians.
Yes!
Wrong.
Presidential libraries are both a museum and a place for scholarship. Obama's place in history will make it particularly relevant as a destination point, a forum for discussion and resource for all of this city's universities. This will be a major get for the city and I wholeheartedly support it.
The same is true of the proposed Lucas Museum.
Both have the same problem of location but the question of "should we pursue them" should not be open for debate.
Come on now, dolphin. Presidential museums are real museums in much the same way dan bernstein is a real journalist. Sure, their papers are kept there and scholars can do their work, but more than anything they are monuments to that president's ego. They certainly don't take an even-handed approach to history. They aren't run by historians. They're run by the president's buddies.
That said, I want Chicago to get the museum. The presidential museum of the first black president will be quite an attraction. But demanding park land for it is unnecessary and frankly, a big WYC for a guy who fashions himself a "man of the people". We're already choking on the Michael Reese site that numbnuts bought in his flight of Olympic fancy. It could go there. Or it could go on the U.S. Steel site. It would definitely drive development down there. But no, the rich want their playthings where and how they want them and I suspect they will get them.
That goes for Lucas too. You're championing that "museum" when we don't even know what's going to be in it. Some Norman Rockwell crap and a few R2D2s? World class!