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San Diego joins effort to clean up nation's airports
Doesn't anybody read James Thurber anymore?
In 2012, the San Diego Airport Commission removed the huge mural of Charles Lindbergh that had adorned the San Diego Airport Commuter Terminal for 15 years. In 2014, they replaced the mural with Jari "Werc" Alvarez's digital creation, "SAN." Airport spokesman Bob Weave recently broke the Commission's stony silence about the reasoning behind the switch.
The spade in the new mural signifies America's noble effort to bury its history of lionizing Nazi sympathizers.
"Lindbergh was a pro-Nazi America Firster who opposed our entry into World War II. Plus, he said some weird things about race and eugenics. For a while there, he was an American hero, but the fact is, he was a pretty weird guy. Problematic, really. By shifting the focus away from the man and towards his airplane with "SAN," we emphasize what was truly great about Charles Lindbergh: his ability to sit in a cockpit and stay awake while it carried him across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh the man doesn't really figure at all. Besides, it's not like Lindbergh was from here. Rather, it was the plane — The Spirit of St. Louis — that was built by Ryan Airlines right here in San Diego. I'm hoping that eventually, San Diegans will call this airport St. Louis Field. Kinda confusing, I know, but at least it's morally uncomplicated."
It's all about the exhale, not the inhale.
Weave's remarks came as a surprise to some, but others found in it a welcome echo of their own sentiments.
"We here at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport know just how Mr. Weave feels," says Airport Morals Manager Clive Weems. "We know that Jazz is a great art form, and that Louis Armstrong was a great, great jazz musician. But the fact remains that he was also a lifelong marijuana user. He would smoke it before concerts, before recording sessions, and even before breakfast. The hard truth is that New Orleans today is inundated with illegal drug use; it's a huge blight on our great city. It just doesn't make sense for us to glorify such a prominent pothead in the midst of this crisis. Who knows how many kids try drugs today in the hopes that it will help inspire them to Satchmo's level of greatness? So we've replaced the statue of Mr. Armstrong that used to stand in the airport's atrium with a horn-based sculpture, one that pays homage to the music without deifying the sadly flawed man who made it."
Everybody loves a kid in a fedora, right?
The trend has even reached rough-and-tumble Chicago, though in less dramatic fashion. There, the statues of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi dressed as their characters Jake and Elwood Blues from their 1980 film The Blues Brothers have been replaced with statues of Aykroyd, John Goodman, and a young J. Evan Bonifant from the film's sequel, Blues Brothers 2000.
"Look, everybody knows that John Belushi died from a drug overdose," says Chicago Transit Chief Jim McMahon. He was a funny guy, and Chicago will never disown him or his legacy. But airports are family-type places, you know? Kids and stuff. You wouldn't show your ten-year-old Animal House, right? We just felt it made sense to honor the Blues Brothers legacy without actually depicting the Blues Brothers. At least, not the original ones. At least, not both of them."
"If there's one thing we know about Dutch Reagan, it's that he wasn't some pro-Nazi pothead."
Happily, the rush to revise history hasn't reached our nation's capital. In fact, SD on the QT is proud to report that precisely the opposite has taken place. The recently renamed Ronald Reagan Washington, D.C. International Airport has taken the exemplary step of adding a fearsome American Bald Eagle to its statue of Great American Hero and Greatest American President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We felt that the eagle was appropriate for a number of reasons," says D.C. Flight Overseer Mike Brave. "First of all, eagles fly, just like the airplanes that take off and land here every day. Second, it's an American eagle, and President Reagan was every inch an American. Third, it's totally badass, just like RR when he faced down the Russians all those times."
Here's something you might be interested in.
San Diego joins effort to clean up nation's airports
San Diego joins effort to clean up nation's airports
Doesn't anybody read James Thurber anymore?
In 2012, the San Diego Airport Commission removed the huge mural of Charles Lindbergh that had adorned the San Diego Airport Commuter Terminal for 15 years. In 2014, they replaced the mural with Jari "Werc" Alvarez's digital creation, "SAN." Airport spokesman Bob Weave recently broke the Commission's stony silence about the reasoning behind the switch.
The spade in the new mural signifies America's noble effort to bury its history of lionizing Nazi sympathizers.
"Lindbergh was a pro-Nazi America Firster who opposed our entry into World War II. Plus, he said some weird things about race and eugenics. For a while there, he was an American hero, but the fact is, he was a pretty weird guy. Problematic, really. By shifting the focus away from the man and towards his airplane with "SAN," we emphasize what was truly great about Charles Lindbergh: his ability to sit in a cockpit and stay awake while it carried him across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh the man doesn't really figure at all. Besides, it's not like Lindbergh was from here. Rather, it was the plane — The Spirit of St. Louis — that was built by Ryan Airlines right here in San Diego. I'm hoping that eventually, San Diegans will call this airport St. Louis Field. Kinda confusing, I know, but at least it's morally uncomplicated."
It's all about the exhale, not the inhale.
Weave's remarks came as a surprise to some, but others found in it a welcome echo of their own sentiments.
"We here at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport know just how Mr. Weave feels," says Airport Morals Manager Clive Weems. "We know that Jazz is a great art form, and that Louis Armstrong was a great, great jazz musician. But the fact remains that he was also a lifelong marijuana user. He would smoke it before concerts, before recording sessions, and even before breakfast. The hard truth is that New Orleans today is inundated with illegal drug use; it's a huge blight on our great city. It just doesn't make sense for us to glorify such a prominent pothead in the midst of this crisis. Who knows how many kids try drugs today in the hopes that it will help inspire them to Satchmo's level of greatness? So we've replaced the statue of Mr. Armstrong that used to stand in the airport's atrium with a horn-based sculpture, one that pays homage to the music without deifying the sadly flawed man who made it."
Everybody loves a kid in a fedora, right?
The trend has even reached rough-and-tumble Chicago, though in less dramatic fashion. There, the statues of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi dressed as their characters Jake and Elwood Blues from their 1980 film The Blues Brothers have been replaced with statues of Aykroyd, John Goodman, and a young J. Evan Bonifant from the film's sequel, Blues Brothers 2000.
"Look, everybody knows that John Belushi died from a drug overdose," says Chicago Transit Chief Jim McMahon. He was a funny guy, and Chicago will never disown him or his legacy. But airports are family-type places, you know? Kids and stuff. You wouldn't show your ten-year-old Animal House, right? We just felt it made sense to honor the Blues Brothers legacy without actually depicting the Blues Brothers. At least, not the original ones. At least, not both of them."
"If there's one thing we know about Dutch Reagan, it's that he wasn't some pro-Nazi pothead."
Happily, the rush to revise history hasn't reached our nation's capital. In fact, SD on the QT is proud to report that precisely the opposite has taken place. The recently renamed Ronald Reagan Washington, D.C. International Airport has taken the exemplary step of adding a fearsome American Bald Eagle to its statue of Great American Hero and Greatest American President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We felt that the eagle was appropriate for a number of reasons," says D.C. Flight Overseer Mike Brave. "First of all, eagles fly, just like the airplanes that take off and land here every day. Second, it's an American eagle, and President Reagan was every inch an American. Third, it's totally badass, just like RR when he faced down the Russians all those times."
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