From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 20:34:21 MST
Did anyone read about this? Dang..if only the Taliban had thought of draping
the Bamiyan Buddhas with curtains..
Hillary Clinton was right<not that I can stand that broad..but she *is*
right in this instance> when she said that it would have been cheaper to buy
burqas from Afghanistan instead of shelling out $8000 for the curtains.
Brilliance. It creeps out from the most unlikely holes.
url:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020129/od/statues_dc_1.html
<paste>
$8,000 Curtains Cover Semi-Nude Statues
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A cover-up at the U.S. Justice Department (news - web
sites)?
A Justice Department spokeswoman said on Monday about $8,000 has been spent
for curtains to conceal two Art Deco aluminum statues of semi-nude figures
in the building's Great Hall.
At one end of the stage is a 1930s era female statue representing the
``Spirit of Justice.'' Though she wears a toga-style garment, one breast is
exposed. At the other end of the stage, a male statue represents the
``Majesty of Justice,'' and has a cloth draped by his waist.
Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock said the decision to install
the curtains was made by Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites)'s
aide who handles advance work. ``It was done for TV aesthetics,'' she said.
When Ashcroft on Nov. 8 announced plans to restructure the Justice
Department to focus on terrorism after the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks,
photographers took pictures showing him with the towering female statue in
the background.
``He did not know this was being done,'' Comstock said. ``The attorney
general has more important things to do than worry about what appears in
pictures.''
The statues were hidden by curtains on Nov. 20, when President Bush (news -
web sites) came to the Justice Department to name the building after the
assassinated former attorney general, Robert Kennedy.
Those curtains were rented. Comstock said the decision then was made to buy
dark-blue curtains and install them because it would be more ``cost
efficient.''
On Monday, a day with no public events in the Great Hall, the curtains, with
the Justice Department emblem in the center, were placed across the stage,
concealing the statues.
A former Justice Department official e-mailed a copy of an article about the
statues to colleagues, adding the caption, ''homeland security?''
The most famous picture of the female statue came in the 1980s, when
Attorney General Edwin Meese released the final report of his commission on
pornography.
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