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July 2, 2009
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Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya
July 1, 2009
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by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts
June 30, 2009
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Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief
June 29, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'
Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas
June 26, 2009
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Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law
June 25, 2009
Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
Everything's Relative
June 24, 2009
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The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun
June 23, 2009
Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin
Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect
June 22, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm
N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?
June 19, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity
June 18, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
Everything's Relative
June 17, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …
June 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel
Richard Z. Chesnoff: Palestinians: Never Missing an Opportunity …
June 15, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'
Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed
June 12, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big
Caroline B. Glick:
Obama's High Commissioner
June 11, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President
Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers
Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos
June 10, 2009
Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world
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by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste
June 9, 2009
Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?
June 8, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?
Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past
Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?
June 5, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams
Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth
June 4, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock
The Kosher Gourmet
by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette
June 3, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action
June 2, 2009
Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
March 21, 2008
/ 14 Adar II 5768
Autry Revisionist Center
By
Greg Crosby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We have a museum here in Southern California that has had a heck of a time trying to figure out what it wants to be, or who it wants to appeal to. Western movie star and businessman Gene Autry started it way back in 1988. His vision then was to establish a museum which would honor and showcase the history and culture of the American West. The museum would devote itself to "cowboy movie" heroes and memorabilia (with a focus on Gene Autry, of course) as well as telling the true history of the American Wild West. A good concept coupled with the perfect location - Los Angeles.
It was a wonderful museum when it started, then Mr. Autry died and it has been slipping into the chasms of multicultural correctness, revisionist history, and modern liberal sensibilities ever since. First it was called the Gene Autry Museum. Then it was the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. Then they dropped Gene's first name and it became The Autry Western Heritage Museum. Then Autry was dropped for a short time and it was simply the Western Heritage Museum. Now it is the Autry National Center. I wouldn't be too surprised if sometime soon the name will be changed to The People's Cultural Diversity Center for the Study of Western Revisionist History.
Now I read in the Los Angeles Times that the museum will be undergoing a total transformation in its historical look. The existing building, with its white stucco, red titles and bell tower in the traditional California Spanish Mission style will be changed in favor of new architecture and colors "meant to evoke the West's most harmonious constant: the natural landscape." The paper showed an artist's rendering of it and guess what? It looks like just another nondescript contemporary office building with no style and no sense of history whatsoever, let alone Western.
In place of the original, historic Mission belfry, a new 70-foot tower with steel ribs and long vertical ribbons of curved translucent glass will rise up into the sky. Animated wild horses will be galloping across a screen 100 feet long and 15 feet high on the outside back wall facing the Golden State Freeway. It's basically another big flat-screen television intruding on the landscape, blazing lights into the night sky not unlike the bawdy Ginza in Tokyo or the glitter of Times Square in New York. Using this state of the art technology is about as far from preserving history as a history museum could possibly get!
The renovation is expected to begin this year and be finished for a reopening in 2011. A fund raising campaign is currently underway to collect $185 million - $85 million for endowment and operation expenses and $100 million to cover construction costs of the new ugly facility. The project will be done in two phases: first will be renovation and expansion of the museum, and second will be construction of a new 50,000 square foot structure for offices and storage with parking underneath.
John Gray, President of the Aurty National Center, said that the museum's "educational mission" dictated the demise of its mission-like appearance. He was quoted as saying, "To tell everyone's story in the most respectful way, we could not have a building that referenced one particular culture or one specific time in the American West." What a load of hogwash! Talk about political correctness meets bureaucratic empire-building.
Gray goes on to say that "the planning process included enormous outreach to local and national Native Americans." I'm sure that before they're through, the "outreach" will also include political agendas of Mexican, Chinese, African-Americans, and other minority action groups from coast to coast. Let's not leave anyone out. Don't want to offend anyone, do we?
Mark my words - A museum started by a dedicated white guy to honor all of the American West will be morphed into a museum to honor every single culture in the world with the exception of the white European guys. Oh, they'll be depicted, alright, but in a light far from honorable, you can be sure.
That's what "cultural diversity," as it exists today, really is all about - the story of how the bad white guys screwed over the poor people of color throughout history. The cultural elitists will never admit it, but that's what it is and that's what is taught in our public schools, universities and history museums throughout the country. Complete revisionism.
Museums, by definition, should be places to protect and preserve our past, not reflect current social mores or placate contemporary utopian wishful thinking. When we tamper with history, altering what was, we begin to lose the very truth of it all. History should never be a living work in progress, changeable from generation to generation depending on their point of view. History is what it is, for better or worse. Learn from it, improve on it, but never attempt to alter it.
The American West holds many stories, not least of all the tales of American heroes like Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and John C. Fremont. And yes, even movie cowboy heroes like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne. Let's not lose any more American heroes. We can't afford it.
Oh, how I wish Gene was back in the saddle again!
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.
Greg Crosby Archives
© 2006, Greg Crosby
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