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Comment by borgia | Hacker News Reader

It has already been covered over with tarp and the letting removed[1].

It's a wonderful piece of work with excellent sentiment behind it. Unfortunately it doesn't suit the government and mainstream media narrative, so I'm sure the act of its erection will be decried as liberal terrorism and vandalism, the piece taken down and Snowden-related news once again brushed over.

[1]http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/illegal-edward-...

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Their point about the image of the bust remains. The fact that they covered the bust with a tarp itself creates an image with a message.

Consider the mentality of obscuring the bust with something that is even uglier. It is not a statement on the aesthetics of the work. It is literally saying "You may not look upon this unsanctioned idea"

Correct! For me a better political statement would have been to wait for the People to remove the statue. I want to know whether enough people who care about the memory of the Prison Ship Martyrs to organize the removal compared to the memory of Snowden. If someone removes it, it's a strong political statement that the People want this. If no one removes it, then the People has chosen new heroes.

So your theory is that they covered it up so no one will talk about Snowden? That doesn't make sense.

no. His theory is that the artists wanted to create this very scene.

I like part of Ruth Goldstein's, one of the park conservancy founders, response in that article. While I am fairly confident that asking and trying to go through legitimate channels to get the bust put up would not of worked, what she said makes me think there are at least people who would consider it, although probably not high enough in power structures to actually get it done.

“The park is such a symbol of American liberty; that’s what it’s all about, the founding principals of it,” she said. “It (the bust) is almost appropriate but inappropriate to do it (put up illegally).”

As if the establishment of American liberty didn't involve breaking any laws in the first place.

yes, not being able to put up a statue in public property is basically on the same level as centuries of persecution, seizing of private property, taxation without representation, and company.

Imagine if McDonald's just decided to put up giant golden arches in the park. There's a reason the procedures exist.

I do think this is a clever and interesting thing to do, and I hope this ends with the statue staying somehow. But I really don't see the point in comparing this with the establishment of the nation.

I notice the author of the article is "Sasha Goldstein", I wonder if Ruth and Sasha are related.

Also, I wonder if Sasha would be pinged by the government about who is behind the act, and if Sasha would give them up, adding some irony(?), referencing 1984.

not have worked, "founding principles".

I am not certain that offering grammar corrections is very constructive.

Also if you read the article in the parent post you would notice that your second correction should be directed at it not me, as I accurately copy pasted that quotation.

Correcting the quote is silly, yes, but I think it's constructive to point out uses of the wrong word entirely. That's a far leap away from being ultra-picky about grammar.

Though it might make more sense to use "'ve" when correcting to emphasize that it's not a spoken vs. written speech difference, it's a transcription error.

* my comment was meant for other people reading your comment as much as it was for you. people soak up english in informal ways (such as reading stuff on the web) and someone might be led to use the wrong words. * some mistakes (and actual meanings) are obvious, others are more subtle. what else in the text conveys meaning that is different from the author's intent? * what purpose does it serve to say or write A when you meant B, outside of humor?

It's interesting that they choose to (almost literally) deface it.

They're fully in their right to remove it, but simply making it unrecognizable feels like a political act.

I wonder how long the sculpture stood up. The two articles were only published 2 hours apart.

It looks like they put it up around 6am and it was covered over around noon.

I hope, for the sake of the work that went into the piece, that it isn't destroyed.

That's amazing. Now if only the public works department could respond to potholes that quickly.

Maybe we could just start spraypainting Snowden's face in and around potholes? If it worked, the general public would know Snowden only as the pothole-fixing guy. No jury would ever convict! b^)

Actually, an approaching not entirely unlike that has been tried successfully in Russia.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/embarrassing-pothole-c...

Ugg. "approach". Nothing like seeing your typos the following day.

That is an interesting point. People here are saying (paraphrasing) "they'd take down any busk that wasn't authorised" and while I believe that to be true, it ignores the fact of just how QUICKLY this one got taken down. Less than six hours? How long does other graffiti take to be removed, days, weeks, months?

I think the speed graffiti, bust, or other such expression is removed is going to be more or less relative to the amount of attention something draws / is expected to draw. Or at least I heard that is how wheels go about getting oil.

Yeah, I made my point in a snarky way, but there is definitely a political component to the swiftness of the action. It'd have been great if the job had to be submitted to a months long queue.

I showed up around 3:45pm and it was gone by then. NYPD were looking around though:

https://twitter.com/moyix/status/585181778438180864

Unless destroying it was the only way to remove it, it would likely go to the nearest impound lot (where I believe it can actually be claimed by the owners for a fee, though that might invite other problems).

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