B
bheagle
Guest
The following is a letter read by Claire Braz-Valentine, the author, at
this year's Celebration of the Muse, Cabrillo College. It is worth
knowing that the author is a woman of over 60.
AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
In January 28, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he
spent $8,000 of taxpayer's money for drapes to cover up the exposed
breast of The Spirit of Justice, an 18 ft aluminum statue of a woman that
stands in the Department of Justice's Hall of Justice.
John, John, John, you've got your priorities all wrong. While men fly
airplanes into skyscrapers, dive bomb the pentagon, while they stick
explosives into their shoes, and then book a seat right next to us, while
they hide knives in their luggage, steal kids on school buses,
take little girls from their beds at night, drive trucks into our state
capital buildings, while our president calls dangerous men all over the
world evildoers and devils, while we live in the threat of biological
warfare, nuclear destruction, annihilation, you are out buying yardage to
save Americans from the appalling alarming, abominable aluminum alloy of
evil, that terrible ten foot tin tittie. You might not be able to find Bin
Laden, but you sure as hell found the hooter in the hall of justice.
It's not that we aren't grateful. But while we were begging the women of
Afghanistan to not cover up their faces, you are begging your staff members
to just cover up that nipple, to save the American people from that
monstrous metal mammary. How can we ever thank you?
So, in your office every morning, in your secret prayer meeting, while an
American woman is sexually assaulted every 6 seconds, while anthrax
floats around the post office and settles in the chest of senior
citizens, you've got another chest on your mind. While American sons
arrive home in body bags and heat seeking missiles fly around a foreign
country looking for any warm body, you think of another body.
And you pray for the biggest bra in the world. John, you see that breast on
the Spirit of Justice in the spirit of your own inhibited sexuality.
And when we women see our grandmothers, our mothers, our daughters, our
granddaughters, our sisters, ourselves, when we women see that statue, the
Spirit of Justice, we see the spirit of strength, the spirit of
survival.
Every day we view innocent bodies dragged out of rubble, and women and
children laid out like thin limp dolls and baptized into death as
collateral damage, and we see the hollow-eyed Afghani mother whose milk has
dried up underneath her burka in famine, in shame, and her children
are dead at her breast.
While you look at that breast, John, that jug on the Spirit of Justice,
and deal with your thoughts of lust and sex and nakedness, we see it as a
testimony to motherhood. You see it as a tit.
It's not the money it cost. It's the message you send. We've got the
right to live in freedom. We've got the right to cheat Americans out of
millions of dollars and then just not want to tell Congress about it.
We've got the right to drop bombs, night and day, on a small country
that has no army, no navy, no military at all, because we've got the right
to bear arms. But we just better not even think about the right to bare
breasts.
So now John, you can be photographed while you stand there and talk about
guns and bombs and poisons without that breast appearing over your right
shoulder, without that bodacious bosom bothering you and we just wanted to
tell you in the spirit of justice, in the spirit of truth, John, there is
still one very big boob left standing there in that picture.
this year's Celebration of the Muse, Cabrillo College. It is worth
knowing that the author is a woman of over 60.
AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
In January 28, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he
spent $8,000 of taxpayer's money for drapes to cover up the exposed
breast of The Spirit of Justice, an 18 ft aluminum statue of a woman that
stands in the Department of Justice's Hall of Justice.
John, John, John, you've got your priorities all wrong. While men fly
airplanes into skyscrapers, dive bomb the pentagon, while they stick
explosives into their shoes, and then book a seat right next to us, while
they hide knives in their luggage, steal kids on school buses,
take little girls from their beds at night, drive trucks into our state
capital buildings, while our president calls dangerous men all over the
world evildoers and devils, while we live in the threat of biological
warfare, nuclear destruction, annihilation, you are out buying yardage to
save Americans from the appalling alarming, abominable aluminum alloy of
evil, that terrible ten foot tin tittie. You might not be able to find Bin
Laden, but you sure as hell found the hooter in the hall of justice.
It's not that we aren't grateful. But while we were begging the women of
Afghanistan to not cover up their faces, you are begging your staff members
to just cover up that nipple, to save the American people from that
monstrous metal mammary. How can we ever thank you?
So, in your office every morning, in your secret prayer meeting, while an
American woman is sexually assaulted every 6 seconds, while anthrax
floats around the post office and settles in the chest of senior
citizens, you've got another chest on your mind. While American sons
arrive home in body bags and heat seeking missiles fly around a foreign
country looking for any warm body, you think of another body.
And you pray for the biggest bra in the world. John, you see that breast on
the Spirit of Justice in the spirit of your own inhibited sexuality.
And when we women see our grandmothers, our mothers, our daughters, our
granddaughters, our sisters, ourselves, when we women see that statue, the
Spirit of Justice, we see the spirit of strength, the spirit of
survival.
Every day we view innocent bodies dragged out of rubble, and women and
children laid out like thin limp dolls and baptized into death as
collateral damage, and we see the hollow-eyed Afghani mother whose milk has
dried up underneath her burka in famine, in shame, and her children
are dead at her breast.
While you look at that breast, John, that jug on the Spirit of Justice,
and deal with your thoughts of lust and sex and nakedness, we see it as a
testimony to motherhood. You see it as a tit.
It's not the money it cost. It's the message you send. We've got the
right to live in freedom. We've got the right to cheat Americans out of
millions of dollars and then just not want to tell Congress about it.
We've got the right to drop bombs, night and day, on a small country
that has no army, no navy, no military at all, because we've got the right
to bear arms. But we just better not even think about the right to bare
breasts.
So now John, you can be photographed while you stand there and talk about
guns and bombs and poisons without that breast appearing over your right
shoulder, without that bodacious bosom bothering you and we just wanted to
tell you in the spirit of justice, in the spirit of truth, John, there is
still one very big boob left standing there in that picture.
