5-9-25

Well, this was a major week in New York City!....can you hear the sarcasm in my

voice?....New York City, the Big Apple, Times Square, the crossroads of the

world…..they got a new statue and it’s a big ‘un…like, literally….remember when

statues were meant to honor someone or something….a bronze likeness of that

moment in time, that epic fight for survival, that person who stood in the face of

tyranny…..future generations of citizens would look up at the statue and you can

imagine their wonder and awe as they reflect on its meaning……but this new

statue? Not so much…..we now have a brand new 12-foot bronze statue in Times

Square titled “Grounded in the Stars” by an artist named Thomas J. Price….it

appears to be a 12-foot likeness of an overweight black woman wearing ill-fitting

clothes giving that “what did you say to me?” look to the gas station clerk…..that’s

it…..who is this aspirational likeness supposed to be….did she stop a

robbery?….did she march for civil rights?….did she save a child from a burning

building?…..nope, she’s just a grumpy frumpy lady who looks like she rolled in late

to work after an all-nighter and expects the boss to get over it……she’s no one

person, she’s, I guess….every person?......not really…….we’re told that her statue

is to counter the 2 old white guy statues that have been in Times Square for

years…..never mind that those are statues of real people who did really amazing

things…..according to the website about the statue it “offers viewers a unique

opportunity to experience Times Square in a new light and share in a moment of

personal reflection and empathy amidst the hyperactivity of the district.”

You want to hear more?

The website goes on to say….."Installed at ground level on a wide low base, the work

invites engagement with the hundreds of thousands of people who traverse the plazas

each day, the woman in Grounded in the Stars cuts a stark contrast to the pedestaled

permanent monuments — both white, both men — which bookend Duffy Square, while

embodying a quiet gravity and grandeur,"…..oh, shutup…..that sounds like a line

from the Hunger Games…..let’s be honest, this is an embarrassment….how about

this….let’s put up statues of things that celebrate life, honor achievement,

memorialize sacrifice and heroism……

Not far from Times Square is one of my actual favorite statues of all time….near

Ground Zero adjacent to the former site of the Twin Towers stands a memorial

that I love…..it’s called the America’s Response Monument and it depicts an

amazingly detailed depiction of a Special Forces soldier on horseback in

Afghanistan…..it honors the men of Task Force Dagger…..I was originally part of

Task Force Dagger, and transitioned from their to Task Force Crossbow….it depicts

the bravery and sacrifice of the first soldiers who entered the war after the

attacks of 9/11 and for the first time in modern history some of us rode horses,

and lived away from everything and everybody…..and that’s our statue….and it’s

awesome….it was also commissioned by a group of investors from Wall Street

who had lost friends on 9/11….the investors chose to remain anonymous because

it was not about them…..it’s the only such monument to US Special Forces that is

openly accessible to the public and not on a military base

What does it take for a society to become so numb that it just accepts it as a

matter of course….that representations of honor, those monuments to who we

are, or who we say that we are, as a people, are just rendered ridiculously

trivial……do we or do we not believe as a culture in the sanctity of life, the

honoring of sacrifice, the exulting of heroism?.....I believe that the answer is still a

firm “yes”…..but too often the actions of those who deviate from our cultural

norms and mores become a mere statistic and we soon shelve them in favor of

the next shiny thing……we have to get a grip on that….we have to as a people, as a

culture, demand that achievement and merit be given value…..real value…..lasting

value…..like nothing else matters as much as that…..

And yes, I love the America’s Response monument…..but I can think of everyday

folks who did amazing things who don’t have their own monument…..how about

Maryrose Kristopik?

Maryrose Kristopik's actions during the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting can't be

described as anything but heroic. Thanks to her, 20 students survived those tragic

events. When the first shots rang out, the quick-thinking Kristopik moved her

class of 20 into a nearby closet and barricaded the door.

She said, "I did take the children into the closet and talked with them to keep

them quiet. I told them that I loved them,"  Kristopik said in an interview  with

the Daily Mail. "I said there was a bad person in the school. I didn't want to tell

them anything past that." Kristopik held the door tightly closed even as the

gunman reportedly was yelling "Let me in! Let me in!"

One mother of an 8-year-old student in Krisopik's class said her daughter was safe

due to her heroic actions. "My daughter's teacher is my hero," the mother said….

But to my knowledge Maryrose Kristopik has no statue……there should be

In another tragic event, this one at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado in

1999, Dave Sanders was a computer and business teacher and coach of the girls'

basketball and softball teams. ……His students said he was a teacher, a friend, a

mentor and an inspiration. …..When the gunmen started firing outside the school

he ran to the cafeteria and sounded the alarm….. He, along with two of the

school's janitors, helped get more than 100 students out of the path of danger by

herding them away from the shooters. …..He saved untold numbers of lives that

day….. By the time the gunmen arrived, the cafeteria was nearly empty thanks to

him. He was in the upstairs hall trying to get students safely hidden in classrooms

when he was shot from behind by one of the killers…... He was hit in the torso,

head and neck. He managed to get himself into a science lab where he bled to

death waiting for help …..Dave Sanders put himself in harms way to ensure the

safety of those with whom he had been entrusted…..

I don’t believe there is a statue in his honor…..but there should be…..

These are just two examples of heroes who valued the lives of others more than

enough to risk putting their own life in harms way to protect them…..I read their

examples and I am moved…..they are just two of many and the lives they and

others like them saved during these events are exponential and will have the

opportunity to excel and thrive because good people did hard things for the right

reasons in the face of evil actions…..

It reminds me that while we may have a segment of society that has become

desensitized to the value of life, and chooses to waste time and resources

mocking why monuments exist…… that truly there are a majority who still know

right from wrong, and who still know the meaning of that inarguable passage of

scripture when Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay

down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)……but the fact that good people

outnumber the bad does not absolve us of the responsibility of preserving that

sentiment, and ensuring that we never allow ourselves to become so callous and

immature that we can stand idly by while high-brow nonsense virtue signaling

takes the meaning of life and wrings it out like a wet rag….

If we are to be the City on a Hill…..if we are to be the nation that says that we are

vigilant against the apathy and angst that downplays the meaning of life….then

we have to point out the ludicrous schlump of a statue of the petulant lady in

Times Square and call it what it is…..a big fat bronze that has no standards and no

value or appreciation for life and bears no distinction of being placed in the

crossroads of the world…….

This is our country, this is our culture, this is our house…..and this we will defend

You can build a statue to that……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way…..