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Actually, it is my place, in 'this place', to feel the freedom to post my opinions,
views and feelings on any topic on this public forum.
If saying a nice thing about a guy, like, 'I'm sure he.... is a great person...' got you riled...
Well, I hope the rest of your day goes better, really.
Opinions of which you have no knowledge to base them. You have no idea how the donors have given their money. You said yourself "I'm sure he has given to the needy before". Then why do you feel the need to call them out for how they've chosen to donate in this case?
How many millions are you donating? You're not? Oh, okay.
Because poor people tend to be business owners in tourist destinations? Not usually. I guess you could make the case that it can help low-level servers when there are more covers, but it could also be argued that this low-paying, heavy hour workload only perpetuates their situations for a greater period of time.
I think there are more humane solutions to these problems than having them create financial prosperity for their owners.
Don't be silly, that's not what I meant. Cultural institutions in tourist areas give to charity. Yeah, it would be great if we could get all those people outside holding "Help me, I'm homeless" signs in the tourist area where I work jobs and new lives and turn them into the Cleavers or the Bradys or the Huxtables, but the reality is that there are always some people who are beyond the ability to care for themselves but still need to be fed and housed if we are going to have any sort of decency as a species. (Yes, many of them are junkies and some of them are simply professionals working the tourist crowd, but there are really some people who are just down and out and do not have the means, mind, or ability for self-care.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by llowllevellowll
I can understand the other poster's feeling on this topic but for slightly different reasons, and I briefly mentioned them in an earlier post, but it's simply that our feelings of emotion for historic and beautiful buildings in first-world European countries contrasts with our demonstrations of carelessness for similar works of arts in lesser nations that have, in some cases, been ransacked, bombed, or were otherwise destroyed by certain western nations. We do tend to choose which worldly possessions are worth keeping and which are undeserved of admiration.
Eh, I've been holding my breath for years (not literally, obviously) over Shanidar Cave in Iraq. I am not happy about the destruction of ANY culture's art, ancient sites, or religious shrines.
Nice to see the donations rolling in. I also saw the billionaires doing the donating are already lobbying for it to be a 90% tax write off. Wouldn't this mean the citizens end up paying for the majority of these donations?
Also be careful who you donate to, so many scams out there already.
I think that would mean that the donations would be treated as charitable donations. That would reduce their taxable income. But they would be giving far more in donations than they would be saving on taxes.
But if no one donated and the french gov decided to use tax money to rebuild, it would cost far more in citizens tax money, than would be lost due to the very rich saving some one taxes after donating $100s of millions.
So the choice would be, citizens pay all cost OR rich people donate most of the cost and citizen pay less OR tear it down.
Thanks for that JMT, having many friends spread out across the U.S. of A., I’m aware that it is only a very small minority of your compatriots that harbo(u)r an irrational dislike of France and the French.
However, being of French extraction, such undeserved insults royally pi$$ me off.
I'm sorry about that too. I'm a New Orleans native and I know what a rich heritage the French have given the United States. We have probably more shared culture than many people realize.
I don't know the answers to all your questions, but the windows were actually completely destroyed once before (during the French Revolution). What was there were replacements for the originals put in at a later time. So while it would still be a big loss if they are gone, there is a precedent for replacing them.
The statues of the apostles from atop the spire itself were all saved. They were actually removed a few days ago for cleaning.
I don't know about the relics. I heard no the news people (not sure if they were caretakers or firemen) were scrambling to save what they could before the fire spread. I would hope the relics would be some of the first things removed if possible.
At least one person here said you can't replace 800 years of history, it's gone and it shouldn't be rebuilt. Notre Dame has seen damage and destruction several times in its past. It was pretty much gutted during the French Revolution. It has been rebuilt or fixed several times. Rebuilding it again is repeating part of its history.
In a tragic sort of way, this fire may be what breathes life back into the cathedral. For years the structure had been crumbling and they couldn’t raise the funds to fix it properly. It seemed like no one really knew how bad the building was fairing or people thought someone else would take care of it. This attention and the desire to rebuild this important part of French and European cultural heritage has shined a spotlight on the building.
I agree with a lot of what you said but I do want to point out that actually some of the stained glass in the Cathedral was from the 13th century. It will be interesting to see how much of that survived.
They rebuilt the Dresden Frauenkirche pretty well from original plans and pictures, reusing a lot of the rubble.
Much of Germany was destroyed and rebuilt, especially during and after WW2 (but in other wars as well). In fact, I lived in Aschaffenburg which is near Frankfurt and it saw some really catastrophic fighting during WW2 and much of it was damaged or destroyed including the famous castle - Schloss Johannesburg. It was rebuilt using as much original material as possible and you can't even tell which parts were damaged and rebuilt and which parts are original.
Notre Dame can and will be rebuilt. The one problem I heard on the news today though was that there are no longer any trees producing timbers as large as the ones originally used, so they will have to use more contemporary means. I am sure it will look gorgeous when it's done but can you believe those timbers lasted over 800 years??????
I was glad to hear that the spire was a fairly recent addition ( rebuilt in the 1800s) and it was a more contemporary design at the time. I just hope that they don't get some crazy ass idea into their heads to put some ultra contemporary spire up or make some 21st century political statement with it. Ugh.
The posts on this thread are what bothers me about people. People will give money for a huge cathedral, but little or nothing to help the poor and needy. Sorry, but people are more important than buildings. The catholic church has the art works to sell and rebuild, but as is typical, they'll drain the money from others.
You are incorrect. The Catholic Church gives millions in aid directly to the poor in cash and charitable actions every year. There are missionaries on every continent helping the poor. Most every parish in the USA has been doing that since they were founded. My wife takes phone calls at her parish from the needy who need help paying for their rent or bills. Their committee of parish volunteers investigate, then distribute the cash. That does not include members who go overseas to help build schools and drill fresh water wells in desperately poor countries.
Seems there is always someone though who likes to flap their jaws over things they know nothing about.
As far as the Vatican collections, so what? Over the past thousand years it has sponsored most of those great master artists of old so the world could also enjoy their works of art. Does the Pope need to scrape off part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling to give it to some urchin in South America? If they sold a Tintoretto to a Russian billionaire would there be complaints that the Russian could’ve given the millions to the poor goatherds Afghanistan?
Some folks should become more informed before they post.
Anyway, bttt:
The Notre Dame Cathedral is owned by the French government, not the Vatican, so their taxpayers can help foot the bill too.
I'm sorry about that too. I'm a New Orleans native and I know what a rich heritage the French have given the United States. We have probably more shared culture than many people realize.
But hey, I like Germans too so there's that.
Everybody likes to make fun of Texas and the USA too, so folks should take the French-bashing with a grain of salt. It’s just humor, probably inherited from our Brit friends.
Caveat: Yours truly is 50% German, 25% English, 25% French, so I get to make fun of everybody.
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