This week, after a proposal from Sen. Chuck Shumer (D-NY) that the Russell Senate Office Building be renamed to honor Sen. John McCain, a hacker decided to see how it would look on Google maps. (Maybe it was the same hacker who changed Trump Tower to Dump Tower in November 2016.) The result, above, was quickly removed by Google.
At first I was very much in favor of the name change. I thought it would be a great way to honor the late senator. Then I began reading that Russell was a segregationist and white supremacist and that was part of the reason people wanted to change the name. To me that makes it a bit like tearing down a Confederate statue, an effort to eliminate a reminder of a less-than-glorious past, an effort to deny and whitewash our history. If we’re going to tear down statues because they offend some people, then we’ll end up tearing down the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial because they were slave owners.
There are those who say Shumer proposed the idea just to annoy Republicans — most notably, Donald Trump. Given this and other issues surrounding the proposed name change, I’m thinking we should just move on and find another way to honor Sen. McCain. That assumes, of course, that the two parties can eventually agree on something.
Name a ship after him, after all they named one after Reagan and he wasn’t even in the navy, an aircraft carrier would be right/
Good idea! I would like to see something done in Washington too, as a daily reminder of what an honorable man should be.
It will take a Democrat President to honour the Senator in an appropriate manner you can bet on it, Someone like Joe Biden
Well, it could be a while before they decide on anything. Like after another election or two. McCain was a Republican, after all.
I realize that, I was thinking perhaps a decent Democrat, would beat them to the punch, and the way Joe Biden spoke, if he ran and got in in November 1920 then he might;
I think that’ll be the last one I might get to witness 😀
I was so disappointed that he didn’t run last time. But he’d not yet recovered from the loss of his son. Crossing my fingers that he’ll run next time.
excellent
The hacking, or the proposed renaming of the office building?
Renaming- really like the ship idea
A link to an article here in Arizona that shows Senator McCain was added to the ship named after his grandfather and father.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2018/07/11/u-s-navy-names-ship-after-senator-john-mccain/
Seems like a logical step. On the other hand, I’m thinking the senator deserves something more. Like a carrier, as mentioned above. Could be some years before we see another one, however.
A monument on government property is, I submit, different from a monument on private property, say, a museum, cemetery or by an office complex. If it’s government, then it’s there because it is sanctioned on behalf of the government’s subjects, implying approval. That said, I think government naming should always have a mandatory cooling-off period, say several years at least. When I reported to my first shore duty I worked at Cape Kennedy. Ten years later its name was returned to the historically meaningful “Cape Canaveral.”
I’ve no doubt we’ll see a cooling off period in this case, if only for lack of agreement in a very polarized Washington. I just hope something appropriate does eventually get done.