
Authorities cover up nude Roman statues to not offend Iranian president - jstreebin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/12122665/Anger-in-Italy-after-authorities-cover-up-nude-Roman-statues-of-goddesses-so-as-not-to-offend-Iranian-president.html
======
kshatrea
Completely OT but somehow relevant in my mind: this kind of submission getting
up symbolizes how HN is now becoming mainstream - there is nothing even
marginally "hacker" about this post - unless they were using some cool new
optic fiber to make the statues "invisible".

~~~
gioele
From
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
> answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

I guess the guidelines are not so strict.

------
hackuser
It's an interesting philosophical question, but the only reason this is being
reported is because the Iranian President is Muslim. People who believe in
Islam should not be subject to extra scrutiny, nor should respect, tolerance
and friendship directed toward Muslim people be questioned as some sort of
capitulation.

If we want a good outcome, we need more tolerance and less divisiveness and
paranoia. We know very well from history that the latter results in very bad
things - death, oppression, war, etc. - and what good comes from them?

IIRC, George W. Bush's Attorney General John Ashcroft had a nude statue in the
Justice Department covered because he didn't like nudes.

~~~
nsxwolf
Regarding "Drapegate", It's not known exactly who ordered the drapes put there
or why. Even if it was Ashcroft, his motivation is not necessarily not liking
nudes. He may have been annoyed by media photographers standing at odd angles
to get photos of the breast next to his head. This was an in-joke amongst
photographers that started with Edwin Meese - getting a photo of a breast next
to a conservative AG, bonus points if he happens to be bashing porn at the
time.

------
Sleaker
When in Rome..... oh wait, I guess not.

------
cryoshon
These statues are artful history of our human heritage...

I understand the effortful making nice with foreign diplomats, but come on,
the Iranian president has likely seen actual people nude before without
exploding into an atomic nova of violated regressive doctrine.

------
Nursie
It seems unclear where the order to do this might have come from, and with the
feeling in much of Europe at the moment it will be seen as cultural
capitulation by many.

It's somewhat scary and the consequences are hard to forsee, but the
combination of recent atrocities and the refugee crisis does seem to be
reawakening various forms of European nationalism as people (rightly or
wrongly) perceive their culture to be under attack.

This won't help.

What's this doing on HN by the way?

------
FussyZeus
Statues covered up: In my mind it depends where it comes from. - If the
visiting Iranian delegation requests it I would say it's a little ignorant and
petty for a visiting foreign representative to request something like that.
You have to know Italy has naked statues in it. There's no way you can't know
that. Asking your host entity to cover them up because you don't like them (or
like them too much?) strikes me as extremely arrogant and haughty. \- If it
comes from the Italian Government, I'd say it's somewhat disingenuous. If
they're so much a problem, they shouldn't be there in the first place, and if
they aren't, it's just showing the Government is ashamed of it's own culture
which is kind of weird. \- If it's just the museum going "Hey this guy is
visiting, his culture doesn't really dig this kind of thing, why don't we be
polite and cover it up" I think that's perfectly acceptable and frankly very
polite of them to do.

As to his aides asking him not to be photographed next to the statue: Who
cares? It's his image, let him maintain it how he sees fit.

