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A POLICE INVESTIGATION has been launched after a Florida statue based on the famous photograph of a US sailor kissing a woman to celebrate the ending of World War II was spray painted with the mantra “#MeToo”.
The incident occured yesterday morning, a day after the sailor featured in the photograph, George Mendonsa died aged 95. The woman in the photo is Greta Zimmer Friedman, a dental assistant in a nurse’s uniform.
The photo was taken in Times Square on 14 August 1945, which is known as V-J Day it was the day Japan surrendered to the United States.
Sarasota police received a report that the ‘Unconditional Surrender’ statue, located at an intersection in Sarasota, Florida had been vandalised at 12.53am.
When officers arrived, they found the words #MeToo spray-painted in red along the left leg of the nurse. The red lettering covered the length of the nurse’s leg.
A search was conducted in the area to locate spray paint bottles, but none were found. During the canvass, no other objects were observed to be defaced or spray painted.
There was no available surveillance video in the area that captured the incident, and there are no known witnesses, police said.
It’s believed the incident occurred on Monday between the mid-afternoon and evening.
Repairing the damage is estimated to cost more than $1,000 due to the large area that the graffiti covered, and the resources needed to repair it.
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FFS…. World is gone mad!
@Sean Leonard: I’m hungry…. MeToo lol.
It costs +$1000 to use a steam cleaner for 2 minutes? Irish consultants must be on the case.
@Gareth Stewart: from the daylight pictures it would appear the statue is also painted, as opposed to solid stone, hence using a steam cleaner for 2 minutes would only further damage the artwork. As such a more complex cleaning process was probably required
@Vocal Outrage: thanks for the clarification, man!
@Vocal Outrage: ….or woman!
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: careful now!
When Chuck Norris attends a feminist rally, he comes back with his shirt ironed.
@Damo.f: me too.
@Damo.f: The funniest comment I have ever read on the Journal!!
I consider myself a feminist, in that equality for men and women is a good thing for everyone.
I’m also very opposed to sexual harassment obviously. But when people take the me too movement or feminism a step too far it tars the whole idea.
Let’s have a little common sense here!
@Motherofthree: no common sense anymore the femanazi’s want to rule the world.
@owen kirwan: no common sense or middle ground anywhere anymore. Everything, including politics, has moved to extremes. It’s actually dangerous how the world is fragmenting socially and polarisation is the new normal. Brexit is a typical example, Britain will never be the same again.
a lot of feminists tend to have some mental condition, Borderline personalities etc. Don’t ever let your kids catch it, it will drag them down, they will become entitled and the opposite sex will tend to find them repulsive.
@Dave Dublin: What a crock of nonsense
@Dave Dublin: A gust of wind wouldn’t take them out
@Dave Dublin: jeeeeesus. Calm down Dave, think you got a touch of the hysterics. The woman in the picture is on record saying it wasn’t a very nice moment for her at all.
@Dave Dublin: so when exactly did your wife or girlfriend leave you Dave ?
Wow! :-0 I see the sentiment, man grabs a random woman to kiss. I get that people would be upset about that considering the #MeToo movement. But, in the historical context, Japan had just surrendered to US after nuking the bejaysus outta Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively setting off a chain of events that will eventually lead to the end of WWII. And some Rando(s) thought it would be a good idea to spray #MeToo on the actual monument. To be fair the person or people could have decided to spray the ground beside it, without defacing the monument but that doesn’t grab headlines I suppose. Anyhoos, Happy Wednesday folks :)
Surprisingly Donald Trump has yet to be spray-painted with the “Me too” logo.
He was just badly tangoed numerous times.
@BAAB: #TrumpDerangementSyndrome
I get it but no need for the graffiti.
@Annie Citric: what’s to get?
@Annie Citric: get what ?
@Annie Citric: me too
@E Murphy is an incel: your assuming the kiss was non consensual…please let us all know how you ‘know’ this.
@E Murphy is an incel: Could you elaborate upon your remark please?
@Bumder: the only reason that comes to mind is that the Man in the famous photo did not know the nurse when he spontaneously grabbed and kissed her.
Silly but clearly the message.
@SFNutters: because the dental nurse stated many times that it was non consensual. It didn’t bother her too much, but she definitely didn’t give consent.
@Arch Angel: sarcasm
@SFNutters: The dental nurse has said many times it was non consensual. He grabbed her and she did not know him.
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: but that is nothing more than an assumption. By the body language of the female in the original photo she was at ease, hand drapped and fingers relaxed. The hardly the stance of someone screaming for support from neo feminists. Also, the word feminist always gets flagged as a toxic comment here, msybe they have a point
@ChuckE: Dear ChuckE, please Google what the word assumption means. Your post = Assumption. Rebecca’s post is factually based on well known interviews with the 2 people involved.
@Hilary Mc: when is a kiss ever consensual. I mean nobody ever asks someone can I kiss u. It enivitably tends to be one person initiating and the other either says no or not. This woman never said no. They became friends after the kiss and met many times afterwards
@ChuckE: a female in an assault situation that is inescapable will very often make herself limp to minimise the physical affects on her own body.
Now I know we are only discussing a grab and kiss here, but reading body language is a tricky game in this and other worse situations.
@Rebecca Ford: wait, so you are saying she is being or has been sexually assaulted. Just to clarify and I’m open to admitting I’m wrong but did the female ever make such a statement?
@ChuckE: hi no I’m not stating that at all. I’d actually gone on a slight tangent from this case and wanted to illustrate how a person’s body language can be very hard to decipher when they feel under physical threat so it’s a dangerous road to go down. You see people commenting a lot on serious assaults, wondering why the woman didn’t fight back, but sadly sometimes it gets to a point where submission is damage limitation. But to the observer submission is wrongly read as participation. It’s part of a much bigger discussion, and is much bigger than this incident depicted by the statue. But I see it so much in other situations that it’s got to the stage that I feel like making a point of it.
My comment related to modern context. It’s definitely worthy of thought.
Who said that she didn’t want to be kissed?
@Vincent Doyle: she did. When she was asked long AFTERWARDS
@Rebecca Ford: And your point being? Who says he didn’t ask at the time? And if he didn’t it was a different world 70+ years ago
@eddie horgan: my point being that the woman in question said so.
I know things were very different.
@Rebecca Ford: Yes I have heard this before. Easy comment to make. Show me the reference to this. Link it here.
@Rebecca Ford: She said she was surprised by the kiss. I was surprised by a kiss once or twice myself.
@Vincent Doyle:
“It wasn’t my choice to be kissed,” Friedman told Redmond. “The guy just came over and grabbed!”
That’s in the smithsonian mag. You can chase the link yourself.
I’m not making a big deal of this, just answering your original question.
@Vincent Doyle: She did…
feck sake
I suggest to the men on the journal to embrace the love of man! Trust me its brilliant!
It’s an image of its time. Nothing more. I don’t see a sexual assault in this, but I do see a little of ‘we’re back, wars over, now back to the kitchen with you’.
Even so, it should be left alone, because it’s greatest message is relief and survival. Who cares if it’s not perfect.
#FMETOO
How could a couple of cans of graffiti removal spray cost $1000?
Culprit should be not too hard to find… follow the trail of Cat Urine Smell to the apartment with a single mad lady with a bag full of cats.
have your say