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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This came across my e-mail.<BR><BR> --
<BR>Webb Hubbell <<A
href="mailto:whubbell@telocity.com">whubbell@telocity.com</A>><BR>Bridgeport
Group, LLC<BR>4459 Westover Place, N.W.<BR>Washington, DC
20016<BR>202-363-2264<BR><BR><BR><BR>><BR>> AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN
ASHCROFT,<BR>> ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES<BR>><BR>><BR>>
The following letter was read aloud by the author at this year's "In<BR>>
Celebration of the Muse," Cabrillo College. The author is a woman of
60+<BR>> years, conservatively dressed and obviously talented. She was
the<BR>highlight<BR>> of the evening.<BR>><BR>>
~~~~~~<BR>><BR>> On January 28, 2002, Attorney
General John Ashcroft announced that<BR>> he spent $8,000 of taxpayer's money
for drapery to cover up the exposed<BR>> breast of "The Spirit of
Justice" statue, the 18-ft statue of a woman<BR>that<BR>> stands in the
Department of Justice's Hall of
Justice.<BR>><BR>>
John, John, John, you've got your priorities all wrong. While<BR>men<BR>> fly
airplanes into skyscrapers, dive-bomb the pentagon, while they stick<BR>>
explosives into their shoes and book a seat next to us, while they hide<BR>>
knives in their luggage, steal kids on school buses, take little
girls<BR>from<BR>> their beds at night, drive trucks into our Federal
Buildings, while our<BR>> president calls dangerous men all over the world
evildoers and devils,<BR>while<BR>> we live in the threat of biological
warfare, nuclear destruction,<BR>> annihilation, YOU have spent time and
money to save us from the appalling<BR>> alarming, abominable, aluminum alloy
of evil, that terrible ten-foot tin<BR>> tittie.<BR>><BR>>
You might not be able to find Bin Laden. But you sure as hell found the<BR>>
Hooter in the Hall of Justice. While we were begging the women of<BR>>
Afghanistan to not cover up their faces, you were begging your staff to<BR>>
cover up that nipple to save the American people the sight of
that<BR>monstrous<BR>> metal
mammary.<BR>><BR>> So,
apparently, in your office every morning, in your secret<BR>> prayer meeting,
while an American woman is sexually assaulted every 6<BR>> seconds, while
anthrax floats around the post office and settles in the<BR>> chest of senior
citizens, you've got a different chest on your
mind.<BR>><BR>>
As American sons arrive home in body bags, and heat-seeking<BR>> missiles fly
around a foreign country looking for warm bodies, you are<BR>> thinking of
another body. And your prayer was for the biggest bra in the<BR>> world,
John, because you see that breast on the "Spirit of Justice" in the<BR>>
spirit of your own inhibited sexuality.<BR>><BR>> When we
women see our grandmothers, our mothers, our daughters, our<BR>>
granddaughters, our sisters, ourselves, when we women see that statue
the<BR>> Spirit of Justice, we see the spirit of strength, the spirit of
survival.<BR>><BR>>
Every day we see innocent bodies dragged out of rubble, and<BR>women<BR>> and
children laid out like thin limp dolls and baptized into death as<BR>>
collateral damage, while the mother's milk of a hollow-eyed Afghani
mother<BR>> has dried up underneath her burka in famine, and her children lie
dead at<BR>> her
breast.<BR>><BR>>
But you see that breast, John, that Jug on the Spirit of<BR>Justice<BR>> and
feel embarrassment over sex, nakedness, and lust. We
see<BR>> the Sprit of Justice as a testimony to motherhood.
You see it as an<BR>> exposed
tit.<BR>><BR>>
It's not the money it cost us. It's the message you
sent.<BR>><BR>>
We've got the right to live in freedom. We've got the right to<BR>> cheat
other Americans out of millions of dollars and then just not<BR>>
want to tell Congress about
it.<BR>><BR>> We've got
the right to drop bombs night and day on a small<BR>> country that has no
army, no navy, no military at all, because we've got<BR>the<BR>> right to
bear arms. But we'd better not even think about the right
to<BR>bare<BR>>
breasts.<BR>><BR>>
So now, John, you can be photographed while you stand there<BR>and<BR>> talk
about guns and bombs and poisons without that breast appearing over<BR>> your
right shoulder, without that bothersome bodacious bosom bugging
you<BR>and<BR>> we just wanted to tell you in the spirit of justice in the
spirit
of<BR>truth:<BR>><BR>>
For all your efforts and concern, John, when you are up there<BR>> speaking,
there is still a great big boob uncovered in the
picture.<BR>><BR>> -Claire
Braz-Valentine<BR>><BR>>
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