Readers say new bridge should be named for Dred & Harriet Scott
The poll last week asked about the name of the new bridge being built across the Mississippi River.
Q: The new Mississippi River bridge is named “Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Bridge” but should named in honor of?
- Dred & Harriet Scott 39 [16.05%]
- Miles Davis 36 [14.81%]
- Other answer… 33 [13.58%]
- Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Bridge is good. 29 [11.93%]
- Pierre Laclede 24 [9.88%]
- Ulysses S. Grant 15 [6.17%]
- Louis Armstrong 14 [5.76%]
- Auguste Chouteau 13 [5.35%]
- Josephine Baker 10 [4.12%]
- Elijah Lovejoy 8 [3.29%]
- Phyllis Diller 7 [2.88%]
- Vincent Price 5 [2.06%]
- Katherine Dunham 5 [2.06%]
- Susan Blow 2 [0.82%]
- Agnes Moorehead 2 [0.82%]
- Shelley Winters 1 [0.41%]
- Irma Rombauer 0 [0%]
- Harland Bartholomew 0 [0%]
“Other” placed third, here are those answers along with the date & time received and commentary by me.
- John Hinckley, Jr. [ouch!]
- Mound City
- Henry Shaw Bridge [he has enough stuff with his name on it.]
- Nelly
- Tru-Link (Truman-Lincoln)
- Ike Turner
- Generic Design
- James E. Slagle Memorial Bridge [a friend that passed away last year]
- Tennessee Williams
- Anyone/thing BUT Reagan.
- Anyone but Reagan
- Ronald Reagan
- T. S. Eliot Bridge
- Charles Lindbergh
- Meriwether Bridge
- George W. Bush [I’d go with Reagan before Bush]
- Homer G. Phillips
- I-70 bridge
- Don’t name it after a person. [suggestions?]
- Luther Ely Smith
- Mark Twain
- Albert Pujols Bridge
- Dave Sinclair
- Albert Pujols
- John Berry Meachum
- Veterans’ Bridge
- Mary Meachum (underground railroad)
- Dred Scott
- nobody, no one
- Malcolm X
- Stan Musial
- Peter E. Parisi
- Max Factor
I’m still not sure if the name of the bridge is up for debate or if it is a done deal.
– Steve Patterson
Dred & Harriet Scott sounds good to me. Their struggle against racial injustices and hate is a story we shouldn't forget.
# Peter E. Parisi Sunday, May 9th 6:40AM … I like that one… hahaha nice!
16% is no mandate, nor is it anything near a consensus. A start, yes, but no more of a final answer than Ronald Reagan appears to be . . .
Right.
Instead of “Most Readers say. . .”, Steve's title here should read “A Plurality of Those Responding to my poll say. . .”
Poor headline on my part — I just deleted “most” from the start of the headline.
I think Reagan is a great name for our new bridge. This is probably a bit of a stretch, but perhaps the name will lend itself to the city's effort to promote itself around the country as a nice Midwestern city, centered on traditional family values. Reagan did represent, in many ways, the true spirit of a America.
What, by being a war criminal? Oh, and he didn't “save” the Soviet people from a statist economy. The dissidents did. Andrei and Yelena Sakharov were the most prominent amongst thousands who resisted the Soviet state apparatus. Mr. Reagan oversaw the increased destabilisation of Central America through that administration's aid of military and economic assets to some of the most brutal and anti-democratic regimes in modern history. Rape and murder of Catholic nuns Maura Clark, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and lay worker Jean Donovan anyone? Left in a shallow grave by the side of the road?Massacres of entire villages by troops trained by our military “advisors” and with our money? Murder of six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her child? All of it, blood on Ronald Reagan's hands. This is just a short list of his crimes. Well, our crimes. All in the name of anti-communism. Oh, I forgot. The murder by assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero DURING MASS! Are you too young to know about this, or does your fealty to a particular idealogy blind you to the facts? Putting Ronald Reagan's name on the bridge is a slap in the face to American values and ideals. Reagan was in many ways a fabrication, the perfect storm of marketing and an economic downturn caused by our countries addiction to Saudi oil, and the Iranian hostage incident. Ironically, considering that the Shah Reza Pahlavi was installed by the US and Great Britain in 1953–at the behest of British Petroleum, part of historical record–it's possible that the entirety of the destabilisation of the middle east may not have happened if we had left the Iranian people to their own devices. But, no, the radical elements of Islam used this and others of what they saw as affronts to their religion to radicalise large numbers of the populace. American foreign policy has been a disaster in the that area of the world. And St. Ronnie only made things worse. I could go on, but I may as well be talking to a brick wall.
Re: BP/Iran. It was probably no coincidence that about the time that we usurped the will of the Iranian people, the US had ceased producing 100% percent of our own oil and gas. We began importing oil in about 1954-55. Don't like the guy running that country? Overthrow it and install someone, ahem, friendlier to our interests. Yeah, real American values there. FYI, just because American, British and French oil companies discovered and developed the middle eastern oil fields, the oil, and the land above it, still belonged to the nations and peoples of that region. Ya' know, soveriegnty, and all that.
The John Hinckley Bridge would be PRICELESS. Much love for Dred and Harriet, but I'm disappointed that Phyllis Diller lost. Vincent Price, too.