Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: Nareed

Thus far all I know, at the risk of derailing this thread even further, is that: "That's a 'not-an-icon'."

As in, "Thou shalt not make a graven image"?

Quote: Wizard

As in, "Thou shalt not make a graven image"?

Exactly! Graven means "sculpted, carved" late 14c. and related to the verb engrave.

Icon and iconic has a secular meaning, but when you are talking about "holy icons" as in Roman or Eastern or Greek catholic there is a big theology point. The Catholic church wants to be clear that they are not making "graven images" or little pagan gods, and that the image is merely a way to focus your prayers. So a religious icon has to be without perspective.


The geometric perspective that we know today was developed in Italy in the 15th century, although there was some history of perspective going back long before then. A less religious person might say that icons were painted originally before perspective was well understood. They then maintained that look after they knew better because of the connotations of not making a graven image.

Now we all know that eventually religious art became very realistic looking, but you didn't sit in front of the painting and pray to it, like the icons.

My apologies to FrGamble if I screwed up that explanation. I am not Catholic, but I am trying to remember what I was taught in History of Art 40 years ago.

Quote: Pacomartin

Now we all know that eventually religious art became very realistic looking, but you didn't sit in front of the painting and pray to it, like the icons.

They do that with the "not-an-icon" things here. They also leave offerings and light votive candles.

"Not-an-icon" of Jesus are less common, but you see some now and then.

These are two casinos I found in the Zona Rosa. More information about them shortly.

The statue next to the Emotion Casino should have given you some clue that you were in what wikitravel calls "the gayest street of Mexico City".

Actually whoever took that photograph took it from a peculiar angle. In reality it is a very common type of public art in Mexico, which tends towards socially conscious art, highlighting injustices, and showing off the best of "La Raza" which is often a muscled man engaged in physical labor.

Quote: Pacomartin

The statue next to the Emotion Casino should have given you some clue that you were in what wikitravel calls "the gayest street of Mexico City".

Ironically, I saw a lot of statues of nude women in the Zona Rosa. I didn't notice the statue you refer to, but I didn't need any further clues.

On another topic, I'd like to remind everybody that Benito Juarez's birthday is in three days. How are you planning to celebrate?

Quote: Wizard

How are you planning to celebrate?

Celebrate?

BTW, Juarez was a ruthless dictator and a thug. He'd have gone into oblivion quietly, had Napoleon ]I[ And the US not taken leave of their senses just then. Trivia: the first mass movement in Mexico to call for an end to reelection was led by Porfirio Diaz against Juarez.

Celebrate? Really?

Quote: Nareed

Celebrate?

Then why are streets, cities, and airports all named after him if he is so bad? I get the impression that he is exalted in Mexico like George Washington is exalted here.

Quote: Wizard

Then why are streets, cities, and airports all named after him if he is so bad?

Because Napoleon /// and The US took leave of their sense just then.

First the lesser Bonaparte tried to institute a puppet monarchy in Mexico. Then the US decided to be embroiled in a civil war at the moment, so it couldn't do much to keep the French from installing a very minor Austrian noble right at their southern border.

Absent all this, Juarez would have had to contend with popular discontent directed at him, the Cristero guerillas, and some other issues like foreign debt. He'd be lucky if anyone remembered he even existed. In fact, that was exactly what was happening before Nappy the Third got delusions of being Napoleon I.

I'll amend the description: Juarez was a dictator and a thug, and an opportunist with a talent for spin and PR.

Quote: Wizard

I get the impression that he is exalted in Mexico like George Washington is exalted here.

He usually is compared to Abraham Lincoln who was his contemporary. President Lincoln never met Benito Juarez, but Lincoln met with his Margarita Maza, Juarezes wife, who spent much of the war in exile in Washington DC with their children. She was very popular in DC, and Lincoln treated her as Mexico's first lady despite the fact that Maximilian was the Emperor. President Lincoln was a great admirer of Juarez and stole badly needed arms to abandon over the border to aid Juarez's cause. Abraham Lincoln is much admired in Mexico for those efforts and his constant opposition to the Mexican-American war which is probably the primary reason Lincoln served only a single 2 year term in Congress decades before becoming president.

Statue commemorating Abraham Lincoln in Tijuana


Statue commemorating Abraham Lincoln in Mexico City (Abraham Lincoln es muy apreciado por los mexicanos, por su valiente oposición a la Guerra Mexicano-Americana (1846 - 1848), antes de ser presidente, cuando era Representante (diputado) del Congreso de Estados Unidos.)


Naturally, there are many Americans who widely denounce some American Presidents whom history has deemed to be great presidents. Woodrow Wilson is possibly the best known example. But Nareed's vilification of Juarez is a little surprising to me also. Most Mexican Presidents are either deified or demonized to a much greater extent than American Presidents, but I was always under the impression that Juarez, Madero, and Cárdenas were almost universally lionized.

Now if Juarez had lived to age 84, like Porfirio Diaz, instead of dying at age 66, he might very well have tried to hold onto the presidency for the rest of his life. Of course George Washington , Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt are consistently ranked as our three greatest presidents, and FDR and Lincoln did hold the presidency for their entire life, and may never have voluntarily given it up. Many scholars also think that George Washington gets too much credit for leaving after two terms, as he knew he was sick. They think he put a good spin on his retirement after 8 years.

I was aware that Porfirio Diaz started the first widely embraced "No reeleccion!" campaign against Juarez, but it is usually presented as an extremely ironic fact given his behavior in later life.

There are statues of President Benito Juarez in NYC, Washington DC, and Chicago. That would make him one of the more widely honored foreign presidents in the USA.