Kind of meta but what is the construction equipment in pic 5?
It feels like a scraper, used for grading.
What? In what way does it feel like a scraper?
The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
11–20 of 214 posts
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#12Unclear as to the intent of the word "Heist" in the title. Seems they are paying top dollar if not more for collections sometimes not even authenticating them.
As long as they make everything available to the public and to researchers, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Also unclear on why this is a two-part story. Is there some big shoe to drop? Trying to avoid the impression that the author is not terribly fond of the Green family.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#13Kind of meta but what is the construction equipment in pic 5?
Might be a telescopic handler, basically a giant forklift
It's more of a crossover between crane and forklift. telehandlers are more useful than a forklift, but less useful than a crane while being much more mobile than a crane. all four wheels can turn/steer so it is pretty agile.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#14Taking faith seriously:
“he staffed “cerebral palsy patients” to chop, glue, and bag for $.10 per piece.
Between the high demand and likely paying workers a subminimum wage, profits soared”
Nothing like exploitation to drive home Christianity.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#15I wish the author was a little less over-wrought in her descriptions of the Green family's religious commitments. I've heard complaints before about the Green's artifact acquisition process, and they've had to return some manuscripts: it's a story worth investigating and telling. But it distracts from the author's main point when she's making snide comments about their faith. Yes, they're Christians who are successfu…
Completely agree. I think the author's tone in this article, in a nutshell, exemplifies what was a huge driving force of so many evangelical's in the US now being firmly in the MAGA camp, even though that seems paradoxical to many of us.
For a long time now, many people who's religious values are deeply important to them have felt disrespected and looked down upon by "the left" (yes, I'm obviously painting with a broad brush here). In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the elite left essentially said "you all are backwards and silly". And look, I'm an atheist who has felt acute harms from religion in some very specific ways, so I get it - a lot of times I believe that religion is backwards and silly. But Trump and MAGA came along and essentially said "you're not backwards and silly, you're the righteous ones, the ones who are condemning you are backwards and silly". And yes, Trump has been married 3 times, had an affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, values displays of material wealth above all else, etc. etc., so I struggle mightily many times to understand how a community that preached "family values" so stridently for my entire youth supports him now so unconditionally. But, IMO, it's because Trump really constantly drove home this message of "you should be proud, and the only people who should be ashamed are 'the other side'".
I know that may feel like a tangent, but I've seen the general dismissive tone of this article repeated so many times (e.g. in much reporting about the Chick-fil-a family) that it now feels easy to recognize.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#16Kind of meta but what is the construction equipment in pic 5?
60s-70s rough terrain crane. Grove RT58, RT60 or something along those lines.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#17I wish the author was a little less over-wrought in her descriptions of the Green family's religious commitments. I've heard complaints before about the Green's artifact acquisition process, and they've had to return some manuscripts: it's a story worth investigating and telling. But it distracts from the author's main point when she's making snide comments about their faith. Yes, they're Christians who are successfu…
Isn’t the hobby lobby crew also notoriously queer bashers?
I would think the issue is not so much that they’re Christian, it’s that they’re hypocrites who use Christianity as a smokescreen for bigotry.
(The relevance being, they’re using Christianity as cover for capitalism in a way that Jesus himself, as depicted in the Bible, would certainly never have sanctioned.)
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#18I wish the author was a little less over-wrought in her descriptions of the Green family's religious commitments. I've heard complaints before about the Green's artifact acquisition process, and they've had to return some manuscripts: it's a story worth investigating and telling. But it distracts from the author's main point when she's making snide comments about their faith. Yes, they're Christians who are successfu…
What exactly do you find "snide" or "sarcastic?"
The thesis of TFA is that their faith motivated the crimes. You can't tell the story without talking about how they choose to practice their faith.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#19Unclear as to the intent of the word "Heist" in the title. Seems they are paying top dollar if not more for collections sometimes not even authenticating them. As long as they make everything available to the public and to researchers, I don't see anything wrong with it. Also unclear on why this is a two-part story. Is there some big shoe to drop? Trying to avoid the impression that the author is not terribly fond of…
The "heist", which presumably gets covered in part 2, is that a lot of these items were originally looted from Iraq after the US invasion in 2003. US Customs ended up seizing a lot of them, and about 15,000 items ended up having to be returned.
Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist
#20Unclear as to the intent of the word "Heist" in the title. Seems they are paying top dollar if not more for collections sometimes not even authenticating them. As long as they make everything available to the public and to researchers, I don't see anything wrong with it. Also unclear on why this is a two-part story. Is there some big shoe to drop? Trying to avoid the impression that the author is not terribly fond of…
I think it really is a problem if they're getting artifacts without clear provenance. They've had to return some manuscripts, and I thought that they'd cleaned up their acquisition process. But perhaps not?
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2020/04/bible-museum-steve...
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-museum-bible-w...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/museum-of-the-bibl...