Meanwhile, various offended Frenchmen are complaining that renting out the Louvre brand name debases the greatest museum in the world and is a national insult. In a possibly related story reported by the BBC last month, the staff at the Louvre had gone on strike, demanding a bonus for the stress of looking after the Mona Lisa and other popular masterpieces: "Attendants are demanding a bonus … because they suffer more stress. ... The stress is clearly linked to the number of visitors … What's unbearable is the constant hubbub of the crowd, especially in the really popular rooms," said a Louvre attendant who didn't want to be named.
Exactly why a person would take a job as a public attendant in the world's most visited museum if crowds of people stress him out is beyond my ken, but it probably has something to do with the singular work habits of your typical Frenchman habituated to over 1,000 years of worker disgruntlement. Perhaps they seek out jobs for which they are uniquely unfit precisely so they can complain about their job.
But if Frenchman don't like to work at the Paris Louvre, I can't help wondering how many Muslims will want to visit the Abu Dhabi Louvre. After all, most Muslims are deeply offended by representational art, which is why Islamic art is magnificent in its patterns, colors and calligraphy, but is a void when it comes to portraiture. And, in case the Abu Dhabi Louvre renters haven't noticed, Christian-European representational oils are the strongest part of the Louvre's magnificent collection. Even as a mere brand name knock-off (like Ralph Lauren putting his haute couture name on rags to be sold to fashion-hapless suburban mall bumpkins), one wonders how much cache the Louvre brand holds for your average infidel-hating Middle Easterner.
Of course, having a local Louvre in Abu Dhabi will be quite convenient for Halliburton CEO David Lesar working in nearby Dubai. But even if he and his staff are great museum enthusiasts, their patronage can't possibly support a billion-dollar museum. Still for Abu Dhabians, as it was for American tycoon widows of the 1920s, there is something pleasurable about buying up the treasures of Europe from groveling Europeans greedy for a piece of your new wealth. Europeans have been selling off -- and living off -- their patrimony for quite a while now. There is a lot of ruin in a civilization.
But as America is now driving its productive assets and people (such as Halliburton) away, we shouldn't be too smug. By the way, New York's Guggenheim Museum will be opening up their Abu Dhabi museum in 2012.
Tony Blankley
Tony Blankley, a conservative author and commentator who served as press secretary to Newt Gingrich during the 1990s, when Republicans took control of Congress, died Sunday January 8, 2012. He was 63.
Blankley, who had been suffering from stomach cancer, died Saturday night at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, his wife, Lynda Davis, said Sunday.
In his long career as a political operative and pundit, his most visible role was as a spokesman for and adviser to Gingrich from 1990 to 1997. Gingrich became House Speaker when Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives following the 1994 midterm elections.
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