Minerva

Standing majestically in Manhattan’s Herald Square, Minerva looks down on the busy crossroads of Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Originally perched atop the NY Herald at the north end of the square, she now overlooks the little patch of concrete like a mortuary stone. Minerva was a Roman goddess of wisdom, commerce, trade, poetry, and sponsor of the arts.

A light rain is falling now and I notice it trickling down her face. Is this precipitation dripping down a metal object, or is Minerva weeping for the death of the now defunct NY Herald? The Herald was a competitor of the New York Times, her northern rival situated in its namesake Times Square.

I believe that Minerva laments the death of a newspaper, a beacon of light that illuminates the dark corners of a dangerous world, a world that does its best through its machinations and manipulations to distort the common good. An enemy of lies, each journalistic torch adds three dimensionally to the world that envelops us and is hated by businessmen and politicians for its dogged search for the truth.

While there are still other great newspapers, the loss of one perspective results in less clarity to bring an issue into focus. Darkness, ignorance, fear and prejudice revel and thrive in the death of illumination, which interferes with their mission of malevolent self-preservation.