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The ConsTiTuTion’s 70Th anniversary
/ Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Kenneth Davison McClintock
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22nd Secretary of State of Puerto Rico
An anniversary to unite or divide us The Right to Life
On July 3, 1952, slightly over 70 years ago, Congress amended and approved Puerto Rico’s new constitution. Twenty-two days later, Governor Luis Muñoz-Marín promulgated the document –54 years after the day American military forces arrived in Puerto Rico during the SpanishAmerican War– thus erasing the holiday that, for over half a century, commemorated that event and replacing it with “Constitution Day.”
On Monday, Puerto Rico will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of our Constitution, one of the most modern, succinct and best state constitutions in our nation.
While many statehood leaders will claim to have other things to do, reflecting the discomfort in celebrating Governor Muñoz-Marín’s crowning achievement, I intend to be there. Why?
First of all, our Constitution was drafted by Muñoz’ stalwarts, along with several statehood advocates, such as don Luis A. Ferré, Puerto
Rico’s first pro-statehood governor.
Second, our Constitution did not alter Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the rest of our nation. We were an organized, unincorporated territory before then, and we remain an organized, unincorporated territory today.
Third, when we are admitted into the Union, as a growing majority of our electorate desires, without changing a word, Puerto Rico will be able to keep our 70 year-old Constitution as our state constitution. What supporters of the status quo consider their symbol today, will become the most important symbol of the state of Puerto Rico upon our admission into the Union.
The 70th anniversary celebration of our Constitution is being organized by the pro-status quo leadership of the House of Representatives. Some may slip into the temptation of trying to politicize the public-funded event in support of the status quo and against the prevailing sentiment for statehood. One way of slipping into temptation would be, rather than raising Puerto Rico’s flag as a strict historical reenactment –with a flag with exactly the same colors as the red and dark-blue flag raised by Muñoz in 1952– raising a flag with a lighter shade of blue that separatists have been promoting since 2000.
PDP and Senate President José Luis Dalmau, on the other hand, has devoted personal time and efforts in DC to attract a worthy high-level VIP to represent the federal government at the anniversary celebration.
Neither attempts to subtly politicize the event, nor the presence of President Biden, Vice President Harris, Leader Schumer or Speaker Pelosi, or other lesser VIPs would add any electoral support for the status quo. In that sense, House or Senate leaders are skidding their wheels if seeking those objectives in the past few days or weeks.
It is in everyone’s best interests that Puerto Rico can unite this Monday –as a previous generation united 70 years ago to draft and approve– to celebrate a constitution that has served us well in the past, serves us well today and will serve us the day we become a state of the Union. To the extent that we celebrate united, it will allow Puerto Rico to measure the political maturity of its leaders, whether they are advocates of the status quo that resist falling into the temptation of politicizing the celebration, or whether they are statehood advocates that accept the reality that the symbol of the status quo for the past seven decades will transform into the symbol of the admitted state of Puerto Rico for many decades thereafter.
If something can be ascertained of the disastrous electoral results obtained by the New Progressive Party and the Popular Democratic Party in the 2020 elections, is that our electorate voted against more of the same and expect a greater deal of maturity from its leaders. Monday,
“The Right to Life” is a phrase used in the national discourse only in the context of the beginning of life when discussing women’s right to choose or the end of life and euthanasia. However, at least once a person is born, he or she has an enduring right of survival throughout life. In designing several important federal programs since as far back as the nineteenth century, the Federal government has sought to help Americans prolong their lives.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln saw the need to create a system, now known as the Department of Veteran Affairs, to provide those who fought in America’s wars with medical services that would help them live and receive medical services. Few nations provide those who have served the level of health services as America.
During the Depression, as part of the New Deal, the federal government saw the need to help Americans who could not afford basic health services, and began to provide some assistance.
In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson spearheaded efforts to create Medicare for the elderly and the disabled and Medicaid for the medically indigent.
Unfortunately, federally subsidized medical assistance has not been made available to all Americans in a non-discriminatory fashion.
As for veterans, VA facilities are doled out, not strictly on the basis of need, but as a result of patronage or political influence. Partisan politics and seniority in Congress is factored in when it is determined where a new VA hospital or clinic will be located. In that case, a state-like jurisdiction that should have two voting senators and two voting representatives but doesn’t, ends up getting the short end of the stick. Regarding Medicare, that same state-like jurisdiction lacking voting representation in the national legislature as well as in the Electoral College that elects that jurisdiction’s president and vice president, Congress has built in mechanisms to extend Medicare services almost equally, but almost. When I turned 65 last month, I qualified for the Medicare coverage that I’d been paying premiums for 47 years. However, if I didn’t ask particularly for “Part B”, one of the most important benefits, I wouldn’t get it. Anywhere else in the nation I would get that benefit automatically. That discriminatory rule---“opt in” if in Puerto Rico, “opt out” if anywhere else--- was devised for Medicare to be less expensive for the federal government in Puerto Rico, only in Puerto Rico. Concerning Medicaid, the program to provide July 25, 2022 provides an opportunity to signal that the message was received and that we’re all doing something about.
services to all the medically indigent throughout America, the cost in Puerto Rico is statutorily capped at less than $400 million and the federal share is limited to 55% of the total cost, requiring America’s poorest jurisdiction to cover 45% of the cost. In a state with demographics similar to the nation’s most populated territory, the total cost to
the federal treasury would be over $4 billion, and the federal share would be 83%. While those benefits are automatic in a state, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative Jenniffer As Congress struggles to legislate and keep America González, Governor Pedro Pierluisi, and their predecessors for generations, have to devote a lot of time and lobbying efforts to plead with fiscally stable past Friday, Congress and every President from LBJ on to seek the equality that would guarantee residents of February 18, Puerto Ricans on Puerto Rico the “right to life” that is automatic on the mainland as well as their the mainland. There are many reasons why an absolute representatives in Congress should make sure in the next majority of Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico want statehood. According to multiple polls, over 75% of Puerto Ricans in Florida, over 60% of Puerto few days to include language Ricans in New York and probably an absolute majority of the two thirds of America’s Puerto that will protect the Right to Ricans who have chosen to live in the states Life in Puerto Rico, providing and not in discriminated Puerto Rico, also want statehood for the territory. However, because of equal benefits under Medicare and Medicaid to its citizens in the discrimination in extending federally financed health services to the island, it is also a life or death issue, a denial of the Right to Life. our territory. As Congress struggles to legislate and keep America fiscally stable past Friday, February 18, Puerto Ricans on the mainland as well as their representatives in Congress should make sure in the next few days to include language that will protect the Right to Life in Puerto Rico, providing equal benefits under Medicare and Medicaid to its citizens in our territory. That should be our urgent agenda for the next week, seeking the full extension of The Right to Life in Puerto Rico through equality and statehood.
It is in everyone’s best interest that Puerto Rico can unite this Monday… to celebrate a constitution that has served us well in the past, serves us well today and will serve us the day we become a state of the Union.”
Amadeo Modigliani’s 1908 “Nude with a Hat,” is hung upside down because another painting by him, “Maud Abrantes,” on the reverse side of the same canvas is oriented correctly, >AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
Israeli museum finds sketches hidden in Modigliani painting
The unfinished works came to light after the canvas of “Nude with a Hat” was X-rayed
Ilan Zion – The Associated Press
HAIFA, Israel (AP) — Curators at an Israeli museum have discovered three previously unknown sketches by celebrated 20th-century artist Amedeo Modigliani hiding beneath the surface of one of his paintings. The unfinished works by Modigliani, an Italianborn artist who worked in Paris before his death in 1920, came to light after the canvas of “Nude with a Hat” at the University of Haifa’s Hecht Museum was X-rayed as part of a sweeping forensic study of his work for an upcoming exhibit in Philadelphia.
Inna Berkowits, an art historian at the Hecht Museum, said it was “quite an amazing discovery.”
“Through the X-rays, we are really able to make this inanimate object speak,” she told The Associated Press.
Modigliani is considered one of the 20th century’s great Modernist artists. His lived a short, turbulent, Bohemian life in France, where his nude paintings were controversial. His work is typified by slender, elongated necks and faces, a signature style influenced by African and Cycladic Greek art that was just starting to arrive in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Jewish artist died aged 35, penniless.
One of his paintings, “Reclining Nude,” fetched over $170 million when it was sold at auction in 2015, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold. Another was sold in 2018 for $157 million at auction.
The high demand for authentic Modigliani works has generated a thriving market for fakes and forgeries.
The last time Italy staged a big Modigliani show, a 2017 exhibit at Genoa’s Palazzo Ducale, museum officials closed the show early after experts alleged that many of the works on display were fakes. A criminal trial has been underway for over a year.
In 2018, X-ray technology revealed a previously unknown Modigliani portrait beneath one of his paintings at London’s Tate Gallery.
Modigliani’s 1908 “Nude with a Hat” is already an unusual painting. Both sides of the canvas have portraits that are painted in opposite directions. Visitors entering the Hecht Museum’s galleries are met by an upside down nude portrait. A likeness of Maud Abrantes, a female friend of the artist, on the reverse side is right-side up. In 2010, the museum’s curator noticed the eyes of a third figure peeking from beneath Abrantes’ collar. But only this year was the hidden image brought into focus. “When we decided to do the X-ray, we were only looking to learn a little bit more about the hidden figure underneath Maud Abrantes,” Berkowits said. In addition to a hidden woman wearing a hat, they found two more portraits on the opposite side that were completely invisible to the naked eye: one of a man, and another of a woman with her hair pulled up in a bun.
The “Nude with a Hat” dates from early in Modigliani’s career, not long after he moved to Paris from Italy, when he was struggling to find buyers for his art. The painting was purchased by the museum’s founder in 1983. The canvas is now known to contain five of his paintings, likely painted one atop the other out of necessity to save money on new canvases. X-ray
In fact, photography and other noninvasive technologies have found hidden works by other artists such as Modigliani’s 1908 “Nude with a Hat” is already an unusual painting. Both sides of the canvas have portraits that are painted in opposite directions. Degas and Rembrandt. Berkowits called the artwork “a sketchbook on a canvas,” showing Modigliani’s repeated tries and “never-ending search for artistic expression.” She said there is “no doubt at all” that the painting is authentic. “He was one of the very first multicultural artists who pulled inspiration from different sources,” said Kenneth Wayne, director of the Modigliani Project, an organization that is working to compile an authenticated collection of the artist’s works. Modigliani sought “an air of the strange and beauty” and achieved that through the incorporation of those foreign styles in his art, Wayne added. Wayne and his colleagues use scientific methods and art expertise to weed out fakes. The foundation museum said the exhibit opens Oct. 16 and will explore the artist’s working methods and materials based on forensic study of dozens of Modigliani’s paintings and sculptures loaned from collections around the world.
Inna Berkowits, art historian at the Hecht Museum
