Look at the baby! Wednesday night Reginald Adams led a team of volunteers in painting this archetypal smooch in place of the ever-changing mural on the side of the former Democratic campaign headquarters at the corner of West Alabama and Travis in Midtown.
- New image replaces defaced Obama mural [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Continuing Houston History of President Obama, in 6 Photos
Photo: Candace Garcia
Kissing a baby in front of an American flag…studies have shown fake cliched political murals get defaced at 6 times the speed of others.
It looks like Obummer is whispering in the baby’s ear … “Remember, when you grow up, there won’t be Social Security” :P
Good to see they replaced their shrine!
Where’s a good tomato when you need one??
This one is more colorful but how long will it last?
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Nice Vampire Obama mural.
I just vomited all over my desk.
An infant. Fitting. So many people act like one whenever they see a president. On both sides.
I think the folks posting these comments are missing the not-so-subtle statement this mural is making. The message appears to be overtly directed toward the vandals.
Mommy, Why does Obama hate America?
Get in my belly!!!!!
That is creepy looking!
Great mural! This gesture shows civility to the ignorant ones who repeatedly corrupt artists’ work. The fact is that it takes no intelligence or skill to mutilate someone’s art work, rather it highlights the perpetrator’s artistic impotence.
The repeated rendering of the art work is a grown up response to violent repressive actions by brown shirt thugs.
I’m proud that the true independent spirit of Houston is highlighted by the new excellent artwork. It is the best so far. Again, great work!
I’ll admit – I enjoyed the “Bush or chimp” meme more than I probably should have. But HMOG, trolls, get a life. May I remind you that sure, his dad was a black guy from Kenya, but his mom was a white chick from Kansas. So why does only half of the “bloodline” seem to count?
Jesus Christ, people, it’s the President of the United States. Last one was a certifiable idiot, but he got at least a modicum of respect…
Painting a huge middle finger would have been more subtle but the right wing trolls only hear the sounds of whizzing overhead as they miss the message entirely.
Thank you Mollusk, Doofus, jatores and Stephen for voices of reason. Some people will take any opportunity to spit venom.
The trolls are just angry because they are becoming a declining minority. They know the Repub party is doomed for the next 12 years (at least) so they result to name calling and scare tactics. Move along losers and let the big boys run the show.
To the folks who say these “shrines” are out of place for American presidents…we’ve got a 67-foot tall statue to Sam Houston just up the road…we’ve got a giant monument to Lincoln in DC…we’ve got an entire mountain carved with the heads of four US presidents…we had a movement to put Raygun’s face on the dollar…but dare paint a mural of Obama on a privately-owned wall in a little corner of Houston and he gets attacked for demogoguery. Whatever. Let’s see some of that storied rightwing respect for private property already.
Ahhh – the glory of the liberal elitists – always thinking that just b/c someone loathes something and someone that they just must not understand it.
I wish I could live in such a simple minded world as they do.
Come on now, we all know O’Bama is Irish.
Most excellent Overhead Projector art. OP for Obie!
Wonderful! I am sending a donation to the Breakfast Klub.
Troll artist claims 6 victims in Swamplot thread. Everyone else LOLs. News at 11.
I don’t care what president it is, it looks like something you would see in a communist country.
I drove past this today and I agree with Evie #13, that baby is creepy! The eyes are ice blue and staring at you as you pass.
Call me dense, but nearnort #10 and doofus #17, what is the message that I’m missing? All I see is the president kissing a baby.
@anse, they’re usually dead, or at least no longer in power when the shrines are created though.
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I don’t see this as a shrine, it’s a painting of a sitting president, doing what all presidents do, kissing a baby.
I didn’t realize so many Swamplot commenters hated America.
/\ A nice demonstration of the fallacy of the straw man argument. As a liberal, I will fight for your right to loathe the President if you must. Like many people, I didn’t like The Previous Occupant or his party or the world view of that party, but so far his dad’s statue over by the post office remains unmolested, and nobody’s painted over the name of the big airport up north. Double standards, nasty false insinuations, and paint throwing while wearing devil masks generally seem to come from one side of the aisle – the one that in the past tended to wear the bed linens to meetings.
As to the “simple minded world,” I’ll just refer to the several studies that show that people who get their news from Fox are less well informed than those who don’t follow the news at all.
Who messed up and put the stars and bars up, shouldnt it be a hammer and sickle?
I’m not a big Obama fan (and wasn’t a big Bush fan either) but I have to say, the last painting was kind of cool. Not the first one but the second one where he was pointing in an abstract black and white image.
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He kinda looked like a bad ass in the last painting. They should have redone that one.
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And while I’m all for someone painting whatever they want on their own building, come on now, even Obama superfans have to admit that this new is super creepy looking.
It’s perhaps worth noting that this is not the only mural of Obama in the city. I know of one on a clinic/community center on Yale in Independence Heights. I suspect that over time, at least some of these will be painted over anyway, so it’s not as if they’re deifying the man or heralding him as a saint. It’s just a small, probably temporary celebration of our first black president. It’s a milestone worth celebrating, regardless of your political persuasion. Rightwingers in 50 years will probably try to claim Obama as one of their own anyway, like they’re doing with MLK now.
The first image (“2012”) is still the best, though….
[… wait a minute, did CS and his many clones just state that he wants to preserve SS? Wow, doesn’t get more socialist than that… got to save the quote for the archives…]
… I’m still skeptical of the alleged “vandalism”. Where’s that surveillance video??
I still think it may have been the artist himself damaging the murals… the paint always seems to match what was used in the painting, and it always happens when people stop talking about the mural. You can’t trust artists, they love publicity stunts, just look at the douche who damaged a Picasso.
Above, I see the-twin-towers-was-an-inside-job folks are still around.
That infant is very fortunate to live in the US. In some parts of the world, it would be in danger of a drone attack.
He’ll be alright with a “Don’t Drone Me Bro!” bumper sticker.
Got on swamplot during a short break at the office… saw this article. The trolling was not disappointing. Thanks for the entertainment.
Give’m honey and they spit out vinegar. There, they’re, their…
Lookie here, I don’t like Obama, but this is a fine mural. Cheesy political, yes. But, he’s our leader, he was elected. Don’t hate on the man for doing what he believes in. But you’re right. Our first black president is half black. does it matter. Let people admire the man they elected and if we ever get a Libertarian for president, I’d want a mural of him/her. Stop drinking the haterade.
Oh yeh. Drones. Add that to the list of things to be fake outraged about…
@Mollusk
All from one side of the aisle? Riiiiiiiiight. I seem to recall Bush being burned or hung in effigy quite often, and not just in Pakistan, but in the United States.
And then the whole trend in “art” showing G.W. Bush being assassinated, and it showing up in major publications, not just random graffiti on a building somewhere.
I can’t recall similar trends to this extent with Obama.
Wow…I’m really suprised I didnt think there were this many racist right wing teabaggers coming to Swamplot…
Why didnt the cameras catch the last guy? Why wasnt the race of this individual released? Was it another inside job?
http://www.khou.com/news/local/Restaurant-owner-prevents-man-from-vandalizing-Obama-mural-191703541.html
I just read he had to save his little shrine from a guy on a bike. Of course they didn’t have any pic of the guy. I wonder why. hmmmm
Whine, whine, whine. I remember when I was growing up how liberals were painted as “bleeding hearts” and “whiners”. Who’s doing the whining now? I don’t like having to see “Bush” airport,”Bush” tollroad in Dallas, or “Bush” statues (2 in Houston), but I would never deface any artwork. The people who did this are no better than the guy who defaced the painting at the Menil (I know, not a famous artist). This activity goes beyond free speech to vandalism and that can’t and shouldn’t be defended by anyone who is truely patriotic. Stop with the whining and put on your “big boy pants”, or you are no better than the “liberal” you acuse of defaming Republican presidents.
Hitler kissed the babies.
Let us not forget that desecrating the American flag is illegal. The artist and AR carrying owner should be charged with a crime here.
That real life baby is my baby and it’s based on a real life photo taken during the 2012 campaign.
Don’t forget Biden,that leaving the flag out in the rain and up at night unlit is also considered desecration. Are you going to arrest all the car dealers in Houston?
I wish that I could “Like” what Cody had to say.
As for the rest of y’all, I’d like to submit to you that there really isn’t that much of a practical difference between the two political parties as we know them, or especially between these last two presidencies. Nobody can get past Congress with a feasible way to address the effect of aging baby boomers and the entitlement expenditures that they demand. Everything attempted to date is a band aid, and we’re gonna need a tourniquet. Immigration policy is another policy failure; we’re gonna need those young highly-motivated young folks to take care of our old folks. And then there’s military expenditure. I for one am happy to see more emphasis on drone technology; it’s a cost-effective functionally-superior alternative to expensive manned aircraft. (It does NOT please me to see more power being concentrated in the executive branch with respect to the use of military assets–but again, Bush/Obama, same same.) But why do we keep building traditional aircraft carriers and propping up a multi-billion-dollar F-22 program? Why do we still need hundreds of thousands of troops stationed all over the world? Why can’t Europe pull its weight in their alliances with us? Oh, and the banking system. It was broke before Obama, it’s broke with Obama. It’s broke a little bit more now, in my experience, but if you look at the history of the banking system since around 1970, you can easily see a pattern whereby it is meant to fail and only gets incrementally worse. In that sense, Obama performed at a level that was par for the course. And congress was just predictably shitty.
I keep coming back to the conclusion that the powers that be have a set of concerns totally unrelated to the citizens that they are meant to represent. They confuse us on the margins with issues that barely matter in our daily lives. Cultural issues hog the spotlight. The games of “Politics” are to the citizens of the United States what games at the Colosseum and various arenas of Rome had once been. The games are no less brutal, IMHO.
Brutality comes in many forms. One form of that is evidenced by vandalism against a work of art on a private property. Another form of political brutality can be evidenced by my recognition of the fact that without a substantial reversal of our immigration policy, financial realities will set in and I will probably have to change my dad’s dirty diapers for many years after he’s slipped into senility, and that neither political party wants to talk about that in a serious manner.
From Suwoopgang: “Wow…I’m really suprised I didnt think there were this many racist right wing teabaggers coming to Swamplot…
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I see some people who don’t care for Obama and his politics. I don’t see signs of racism. I do see someone (you) trying to demean a large group of people who have a difference in political opinion by calling them a derogatory name.
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Come on now. Be a better person.
Wow, what a bunch of hate! It’s a president kissing a baby…it’s sorry that so many have to make so much of so little.
Notice it’s usually those passionate ‘lovers of freedom’ that are so quick to smear the free speech and expression of others.