IMMODEST PROPOSAL: Get Your Wallet Out, Bitches!

Leaders in the city’s art, business and political communities are scrambling to raise $68 million in six weeks so a treasured Thomas Eakins masterwork will not be removed from its only home.

Officials acknowledge that matching the record-setting sum for the lifelong Philadelphian’s 1875 painting, “The Gross Clinic,” will be a challenge. However, they said they have to believe that they can prevent the departure of an irreplaceable part of the city’s cultural history.

Let’s get out the old abacus and figure out how much each of us has to pony up to keep “The Gross Clinic” within the gates of the 215. The last available Census was 2000 and that puts the population at 1.5 million people…divided by $68 million…carry the one…and PRESTO, we each need to dig deep and pitch in $45 a head. Which we would be more than happy to do in exchange for lifting the *&^%# smoking ban from bars. You can keep restaurants, hospital operating rooms, children’s day care and gymnasiums — nobody NEEDS to smoke in those places, except maybe the kids. But bars? Nobody who wants to live FOREVER goes into a bar in the first fuckin’ place. This is our final offer, take it or leave it.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Clock Ticking To Save ‘The Gross Clinic’
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