Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 27

K5TTCC.1 (ILL) JOURNAL GAZETTE STATENATIONWORLD Burying history? Historians decry building of new Liberty Bell home over President Washington's former slave quarters Li ii: part of a $300 million redesign of Independence Mall that includes the new Independence Visitor's Center and the under-con-struction National Constitution Center. The new center is just steps from where the Liberty Bell has been displayed in a glass pavilion since 1976. It attracts 1.6 million visitors a year. At the very least. The Independence Hall Association, a watchdog group, wants a memorial, perhaps an outline marking the house where Washington once lived.

City officials also want some sort of commemoration, said Frank Keel, spokesman for Mayor John F. Street, adding that it was "too early to determine whether excava- tion can or cannot happen." 1 -jSt Men look through the window of a store specializing in Chinese clothes and memorabilia where a copy of an early 1920s Chinese advertisement poster hangs for sale in Taipei on March 10. Such posters, originating In Shanghai, are popping up in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore as well as art galleries in Paris, Boston, New York and Tokyo. Head to the Web Independence National Historical Park: www.nps.govindeliberty-bell.html Independence Hall Association: sir oiMfii PHILADELPHIA (AP) When visitors walk through the brand-new $9 million pavilion housing one of the nation's most enduring icons of freedom, they will tread above the spot where the first president kept his slaves. But even before the Liberty Bell Center opens in 2003, a debate is brewing over how best to treat the place where slavery and freedom coexisted.

Some historians say building the center's entrance just beyond the site of George Washington's slave quarters is tantamount to burying history both literally and sym-, bolically. The National Park Service argues the underground structure, yards from where the bell that became a symbol of the abolitionist movement, has to be covered over to be preserved. "If it's not going to be destroyed, the best preserva- tion is to leave it in place that's standard practice and one of the tenets of archaeology," National Park Service spokesman Phil Sheridan said. "Excavating it can mean you have to destroy it." However, critics say it appears that the government is avoiding the obvious contradiction of freedom and servitude. They want the National Park Service to halt construction and perform an extensive archaeological evaluation, though they say there are no plans to force the issue with a lawsuit.

"Our historical memory is often managed and manipulated (but) it's downright being murdered in Philadelphia," said Gary B. Nash, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and a scholar of the American Revolution. The Park Service says it already has done excavation work and recovered thousands of artifacts. The slave quarters were untouched. "The excavation was very thorough we looked at everything we could have looked at," added Rebecca Yamin of John Milner Associates, which performed the work.

The Liberty Bell Center is Art deco posters say a lot about China's past, present The posters are popping up everywhere in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as art galleries in Paris, Boston, New York, Tokyo and San Francisco. The motif lives on in postcards, coasters, refrigerator magnets and calendars. Washington's house was a red-brick mansion at Sixth and Market (then called High) streets, where the founding father conducted the nation's business. It's also where he brought eight slaves from Mount Vernon, including his cook, Hercules, and Martha Washington's personal servant, Oney Judge, who eventually fled those now-buried slave quarters and gained their own freedom. Washington's successor, John Adams, also used the home during Philadelphia's time as the national capital, from 1790 to 1800, before moving to Washington, D.C.

In 1951, the remains of the house were demolished to make way for Independence Mall. Public toilets now occupy the spot. "This is the sort of stuff people would love to hear about, but it does get to the serious matter of how liberty and slavery coexisted," Nash said. 1: i A By The Associated Press At first, it was just the simple details of a 1920s cigarette advertisement he saw in a Shanghai alley that captured his imagination: a beautiful Chinese woman with cheeks red with rouge, pearls hanging around her neck, a blue dress hugging her body. Norwegian diplomat Trond Lovdal bought the deco ad poster and in the past six years, he has collected about 500 more originals.

He is part of a growing number of art collectors, history buffs and antique lovers worldwide who are fascinated with the images or "Shanghai posters." The pictures now appeal to Lovdal because he says they are a visual tour of the birth of modern commercialism in China, the liberation of Chinese women and the blending of Eastern and Western culture in the 1920 and 1930s in Shanghai China's brash capital of style and business. "Whenever you buy a new poster, you learn something new about that time," said Lovdal, who is the deputy director of the Norwegian Trade Office in Taiwan. Lovdal is displaying 60 posters from his collection in the Taipei County Cultural Bureau's arts museum. In one picture, a pink floral silk gown appears to be slipping off the body of a smiling beauty with thick curls, revealing her bare back and her shapely thighs and calves. Another ad for Lever Bros, soap shows a woman in a lime-colored traditional "qipao" a tight-fighting, high-necked dress with a slit that reaches high up the thigh.

When the pictures were made, New York, he said. He estimates his collection is worth at least $40,000. The posters revolutionized the advertising business in Shanghai. Before they appeared, ads by foreign companies featured past U.S. presidents like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington and failed to catch the attention of Chinese consumers.

It wasn't untila Christian missionary tipped off foreign companies to how popular poster calendars were that the advertising fad began, said Wei Te-wen, a Taiwanese publisher and serious poster collector. "It was the beginning of modern advertising in China," Wei said. The range of products displayed increased with the popularity of the posters, and included some more familiar brands such as Ever Ready batteries. of the women who posed for the posters were movie stars. Among them, Ruan Ling-yu, China's Marilyn Monroe, who had a similar fate as her American counterpart.

She committed suicide at the age of 25, leaving behind only a note that read, "Rumors are deadly." Although in many ways the posters exploited the woman as sex objects, they also celebrated the new liberation of women who weren't consumed by domestic drudgery and could go out and have fun. Some women are shown smoking, and others are shown with slicked-back hair dancing in the short skirts with folded-over hems that were fashionable in 1920s. "We see women moving away from the traditional role of staying at home," Wei said. Shanghai had already gained the reputation of being the "Paris of the East." The latest fashion, cultural and business trends flowed into the southern port city. But when the Communists took control in 1949, their aversion to Western ideals and "capitalist decadence" closed Shanghai to the outside world for about 30 years.

It wasn't until the past two decades when China began to open up again that Shanghai began climbing back to its former position as an Asian business and style capital. "People are fond of the posters because they represent the Shanghai back then which is very much like the Shanghai now," Lovdal said. The posters are popping up everywhere in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as art galleries in Paris, Boston, New York, Tokyo and San Francisco. The motif lives on in postcards, coasters, refrigerator magnets and calendars. When Lovdal started collecting posters, originals cost $50.

Now, they fetch as much as $8,000 in places like Chiropractors say their treatment helps horses uIt feels good. You can see how they (horses) love it, I have the fun job. The vets have the needle." Dr. Dennis Eschbach 0 (J Associated press photo In this view looking south toward Independence Hall, the construction site of the brand-new $9 million pavilion that will house the Liberty Bell Is seen on Thursday In Philadelphia. Historians are criticizing the fact that when visitors walk through the new Liberty Bell Center entrance, they wilt be treading above the very spot where George Washington kept his slaves.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO Animal chiropractor Dennis Eschbach adjusts a hackney pony gelding at a rural Farmer City veterinary clinic on Feb. 21. Eschbach began with a degree and a license to practice on people. He became certified in animal chiropractic In 1992, and now travels throughout Illinois, as well as several other states, treating back and neck pain in horses. FARMER CITY When the owners of Kachina, a hackney pony, tried to harness him to the cart he pulls, the pohy would tuck and kick from pain when they touched his back or tail.

The treatment for the pony wasn't pain medication or an adjustment of his harness. It was a chiropractic adjustment. Chiropractic care has become common for treating back and neck pain in horses, just as in humans. It is so common that Dr. Dennis Eschbach, an animal chiro-; praetor from Chesterfield, near St.

Louis, travels throughout Illinois as well as to several other states. When Eschbach began his recent examination of Kachina at a rural Farmer City veterinary clinic, he first watched the horse walk, listening to the sound of its hooves striking the concrete floor to check its gait. As he ran his hands across Kachina's back and pelvis, the pony flinched and moved away. Eschbach patted the pony and spoke softly: "Easy. Easy." He continued to feel the horse's vertebrae, working his way up the spine to the withers.

He then examined the neck. "I look for symmetry in motion," Eschbach said. "Is tine side doing what the other -is doing? Is it doing the same Ihing front to back? The right and left side should be doing raises and shows. He became certified in animal chiropractic in 1992 by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association. Eschbach always works with a veterinarian, describing his treatment as "complementary care." In Farmer City, he works with Dr.

Thomas Monfort, who treats horses exclusively and has been working with chiropractors for about 10 years. "We used to see a lot of back problems and plain didn't know what to do with them," Monfort said. "We would do some massage and try to do some exercises. We still look a lot at the saddle, the rider, the rider's weight and balance. Then we'd generally put them on some type of pain medication.

We used a lot of Epsom salts. "The overall response was still not as good as you would like to have. We were always looking for new options. As chiropractic became more acceptable and people developed some knowledge and skill in those areas, we utilized their services." NEWS IN BRIEF Stax Record Co. sign returns to Memphis MEMPHIS, Tenn.

(AP) The sign that once graced the front of one of Memphis' best-known recording studios is back where the Stax Record Co. once stood. The 6-by-5-foot, 850-pound sign was taken away when the studio at College and i McLemore streets was demolished in 1989. It was returned to the site Wednesday. The sign will be among the items displayed at a music museum being built at the old Stax site, museum officials said.

The studio opened in 1960 and produced some of Memphis' most famous rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues recordings. Artists working for Stax included Isaac Hayes, Albert King, Otis Redding, and Rufus and Carta Thomas. The sign was salvaged by the Mud Island River Park when the studio was torn down. The park sent the sign to the Stax museum in exchange for another piece of Memphis music memorabilia. That piece has not yet been determined.

Head to the Wet: The Stax Museum of American Soul Music Web site: www.soulsvilleusa.com the same thing. If it's not, something's wrong. In most of my exam, I'm wiggling and twisting and turning, taking them through all of their range of motion. "Right now if you feel part of his pelvis, it feels uneven," he continued. "It gives us ideas about where the problem is.

When I push it and wiggle it, I can feel the joints moving. The sacroiliac joint (in the pelvis) is not moving as well on the right. His front end is really tender. He's really sore in the neck." Eschbach then began his adjustment, a quick movement while pushing on the joint, to correct a misalignment or joint dysfunction. As he worked on Kachina, the pony leaned into him.

"It feels good, You can see how they love it," Eschbach said. "I have the fun job. The vets have the needle." When Eschbach was finished, he pointed out how Kachina's hindquarters were square, rather than uneven as before, and his gait was more even. Eschbach began with a degree and a license to practice chiropractic on people, then began adjusting the champion Afghan hounds and Saluki dogs that he.