Model of Flight 93 memorial
Posted on 09/10/2005 1:14:53 PM PDT by wagglebee
A Pennsylvania pastor is fighting the newly approved design of the Flight 93 National Memorial, contending its crescent pattern is a symbol of Islam.
Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh, said a private group he formed might go to court to block the "Crescent of Embrace" memorial designed by Paul Murdoch Associates of Los Angeles.
"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," McRae told the Tribune-Democrat newspaper in Johnstown, Pa.
McRae of Conemaugh Township, Pa., is director and founder of the Lancaster-based Street Preachers Fellowship.
The heart of the memorial is a mile-long semicircle of red maples surrounding the place near Shanksville, Pa, where the flight's 40 passengers and crew were killed when the hijacked plane plunged into the ground Sept. 11, 2001.
The designer maintains he used the term crescent only in the architectural sense of a curved line.
"This is not about any religion per se," Murdoch told the Tribune-Democrat. "It's a spiritual space, and a sacred place, but it's open to anyone."
But McRae vows to fight it.
"They wouldn't dare put up the Ten Commandments or the cross of Christ, but they're going to put up a red crescent," he said. "We're not going to stand idly by and allow this to happen."
Several weblogs raised similar concerns about the design.
Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs asked: "Is this a coincidence, an example of amazing cluelessness, or something more deliberate?"
Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters said, "Can you imagine the outcry from the multiculturalists and the ACLU had the design incorporated a cross or a Star of David in honor of the victims? Why should we tolerate the Crescent that, inadvertently or deliberately, honors the terrorists?
Model of Flight 93 memorial
The fact is that a significant minority of Muslims do want to kill us. A siginificant portion of Muslims do not actively and loudly denounce that minority.
The militia of Flight 93 fought and died heroically against members of that hate-filled minority, and for the USA. Anything resembling a red crescent at their memorial would be flatly inappropriate. The shape crescent is okay for many other purposes, the moon, croissants, whatever, just not for this purpose, and certainly not the color red.
Unbelievable!
A quick lookup and I see that the following Islamic countries have seen fit to honor the crescent moon and star(s) design by featuring it in their flags:
Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Angola, Mauritania, and Tunisia.
Here is Pakistan's flag: 
On TV tomorrow night:
Flight 93 The Flight That Fought Back
Presented without commercial interruption
Sunday, Sept. 11, 9 p.m. ET/PT. Discovery Channel
The entire forest was leveled in that area when the swastika was discovered.
It appears to be National in nature since it is called National and it is a religious symbol. Who is paying for it?
who is paying for it? probably you and me, brother!
I don't know if my reaction qualifies as fury, but certainly as pure unadulterated contempt. The only question I have is whether the Muslim iconography is accidental. That is, whether the designers actually had that in mind when they proposed it, or whether it was someone else who noticed the patently self-evident..
Legally speaking, it is a well-known symbol, and so the effects of the use of the symbol must be considered whether accidental or not. That is, the user must know the use of symbols at his own peril. Ignorance is no excuse.
;-)
from my passing familiarity with modern architectuarl schools of thought, I'd say their ingrained contempt for American mores and their pathological celebration of "shocking the sheep" almost guarantees that the use of the star-and-crescent design is a DELIBERATE slap in the face.
A quick trip to Paul Murdock Architects website will give you a flavor of the artistic pretensions and arrogance of this jerk. That plus lots of prominent references to lefty buss-words such as "sustainable development", "ecological urban planning", "environmentally responsible architecture that is humane and soulful", "A primary task of this generation is to create new patterns of development that sustain human habitation on this planet", "mitigating pressures of urbanity with the need to heal the natural environment", "we aspire to emotionally affect and uplift our lives through poetry and beauty."
Don't for a minute think that this guy doesn't look at 9/11 as a great work of art that he yearns to honor it with his own contribution. No doubt he feels certain that all of us artistically unwashed are too stupid to understand what he is doing.
I'm an artist, of sorts, sometimes.
I am certainly NOT ignorant of art and architecture.
REAL art.
REAL architecture.
I want to take this asshat out back o' the toolshed and give him a dose or two of "wood-shampoo" brain-food.
I'd never heard that. Why would such a person's design even be considered? I think I might be developing a bit of fury.. That quote is beneath contempt.
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