Posted on 09/12/2005 12:10:14 AM PDT by spycatcher
Today is September 11.
Michelle Malkin and other bloggers are buzzing about the proposed Flight 93 memorial, which bears a striking resemblance to an Islamic crescent. Zombie produces an animated image consisting of the memorial (rotated so the arms of the crescent point to the right) overlapped with the crescent of the Tunisian flag. The juxtaposition is nearly perfect.
Zombie also links to this image credited to "Etaoin Shrdlu". What you're seeing is an azimuthal equidistant projection of the globe centered on the Flight 93 crash site. On such a projection, the concentric circles represent a fixed distance from the center, and the angle of a straight line from the center to any point represents the azimuth between the two points. Etaoin's image shows that a line perpendicular to the endpoints of the crescent (that is, the direction the crescent faces) appears to pass very close to Mecca. Mecca sits near Saudi Arabia's western coast with the Red Sea, and as Etaoin's image shows, the crescent points right at it.
But I've always been one to go for cold calculations over pretty pictures, so I set to find out if indeed the crescent points towards Mecca. Here's what I came up with:
According to this site, the latitude/longitude coordinates of Mecca are 21.4234, 39.8262 and the coordinates of the Flight 93 crash site are 40.052, -78.8963. Using the calculator from this site, I determined that the azimuth between the two points is 124.80°.
Next I went to the Flight 93 National Memorial website and found the biggest overhead view of the memorial I could find with north oriented up. I measured the distance from tip-to-tip of the crescent and came up with 64px east-west and 90px north-south. The arctangent of 64/90 is the angle between north and a line drawn between the tips, which works out to 35.42°. Adding 90° to this angle gives the direction the crescent faces as 125.42°.
Conclusion: the crescent points towards Mecca with an error of 0.62°, or 0.17%. If you take a circle and divide its circumference into 580 equal arcs, the angle subtended by one of those arcs is the error. (Bear in mind that any error in my figures could change this value; the figure most open to interpretation is the distance in pixels between the tips of the crescent.)
I don't know if the architect deliberately made his design look like an Islamic crescent, or if it's coincidental. I don't know if the architect deliberately made his crescent point almost directly towards Mecca, or if it's coincidental. What I do know is that a memorial in the shape of a swastika would never be permitted, whether the resemblance was intentional or a coincidence. Nor would a memorial resembling a Confederate battle flag.
The strong resemblance of this memorial to an Islamic symbol, whether intentional or accidental, is grossly insensitive to those of us who find it offensive. The commission needs to go back to the drawing board.
"3. The Arab's "Insh'Allah" is roughly equivalent to a Mexican's "manana" - If an Arab says "XYZ will be done, insh'allah" don't hold your breath."
In reviewing your profile page, I note one serious error in the statement above. You don't mention the reason Inshallah and Manana are "rough" equivalets to one another. Inshallah is Manana without the sense of urgency. (not to hijack a thread or anything...)
ah. I'll need to add that.
The whole "Crescent of Embrace" thing is very creepy.
I started a google search on the designers and firms listed on the web site and just get mush and PR about their ecological conservation and "Green" building techniques. At first glance they look like a bunch of tree huggers who are rolling in $$$.
As a Christian, it offends me that even the slightest hint of the religeous background of the perpetrators of this attack would be used in the design for a memorial. Its beyond the pail.
This is no accident. Architects of such works are heavily into symbolism. This creep is busted. He can't deny it now.
The Washington Monument is a pagan obelisk, a male feritlity symbol, that sits opposite the Capital Dome, a female fertility symbol.
Islam has pagan origins, so the similarity isn't surprising.
Well, I probably should not respond to anything related to Flight 93 for other reasons, but I think this is a phony controversy for a phony issue. We have better fish to fry.
The swastika is also an American Indian, Buddhist and Hindu symbol, dating back at least 3,000 years, but because the Nazis used it for a while the PC brigade has been trying to eradicate it. They even had it removed from a high school yearbook in a heavily American Indian community.
Are we now part of the PC brigade?
I keep remembering reactions to the 1994 Schwartenegger movie "True Lies" which depicted -- horrors! -- Muslim terrorists as Bad Guys.
CAIR and its ilk raised a holy stink about that ("It's a Religion o' Peace!").
The moon in the memorial is all about the Shriners not Islam.
Then watch the process like a hawk.
No. We are part of the "We don't want to be forced to be Muslims against our will" brigade.
"Mein Quran"?
The architect could have used any shape with straight lines and we would not be having this discussion. He did this on purpose.
Heinz Foundation? As in Teresa Heinz Kerry?
BTW, make sure there isn't any difference between Japanese Mulberry and the Mulberry commonly found in the US...might be a different specie...
Not to complicate your day or anything ;-)
There was no doubt earlier. The designer needs an attitude check.
Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, that is.
One entry in the list:
MURDOCH, PAUL
Puolikuu ja pohjantähti : muslimit keskellämme / Paul Murdoch. - Helsinki : Suomen Lähetysseura, 1996. - 152 s. Da
Using a dictionary this translates to (I'm not kidding):
MURDOCH, PAUL
Crescent and the North Star : The Muslim Center / Paul Murdoch. - Helsinki : Suomen Lähetysseura, 1996. - 152 s. Da
Now there must be a thousand Paul Murdochs around and it's probably a bizarre coincidence. I have no idea how to check if it is the Paul Murdoch.
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