It points towards Mecca (Flight 93 memorial)

Politicalities ^ | Sept 11,2005 | Jonathan Haas

[spycatcher]

It points towards Mecca

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.

[DManA]

Look at it as identifying and pointing to the perpetrator of this outrage against humanity.

[adam_az]

I blame FRANCE!!!

[D-fendr]

The comment to me was a visual comparision with a picture of a minaret. Visually the tower more closely resembles the Washington Monument than the minaret.

[D-fendr]

There's one family member who is on FR and likes the design.

Thanks. Perhaps a ping to them if they'd like to comment on the controversy?

[Dawsonville_Doc]

The design must be approved by the Director of the National Park Service, and The Secretary of the Interior.
Here are their addresses (snail mail always carries more weight than e-mail or phone calls)

Fran Mainella, Director
National Park Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240-0001

Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Gale_Norton@ios.doi.gov

[D-fendr]

Calling to prayer was my term. They're are using the modern minaret "tower of voices" for essentially that purpose though. Except the prayer is not called for 5 times a day but 24/7.

Respectfully, I think that is another stretch:

"Tall enough to be seen from the highway, the tower of voices heroically marks the entry to and exit from the Park. Set on a planted mound in a clearing, within resonating rings of White Pines, the Tower houses forty white aluminum wind chimes. The continuing songs of chimes in the wind celebrate a living memory of those who are honored."

[Heyworth]

Chris: I know you've been around these threads commenting on the memorial. Here's another one...

[Psycmeistr]

This whole memorial is becoming a sham, memorializing everything except what happened that day, with a "blame America First!" theme.

What a slap in the face to all who died that day, as well as those who offered help.

[Trimegistus]

I don't mean to carp, but you guys are choosing the wrong tactic. Raising a big stink over this will only ensure that the design gets enshrined as "great architecture" and all the libs will praise it for its multicultural inclusive diversity tolerant whatever.

The tactic is to criticize it in boilerplate leftist terms.

It's "appropriating the culture" of Muslim civilization, a form of cultural imperialism and racist oppression. Plant a few suggestions like that on the lefty web sites and you may see some action. Mention that to CAIR and the other domestic terrorist groups. They might even blow it up.

[StAnDeliver]

176

[JulieRNR21]

Ms Joanne Hanley
Superintendent - Flight 93 National Memorial


Email: Joanne_Hanley@nps.gov


By Phone (814) 443-4557


By Fax (814)443-2180

[Publius6961]

Any geometric figure can be made to point in any direction you want.
I will buy into this only if a properly referenced map of the site is presented, showing true north, and precise Lat and Long of the center of the proposed "crescent".

I doubt that the mindless dimbulbs who created the monument have the brains to do the required geodesic calculations.

[Graymatter]

I know all too well how architects think. It's no coincidence. Monkeys will write King Lear on a typewriter before that design happens as a coincidence.

[conserv13]

Since most of the hijackers were Saudis, maybe this is fitting...

[wildandcrazyrussian]

I think if there IS a crescent in the final design, it should be incorporated in the following manner, as lots of Russian Orthodox churches have done since Ivan the Awe-Inspiring ("Terrible") conquered the Islamic city of Kazan in the 1580's and removed the centuries-long threat:

Here

as a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over Islam.

[redgolum]

So, let me get this straight. A proposed memorial to Flight 93 points towards Mecca.

Either someone is ignorant, has a sick sense of humor, or this is a subtle slam.

[nanetteclaret]

Sorry - nothing comes up when I go there ...

[King Prout]

oh, thanks, ya bastich!

(can ya feel the looooooove?)

[devolve]

[StAnDeliver]

I was reading the Post-Gazette version of this, and as usual, the lead was buried:

"It's a memorial to the terrorists," McRae said. "It's not a memorial to the innocent Americans who died there."

But Tom Sokolowski, the director of the Andy Warhol Museum, and one of the Stage II jury members, said that claim is "asinine."

"If the families of the 40 people who were killed felt this was an appropriate symbol to honor their loved ones, then I think he is delusional," he said. "To take this small-minded, bigoted view is disgusting and repellent." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by Paula Reed Ward

Well, the Internet is full of all kind of interesting things...

"MONDAY: Last night I dreamed that I return to New York City. It was 1989. I was 39, that never-changing-Jack-Benny-Birthday-age. AIDS was all around me again. People were sick, people were dying, people were depressed, galleries were closing, art was stagnant, and yet--yet--style was everywhere...AIDS graphics were stylish, Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs were stylish, ACT-Up meetings were echt stylish and the attendees young and hot! The younger you were, the tighter your jeans, the closer cropped your hair, the louder your bray, all of this was stylish and intense, passionate and sexy. Get relevant, get laid. It was hot and in supremely good taste. Yum. Hell, even the latterday works created by David Seidner, John Dugdale, and Frank Moore literally find niches now in the pages of "Martha Stewart Living" or on the wall of homo homemaker/rock stars. All so tasteful. Lush dying. If a bunch of fags was to hang some crepe, then dammit it was going to be real peu de soi, Mary! And hang the crepe we did." -- " The Unfashionability of AIDS ", by Tom Sokolowski, ArtistsWithAIDS.org