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.
Yep, you're right. The tower of voices is an avant garde minaret and the "star" is in perfect position relative to the crescent.
The whole deal is essentially a shrine that celebrates the work of Allah the moon god.
The commission needs to be bitch-slapped. Multiple times.
And then find a new commission.
The following is likely irrevalent to anything meaningful, however, this name, ETAOIN SHRDLU sure sounds like the 8 highest frequency letters of the English language, plus a few, which as I learned them, are ETAONRIS. Just a curiosity.
Yep. This is supposed to be a memorial honoring [b]valor[/b]. The heroes for which this memorial would stand for were fighting, not “embracing,” the Crescent.
ping
Flight 93 was a failure for the Islamofacists- Why the attempt to mark the memorial/crash site with Islamic symbols pointed toward Mecca? Are they trying to send some message? Not wanting to sound paranoid, but, it seems extremely odd.
If I were Homeland Security, I'd be investigating everyone connected with this.
Flight 93 was a failure for the Islamofacists- Why the attempt to mark the memorial/crash site with Islamic symbols pointed toward Mecca? Are they trying to send some message? Not wanting to sound paranoid, but, it seems extremely odd.
If I were Homeland Security, I'd be investigating everyone connected with this.
Ping!
You ain't gonna believe this.
It's late...so I thought more than one brain should check this out.
"This is not about any religion per se," Murdoch said in a telephone interview with the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown. "It's a spiritual space, and a sacred place, but it's open to anyone."
The word "crescent," he said, was used as a generic architectural term for a curved line. "Sure, there is an Islamic crescent," Murdoch said. "Theirs is a lunar crescent. Ours isn't based on that."
_____________________________
Rich at CQ writes:
This was not mere ham-fistedness. There is no group more attuned to symbolism and the "meaning" of structures than architects. It is their business to take drawings and, ultimately, wood, glass, and stone, and create meaning out of it. That this design is in some way accidental or coincidental is preposterous.
U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R) (PA-7) officially notified via email. No mercy indeed.
Mecca? The Tunisian flag?? Good grief, this is like an ink blot test and some are finding an Osama memorial in it.
I think the writers finding the symbolism supporting Islam are giving more fodder to the jihadists.
Without these conspiracy theories I don't think anyone would have ascribe it as a jihad memorial. Now they can claim it as one - with "proof" provided by their enemies.
It's silly.
According to my Garmin unit, the azimuth to Mecca is 55 degrees, and the distance 6622 miles.
The architect is either an idiot, a lover of Islamofascists or he was threatened into making it.
"Crescent of Embrace"? What are we all supposed to do, hold hands and sing Kumbaya?
The map clinches it for me...the memorial points at Mecca to within *two tenths of a percent*. There's no way it wasn't intentional, IMHO.
read up on it before you decide we are chasing ghosts.
1. the crescent is an islamic symbol - only the totally ignorant do not know this. the commission on this project was well aware of the religious connection.
2. the design is not simply a crescent, but a crescent with a cluster between its horns, in precisely the configuration used in Islam
3. the entrance building is a "tower of voices" analogous to an islamic minaret ("tower of calling" of a mosque) with a color scheme similar to those favored by mesopotamian and other mosques
4. that the memorial is geometrically aligned so as to face Mecca is mathematically demonstrable. Given the wide range of other directions the architect could have chosen, many with traditional Western symbolic values, this cannot be an accident.
125.80 degrees + 55 degrees = @180 degrees
remember, the author is shooting an azimuth perpendicular to the line drawn between the horns of the crescent
I'm still trying to figure out what the hell was going through the judges' minds when they picked this thing.
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