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.
This proposed monument design is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. It's got to be stopped.
this just makes it worse.
I believe I must hunt up a link to earlier FR threads on this topic.
there is simply NO WAY so many Islamic characteristics and allusions could crop up accidentally/independently in this memorial design.
PING!
(Now you're going to really get PO'ed)
(ahem... see #4)
:)
glad to see you are here - you are among those I wanted to ping to this latest analysis of this puking abortion of a "memorial"
wondering how you will phrase your reaction to this memorial design...
ping
how do we stop this abomination?
Set aside all this, the name of the site is enough to make one puke.
Sorry, must be my slow fingered, one handed typing style combined with my used-to-be-state-of-the-art (Five years ago) computer.
The pointing, by itself, or the crescent, by itself, might have been accidental.....but both together???
Methinks I smell a rat!
1. Notify Rush.
2. Notify Hannity.
3. Find the U.S. Rep in that district (almost certainly a Republican) and notify him/her if so (a Dem won't care).
4. If you live in PA and have a GOP U.S. Rep. notify him too.
5. Notify Sen. Santorum. That's his neck of the woods.
In short, RAISE H*LL.
not just a crescent, but a crescent with a cluster where the star would be, plus a "tower of voices" at the entrance = minaret.
it is a BIG FAT RAT, shibumi
It's the name, the crescent, the embrace, the color, the positioning and more. May as well include a giant square black rock symbolizing "the strength of the passengers."
failing that, I have a Stehl.
May God have mercy on those who champion this abomination, for I have none.
No mercy.
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