Flight 93 Memorial is going to be a Red Crescent?????????


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hillbilly
September 11, 2005, 11:12 PM
I swear.....you just can't make this stuff up.

Your tax dollars about to work overtime as a big fat sign from Allah......

Click on the link to see a pic of the design.

Note how one of the elitist, leftists who knows better thinks that any stink about a big red crescent as a 9-11 Memorial is just assinine.

I just want to know when the National Parks Service plans on opening the memorial to lynching victims in Mississippi that's shaped like a big cross that lights up at night???????????




http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05253/569055.stm



Flight 93 memorial decried as Islam symbol
Memorial's crescent shape criticized as inappropriate
Saturday, September 10, 2005

By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



There's a growing outcry that one element of the newly chosen Flight 93 National Memorial represents Islam and is a slap in the face to the passengers and crew members who died on the hijacked plane four years ago.


Ron McRae, Somerset County street evangelist -- "It's a memorial to the terrorists. It's not a memorial to the innocent Americans who died there."
The winning design, announced Wednesday in Washington, D.C., includes what is called the "Crescent of Embrace." That element of the project calls for two rows of red maple trees to be planted around a bowl-shaped piece of land adjacent to the crash site. The trees, according to the architects, are there to create a physical edge to the landscape and accentuate the topography.

Almost immediately upon seeing the design, online bloggers suggested that it is inappropriate to use a red crescent in the memorial.

To many, that shape represents Islam, and the symbol is used on the flags of several Muslim countries, including Turkey, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

The four men who hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on its way from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco were Muslim.

But the architects who created the winning design say their design has nothing to do with Islam.

"A crescent is part of architectural vocabulary. It's a generic form used in design," said Paul Murdoch, one of the winning architects. "We don't see any one group having ownership of it."


Paul Murdoch Architects
"Crescent of Embrace" features an arc of maple trees that will turn red each fall.
Click photo for larger image.

Murdoch believes it's unfortunate that the design is being interpreted that way.

"You can call it all kinds of things. We can call it an arc. We can call it a circle. We can call it the edge of the bowl. The label doesn't matter to us in terms of intent.

"We have no objection to calling it something else."

Murdoch did say they have no intentions of changing the design.

The reason the circle of trees is not completed, he said, is because it was severed by the path of Flight 93. From that opening, visitors will be able to gaze down on what has been called the "Sacred Ground," where some of the remains of the passengers and crew still rest.

The crescent associated with Islam is the lunar crescent, which is wider in the middle and tapers to points on each end. The crescent in the Murdochs' design maintains a steady thickness all the way around.

But that distinction isn't enough for some.

Mark McMorrow, who runs the Constitutional Conservative blog online, wrote this yesterday: "Didn't anybody pick up on the crescent/Islam relationship? Didn't this occur to any of the victim's family members? Even if it's an accident, I don't think this design is acceptable."

Later, in a phone interview, McMorrow said he was surprised to learn family members of those who died in the attack weren't offended by the use of the crescent.

"It's like figuring swastikas into a Holocaust memorial," he said.

But the families of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 don't have a problem with the design.

"I think people are reading too much into it," said Kenneth Nacke, whose brother, Louis, died in the crash. "It doesn't affect my decision on it in any way. I'm still happy with it."

Gordon Felt, whose brother, Edward, died in the crash, called the focus on the crescent an "unfortunate distraction," from the fourth anniversary memorial service tomorrow at the crash site.

Still, he continued, "It would be silly of us to have some sort of symbolism [in the memorial] that would be offensive to people."

Eight family members served on the second-stage jury that selected the final memorial design.

The jurors recognized there could be some backlash because of the crescent. That's why, in their recommendations, they wrote: "Consider the interpretation and impact of words within the context of this event. The crescent should be referred to as 'the circle or arc,' or other words that are not tied to specific religious iconography."

But Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., said there is no one official symbol associated with Islam.

She acknowledges that the crescent has come to represent the religion. But, she continued, it does not hold the same significance, for example, as the cross does to Christianity.

Ahmed says she can understand why the crescent would be associated with Islam, which has 7 million followers in the United States and more than a billion worldwide.

"People forget Muslims died [in the attacks], too," Ahmed said. "Islam, as a religion itself, was hijacked on 9/11."

Self-proclaimed bishop Ron McRae, a street evangelist based in Somerset County, has vowed to fight the use of the crescent symbol in the Flight 93 memorial.

He believes the architects used it purposely.

"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."

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shermacman
September 11, 2005, 11:29 PM
"The Crescent of Embrace"

This is a lovely idea to celebrate the deaths of the Martyred Islamic Heroes.

That is the purpose, right? To honor Islamic Fascism, Muslim terrorism and world wide hatred.

MechAg94
September 11, 2005, 11:30 PM
Yeah, this is pretty sad.

beerslurpy
September 11, 2005, 11:36 PM
Why are they erecting a monument to the terrorists? Isnt that kind of backwards?

Coronach
September 11, 2005, 11:38 PM
Uh...just looks like a semi-circle to me.

And the family members of those killed voted for the design, apparently.

Sounds like a lot of, "uh...what?" to me.

Mike

Zundfolge
September 12, 2005, 12:50 AM
I'd rather see a giant red white and blue hand with the middle finger extended facing the east and Mecca.

Where the perpetrators anything other then Islamists ... acting in accordance with their faith, I'd see no problem with a Crescent ... but you have to admit that in retrospect this is probably not the best design.

Murdoch believes it's unfortunate that the design is being interpreted that way.
Oh, I agree ... but come on, stop defending your own sense of aesthetic and redesign the thing to something that can't be "interpreted" to be pro Islamist (even though we all know it wasn't intended that way)

rick_reno
September 12, 2005, 01:06 AM
I'd rather see a giant red white and blue hand with the middle finger extended facing the east and Mecca.

Even better would be we place our monument in Mecca - in the form of a 5 to 7 mile wide glass bowl - with a half life of about 500,000 years.

Sindawe
September 12, 2005, 01:40 AM
And the family members of those killed voted for the design, apparently. And THAT is what really counts, not the opinions of those of us who did not loose family and friends on flight 93.

DelayedReaction
September 12, 2005, 01:59 AM
The swastika was a symbol for thousands of years before the Nazis used it. I'm not trying to compare Islam to the Third Reich, but I think the architects need to understand that the present-day meaning attached to certain symbols carries far more weight than they think.

On the other hand, one could argue that the use of this symbol is a sign of strength and community in the American people. A declaration that we are not at war with Islam, but with terrorists of all creeds.

fistful
September 12, 2005, 02:06 AM
Nice how they use a picture of a goofy-looking street preacher (read kook) as the poster child against the "monument." Aren't we all sick of these lame, post-modern monuments, anyway? A circle of embrace? Please.

c_yeager
September 12, 2005, 02:37 AM
Its not even shaped like a crescent. If you would click the link and look at the picture you would see thats its an open circle. The idea is that the circle was broken by the impact of the airliner.

Of course, dont let common sense interfere with your emotional response to a stand of trees. Just remember that the next time someone says "oh guns, scary!" that they arent at all different from you.

In other news, it would appear that the New Olreans police are actually a consortium of Islamic extremists allied with pagans, in adition to being moderatly incompetant.

http://www.portno.com/images/PoliceNO.gif

Thin Black Line
September 12, 2005, 05:24 AM
It's called the "Crescent of Embrace" and make no doubt about it:

http://www.flight93memorialproject.org/crescent_of_embrace.asp

I find this totally disgusting :barf: at a time when the US has been
going into overdrive to remove every single Cross from public land, city
government emblems, etc over the last few years :uhoh:

Why don't we put a big X where the plane crashed as "X marks the
spot"? Omigosh, I can imagine the outcry and the the reams of
ACLU legal briefs that would fly off their laser printers regarding such
a CROSS on public property. :cuss:

Better yet, why don't we start putting T's along the roadsides in
Iraq where our soldiers are killed by IEDs. We can just tell the
iraqi that it's not really a cross, but the "T of Embrace." :cool:

Thin Black Line
September 12, 2005, 05:29 AM
Only 8 of 40 family members represented the families on the
committee that voted on the final monument. It would be
interesting to know how ALL of the families felt. Maybe they
have a blog somewhere to comment on this?

Ryder
September 12, 2005, 05:45 AM
I wonder what the options they didn't vote for were? Something like a big white cross maybe?

farad
September 12, 2005, 05:55 AM
Oh God no, we couldn't dare have a big white cross..

But a red crescent?? SUUUUUUREE!!!!

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