Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Park Service refuses to say who broke the circle
The planned Flight 93 memorial is described as a circle "broken in two places," with the unbroken part forming a giant Mecca-oriented crescent (originally called the Crescent of Embrace).
Since last week, the Park Service has been inundated with hundreds of emails, demanding to know WHO is being depicted as breaking the circle.
It can only be the terrorists. The circle is a symbol of peace, and only the terrorists can be charged with breaking the peace on 9/11.
Thus the planned memorial shows the terrorists breaking our peaceful circle and turning it into a giant Mecca oriented crescent (which remains completely intact in the so-called redesign). In other words, it's one giant: "ALLAHU AKBAR!" (heard on Flight 93's flight recorder as the doomed flight careened towards the ground).
Superintendent Hanley's reply
Our emailers are getting a lengthy response from Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley that fails to address the question of who broke the circle. She mentions the question, then heads off in another direction:
You also had questions about "who broke the circle." The natural topography of the site upon which the memorial sits is in the shape of a bowl, or a circle. This "circle of embrace" follows the geography, and points your attention down to the Sacred Ground, the crash site where the 40 heroes of Flight 93 gave their lives combating the terrorists. The trees surrounding this "circle of embrace" are missing, or broken, in two places; first, where the flight path of the plane came overhead (which is the location of the planned memorial overlook and visitor center) and second, where the plane crashed at the Sacred Ground (depicted by a ceremonial gate and pathway into the Sacred Ground).No, the topography is NOT a bowl. The upper arm of the crescent starts 100 vertical feet above the crash site while the lower arm circles 50 vertical feet below the crash site. Beyond misrepresenting the topography, all Hanley does is admit that the circle is broken at the point where the flight path crosses it, without ever addressing the simple question of WHO is being depicted as breaking the circle?
This circle-breaking theme is the Park Service's OWN explanation for the crescent design (passed on from architect Paul Murdoch), and they refuse to even THINK about what it means.
Park Service Director Mary Bomar is even more oblivious
Director Bomar also received our emails. The response she is sending out does not even acknowledge the question of who breaks the circle:
Thank you for your e mail of June 24, 2008, concerning the Flight 93 National Memorial. The National Park Service (NPS) is aware of these concerns, and took steps in 2005 to investigate this issue. Please be assured that we are all committed to having a national memorial that conveys the full honor due to the heroes of Flight 93, not to the terrorists. Our priority now is to move forward with the building of the memorial, and to continue to commemorate those heroes who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.Actually it was in 2006 that the office of Mary Bomar herself (then a regional director of the Park Service)"took steps," utterly fraudulent steps, "to investigate this issue."
You may want to visit the park's website for more in-depth information
at:
www.nps.gov/flni.
Mary A. Bomar, Director, National Park Service
The Park Service's own consulting expert, a professor of Sharia law at Indiana University named Kevin Jaques, admitted that the giant Mecca-oriented crescent is similar to the Mecca-direction indicator (called a mihrab) around which every mosque is built, but he assured the Park Service that there was no need to worry because no one has ever seen a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before:
Thirdly, most mihrabs are small, rarely larger than the figure of a man, although some of the more ornamental ones can be larger, but nothing as large at [sic] the crescent found in the site design. It is unlikely that most Muslims would walk into the area of the circle/crescent and see a mihrab because it is well beyond their limit of experience. Again, just because it is similar does not make it the same.This is the information that Mary Bomar had in her hands TWO YEARS AGO: a blatantly dishonest excuse for not being concerned about what was admitted to be the geometric equivalent of the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built, only bigger than any ever seen before by a factor of a hundred. "Don't worry. It might be recognizable as a mihrab to people on jetliners like Flight 93 flying overhead, but from the ground? Pshaw!"
Every iota of the Mary Bomar's phony "investigation" was just as blatantly fraudulent. (Extended expose here.)
Another letter?
We can keep on dumping emails on the Memorial Project if we want. Our petition to stop the memorial asks if signatories want to join an email list for doing things like forwarding emails to targeted individuals. Most are clicking "yes," and the present campaign has as yet only tapped the first few thousand signatories.
Perhaps it is time for another letter, pointing out that:
Misrepresenting the topography of the crash site to be a bowl does nothing to answer the question of WHO BROKE THE CIRCLE. (Press people can read about the non-answers from Superintendent Hanley and Director Bomar here.)Go ahead if you have a mind to. (Email link here.)
UPDATE: I deleted a section of this post about a local reporter who told me she was marking our emails as spam and blocking the senders. Our flood of emails to the Memorial Project is NEWS, and a reporter out there should see it that way. Still, it was unfair of me to go reading things into this reporter’s anger at having her mailbox fill up with hundreds of emails. It is a natural reaction and I should cut her some slack.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Who broke the circle?
The Memorial Project claims to have an innocent explanation for why the central feature of the Flight 93 memorial is a giant Islamic shaped crescent. As architect Paul Murdoch has been saying since September 2005, the flight path breaks the circle, turning it into what was originally called the Crescent of Embrace.
But this isn't a memorial to an airliner. It is a memorial to human beings. So just who is it that architect Paul Murdoch is depicting as breaking the circle?
As a secular symbol, the circle signifies peace and harmony. There is no way that the heroic passengers and crew can be charged with breaking the circle. It is the terrorists who broke the peace.
Think what that means thematically. The terrorists broke our peaceful circle and turned it into a giant Islamic shaped crescent that just happens to point to Mecca. You could not come up with a more blatant depiction of al Qaeda victory.
This is what the Park Service is claiming as an innocent explanation: that they are depicting a circle-breaking crescent-creating action that logically can only be attributed to the terrorists. Are they really too dumb to figure out what that means?
Take action
How about a couple hundred of us call up the Memorial Project (814 443-4557) and ask them just who is being depicted as "breaking the circle"? If they try to say "Flight 93 broke it," we can ask for clarification. Do they really mean to include our forty heroes amongst those who broke the peace?
They might even admit that it can only be the terrorists who are depicted as turning the circle into a crescent, and they might even realize: "oops."
Maybe we should send a few emails as well, and cc the local press, who might be prompted to ask Memorial Project spokesmen how they are answering our pointed questions. (Click link for addressed email form. Feel free to cut and paste text from above. Sincerely, your name and state.)
The circle is a Christian symbol
In addition to being a secular symbol of harmony, the circle is also a Christian symbol, as referenced in the country-gospel line: "may the circle be unbroken, bye and bye, Lord bye and bye." (Hat tip, No Compromise.)
The origin of the circle as a Christian symbol is the rising sun, which is today seen as the primary reason why many Christian churches conduct their liturgies facing east. (For some early churches, this was also the direction to Jerusalem.)
As Pope Benedict explained (back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger):
The cosmic symbol of the rising sun expresses the universality of God above all particular places and yet maintains the concreteness of Divine Revelation.The circle and cross are seen together in the Celtic cross, thought to have been introduced to Ireland by Saint Patrick in the 5th century:
Nobody knows exactly what Saint Patrick had in mind, but the circle is thought to represent the sun.
Given that architect Paul Murdoch clearly has religious symbolism in mind (the repeated Mecca orientations in his design prove that), it is reasonable to infer that he is aware that the circle is a Christian symbol, and that the circle remaining unbroken is a Christian ideal.
Thus the Islamic victory symbolized in the crescent memorial is not just over the secular west, but in particular signifies the smashing of Christianity, and the triumph of Islam in its stead.
Just the fact that the crescent design CAN be interpreted in these ways is enough to make the design inappropriate, but these are not just POSSIBLE interpretations. They are the only logical interpretations. The breaking of the circle can only be attributed to the terrorists.
The drag lines were removed because they did not fit with Paul Murdoch's circle-breaking, crescent-creating theme
Last week's blogburst explained why architect Paul Murdoch was determined to get rid of the gigantic strip-mining derricks that were just up the slope from the impact crater. They were infidel artifacts, obstructing the view towards Mecca from within Murdoch's giant Mecca pointing crescent:
Can't have that majestic American flag interrupting the view towards Mecca!
Amazingly, the Park Service's official explanation for the removal of the drag lines is that they don't fit with Paul Murdoch's circle-breaking theme:
National Park Service Deputy General Superintendent Keith Newlin said the National Park Service has a tendency to preserve landscapes and key elements of memorial sites if it will help people understand what happened there. The draglines weren’t in the airplane’s flight path, though they have been used as a reference point to explain the plane’s trajectory to first-time visitors.The pair of giant cranes didn't mark the flight path? They marked its termination! To everybody in the area, these WERE the marker: "Up by the drag lines!"
“The draglines didn’t contribute to the overall understanding of Flight 93,” he said. “We heard comments that we should keep one as a flagpole, but when we weighed everything, we decided against it.”
Where did Newlin ever get the idea that the direction of the flight path somehow trumps the point of impact? He got it from Paul Murdoch, whose design is all about orientations. He positions his circle just right so that a "break" at the point where the flight path crosses the circle (together with another break 2/3rds of the way around the circle) will create the giant Mecca oriented crescent.
Now here we have Newlin asserting that it isn't the crash site that matters, but these Mecca orienting angles!
For the memorialization of OUR heroes, the drag lines were an ideal marker: an actual manifestation of the dramatic achievements of ordinary citizens, saluting the towering achievement of the citizens of Flight 93.
The only "understanding" they didn't fit was the narrative of Islamic victory that architect Paul Murdoch is trying to impose, where our American circle gets supplanted by a giant Islamic crescent.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Why the drag lines were removed from the Flight 93 crash site
When the passengers and crew of flight 93 smashed their murderers to nothing on an open expanse of western Pennsylvania coal country, two towering sentinels stood silent witness to the heroic tragedy.
“Up on Skyline Rd.,” the news shot around Shanksville and Somerset, “up by the drag lines”:
The drag lines, as seen from what will be the center of the giant Mecca-oriented crescent that is to be planted on the flight 93 crash site. (Photo by Alec Rawls, 2006.)
It is hard to imagine a more fitting marker than these twin colossi. Before the hijackers could send Flight 93 into the White House or the Capitol building, a random draw of forty of our fellow countrymen massed a towering determination to fight back. Their effort to save their own lives ended beneath those artifacts of Pennsylvania's own native grit and ingenuity, but their success in defending their country will live forever.
Those silent sentinels could and should have endured as well, and they would have, if not for one man who was determined to see them go: architect Paul Murdoch, the designer of the terrorist memorializing Crescent of Embrace design. As the press reported at the unveiling of the crescent design:
The Flight 93 temporary memorial, the draglines and Skyline Drive will be removed to leave the landscape as natural as possible, Murdoch wrote in a narrative that accompanied the design.
The drag lines were supposed to stay
The presumption from the beginning was that the drag lines would stay. They were actually the first items of property purchased for the new national park.
Support for keeping the drag lines, whatever memorial design was chosen for the crash site itself, was virtually universal. The local historical society was for keeping the drag lines:
Several draglines still stand there, idled since the crash interrupted the mine work. Randy Cooley, director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission, said that equipment should stay, as part of the story the memorial will tell.They were also meaningful to the local population:
The excavating machines often are the first things visitors to the memorial site see, he said. The booms rise high over the field. They cast shadows, and show what the land once was.
"They're touchstones," Cooley said. "For many of the people on that plane, that may well have been the last thing they saw." [2003]
The cranes, which served as drag lines for a long-idled strip mining operation, are synonymous with the area, residents said.Memorial Project manager Jeff Reinbold acknowledged the hard feelings about the removal of the drag lines:
"When I think of (Skyline Drive), I think of those drag lines," said Erica Zeigler, president of Shanksville Borough Council. "They're something everybody around here associated with that road." [2005]
"You wish you didn't have to do it. But this was a celebration of the process," he said. [ibid.]
Why was Murdoch determined to have the drag lines gone?
Because a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. (Some mihrabs are pointed-arch shape, but the prototypical mihrab is crescent shaped.)
Very simply, Murdoch could not allow his terrorist memorial mosque to be tainted by extraneous infidel artifacts. Those drag lines would have risen up right behind the giant mihrab, disturbing what is supposed to be an undisturbed space within which the Muslim believer can turn face his god for prayer.
Perhaps worst of all from Murdoch’s perspective was the huge American flag that coal miners attached to one of the booms the week after 9/11:
This flag was part of history. If Murdoch did not get rid of the drag lines, he could not get rid of the American flag, rising up 180 feet behind his giant mihrab. (Photo by Alec Rawls, 2006.)
Unacceptable: the jihadists turn to face their god, and see… an American flag?
This mosque interpretation is no stretch. Murdoch provides endless redundant proof of intent, as when he repeats the Mecca orientation of his giant crescent in the crescents of trees that surround the Tower of Voices part of the memorial.
Still hoisting a flag
When the hijacker is finally tackled and we have a chance to turn to less critical matters, like how to design a proper memorial to OUR heroes instead of to Paul Murdoch’s heroes, one of the costs to be accounted will be the loss of the iconic drag lines. At least Murdoch was not able to destroy them entirely, as 22 tons of steel from the scrapped machinery is being used in the construction of the USS Somerset:
The USS Somerset will be a sister ship of the USS San Antonio (seen here), so the drag lines will still be hoisting a flag.
Interestingly, the single physical requirement set down for design competition entries was that they should respect the rural landscape and leave it as it was. Paul Murdoch’s crescent design is the only one of a thousand entries that violates this lone rule, first by building a raised causeway across the wetlands (necessary to extend his crescent to the full typical Islamic crescent shape, covering 2/3rds of a circle of arc), and then by excising the drag lines, which everyone agreed were central to the historic nature of the site.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
A call for America’s churches to step up as witnesses for the truth about the Flight 93 memorial
Three segments of American society get paid to investigate and report facts: academia, the press, and government. For two and a half years, all three have been spinning desperately to avoid and suppress the facts about Islamic and terrorist memorializing symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial.
Luckily there is a fourth segment of society that is also charged to witness truth, not for pay, but on religious principle. Asked by Pilate to account for himself, Jesus answered:
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. [Jn. 18:37.]Those who follow Jesus are supposed to do the same, which means first of all checking and reporting the facts when the importance of an issue warrants it.
The importance of the Flight 93 memorial to our churches could not be clearer. The Islam of the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 is a religion of murder and deceit. Their self-professed strategy is to hide amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends, while plotting mass-murder against Christians, Jews, and all non-Muslims.
Whether this religion of deceit is the “true” Islam, as the bin Ladenists assert, or a bastardization of it, a deceptive memorial to the 9/11 terrorists is a direct challenge to the truth witnessing capacity of our society, and to the truth witnessing character of our Christian churches.
In a contest between deceit and honesty, there is no doubt which is stronger. Witness exposes and destroys deceit. If our churches enter this contest, they win. But will they enter? THAT is the test. If our churches stand by, and fail to witness truth, then the al Qaeda religion of murder and deceit may well succeed in stabbing its terrorist memorial mosque into the heartland of America.
The father of one of our Flight 93 heroes is asking America’s churches for help
In consultation with Tom Burnett Sr., I put together a flyer that all of us can take to our local churches to try to organize sanctioned fact-checking efforts that our churches can stand behind publicly two months from now.
August 2nd is the next public meeting of the Memorial Project. Tom and I will both be traveling to Somerset PA to rally opposition. Mancow Muller is urging his national radio audience to attend, and groups like Rolling Thunder are also being contacted.
With Mr. Burnett in attendance, even a modest turnout will bring substantial news coverage, but coverage alone is not enough. We are facing a fact-checking blockade by the mainstream media, and can only break it by enlisting churches or other independent groups to sponsor their own fact checking efforts.
Are you a member of any kind of group where interested members could set up an ad hoc committee to check a few basic facts about the planned memorial? The full group or chapter could then make an official decision whether to stand behind this fact checking publicly in a press release that Tom and I can announce at the August meeting.
Christian churches may be our best bet, being charged by Jesus to be witnesses for truth, and having "chapters" all over America. Thus this initial effort is addressed in particular to our churches, but any group that wants to expose important truths can perform the same service.
The flyer prints out front and back on a single sheet of paper. It has a couple of color graphics, but prints fine in black and white for inexpensive copying. If you want to participate, just add your contact info at the bottom (the file is MS Word and can be altered), then go see if you can raise some interest!
The rest of this post is an HTML version of the flyer that can be copied and pasted into email.
The Flight 93 memorial is a terrorist memorial mosque!
Witnesses for truth NEEDED to check and report the facts
The father of one of our Flight 93 heroes is asking America’s churches for help.
Remember the Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial, laid out in the configuration of an Islamic crescent and star flag?
Outrage over this clear Islamic symbolism forced the Memorial Project to agree to make changes, but all they did was slightly disguise the giant crescent. It is still described as a “broken circle,” and the unbroken part of the circle (the crescent) remains exactly as it was.
It turns out that this half-mile wide crescent points almost exactly to Mecca. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The Flight 93 memorial will be the world’s largest mosque by a factor of a hundred.
The design also includes numerous terrorist memorializing features, like the 44 inscribed translucent memorial blocks that are to be placed along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists). Tom Burnett Sr. does not want Tom Jr.’s name inscribed on that terrorist memorializing sequence, and is leading the effort to have the crescent design scrapped completely.
The obstacle is the three parts of our society that we pay to check and report the facts: academia, the press, and government. All three are spinning desperately to keep the truth suppressed here. On the rare occasion when the Mecca-orientation claim or the 44 blocks claim gets in the newspaper, some left-wing academic or a spokesman for the Memorial Project is quoted denying it, but the press never checks and reports the facts.
It takes less than two minutes to verify that the giant crescent DOES point to Mecca. Just open up the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com and print out the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA (ten miles from the crash site). Place it over the crescent site-plan on your computer screen, and you’ll see that the Mecca direction line bisects the crescent:
Stand midway between the crescent tips and face into the center of the crescent (red arrow) and you will be facing almost exactly at Mecca (“qibla”). (Click pic for animated demonstration.)
It is even easier to verify the 44 glass blocks on the flight path: just open up the design drawings and count. It is easy to check the numerous repeated Mecca orientations; the placement of the 9/11 date in the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag; etcetera.
Rally in Somerset PA August 2nd
This deceptive memorial to the 9/11 terrorists is a direct challenge to the truth witnessing capacity of our society, and to the truth witnessing character of our Christian churches. There is no doubt which is stronger. Witness exposes deceit. If our churches enter this contest, they win, but if they stand by, and fail to witness truth, then deceit wins.
Mr. Burnett and his compatriots will be rallying in Somerset PA on August 2nd at the next public meeting of the Memorial Project. The resulting news coverage can be used to break the media blockade on fact checking, so long as at least a few churches are willing to sanction fact-checking efforts and release their findings to the public.
Please volunteer for this fact-checking effort, and help to promote it amongst pastors and parishioners. America needs its First Estate (its churches) to take a leading role, and witness the truths about this terrorist memorial that our media elites are trying to hide.
Details and fact-checking resources at CrescentOfBetrayal.com
Updates at ErrorTheory.blogspot.com Contact: alec@rawls.org