by On my way to work they were shooting a commercial on 11th Street for the Kindle. (Want.)
On my way home, passing by Park Place, and the site of the future Islamic community center. The only protestors at the time were supporters of religious freedom.
The protestors! Actually, the woman on the right was a bystander like me, I think. Doesn’t the girl with the sign have a sweet face?
Yep. The Ground Zero Mosque is like the Holy Roman Empire, which wasn’t Holy, wasn’t Roman and wasn’t an Empire. It’s not a mosque (a cultural center with a prayer room) and not at ground zero (two blocks away). I want to scream every time I hear the commentators on the news call it that.
Slate’s cartoon today has a guy holding a copy of the US Constitution, saying “I believe the Constution and the Bill of Rights are Holy Writ! I adhere to these American principles totally, strongly and wholeheartedly!” In the next panel, he’s holding a sign saying NO Mosque and says “Whenever it’s convenient”.
Want to move with me to Sweden?
Right on, Karen. It’s good to know that others are thinking the same thing. I think maybe the level-headed need to get into the same zone as these lunatics and start raising some equivalent…heck. Lately, it seems like the people talking the loudest (Fox News and that bunch)are the only ones being heard. Surely there are enough sane people left to put a thumb on this rising lunacy.
Hey! I just ordered a Kindle! I’ve been thinking about it for about a year, and I just decided to take the plunge. My library is so large that it costs a lot of money to house it. My first book is going to be a volume of short stories by Sax Rohmer (the author of the Fu Manchu series).
My view is that the mosque has now become a political football on both sides trying to shore up support for the mid-term elections. Once things become politicized, what’s really going on is an attempt by politicians to get elected.
Since it is an issue at loggerheads, if I were God I would just let all of the families and personal friends who lost loved ones have the deciding vote, and I would go with it however it turned out.
As usual the headlines are about as far as some ever read. As this story is investigated in depth it becomes clearer that the group who wants the mosque is a very liberal islamic group. My wife is a Sufi and I find it extreamly offensive that some want to interfere with these peoples right to worship and pray as they please. What a bunch of hypocrits. Thank God, like so many other atempts to polorize America this will soon join the Jerimiah Wright like stories as old news. But shame on America for giving it this much coverage.
Yeah. I don’t think most people have thought it through. For instance, I wonder if most Americans know that hundred of muslims were killed on 9/11. I’d like to think that most people would not be able to look the family and friends of these poor people in the eye and say you can’t build a community center anywhere near where your family died.
I’m sorry but I blame the Republican party. They equated 9/11 with Iraq and didn’t make an effort to clear up that misconception. Most people to this day still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. And now they are loudly and forcefully trying to equate Islam with Al Queda, by calling it a “Victory Mosque” and so forth. Yes, that’s a polarizing thing to say, I know. But they really must be shamed for this.
I’m copying a comment about the Cordoba House that I read on the The Atlantic magazine’s website. I thought his comment was very insightful about who and what is driving this controversy:
“Now, in a TV interview, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) said the building of the Islamic Community Center two blocks away from Ground Zero by the 2006 Bush America-Mideast diplomatic appointee, Imam Rauf was: ‘the “height of insensitivity and unreasonableness” to build it near the site where 3,000 Americans were killed by “Islamic Radicals.’
“What Cantor should have said was…..’Even though 15 of the 19 murderous 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabs and Osama bin Laden is Saudi and trained for his attacks on America in Saudi Arabia. And even though the GOP, my Republican party, just accepted a $1 million donation from Fox TV News parent, the #2 largest shareholder of which (and which we knew about), after Rupert Murdoch, is a Saudi Prince, Al Waleed bin Talel, I am just about to be a total hypocrite and pretend that we in the GOP are sensitive to being within two blocks of these ‘evil people who killed 3,000 Americans’. Because we’re not, we actually are quite happy fraternizing and taking money from Saudis – even though it was actually Saudis who killed 3,000 Americans..not Hamas, or Imam Rauf.'”
Sometimes reading comments can *be* enlightening.
I’m a little removed from all this down here in Texas, but I can tell you that here a lot of Democrats are resistant to the idea of the Islamic center. And of course Harry Reid has also come out against the center.
I think this is less about partisan politics than many issues, because when you start having controversy about a war memorial you kind of transcend normal party lines.
One of the things I realize is that despite the fact that everyone in the country has an opinion, this will ultimately be the decision of the owners of the property, and the rest of us are sort of out of the loop.
They may yell about it in the rest of the country, but the decision making is strictly an in-house New York deal. I’m wondering why neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton has said anything about it. What do they know that we don’t?