Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst

Park Service refuses to say who broke the circle

Blogburst logo, petition

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.

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
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."

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.)

Daily American reporter decides to mark our emails as spam and block the senders

Hundreds of people emailing the Park Service demanding to know who broke the circle is NEWS. To pass this news on to the Pennsylvania press, several reporters and press outlets were cc'ed, in hopes that they would do their jobs and ask Park Service officials what answers they are giving.

When Daily American reporter Vicki Rock was asked by telephone if she was following up with the Park Service, she said:
... we pay no attention to mass emails like the people have been sending us. And I block them from emailing me again.
As if the Daily American has EVER been the subject of any kind of email campaign before. These emails are NOT spam. They are from individual Americans, taking time out from their day to warn about an enemy plot that Vicki Rock should have exposed long ago.

It takes literally two minutes to fact-check the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. (Just print out a graphic of the direction to Mecca from Somerset as calculated by Islam.com, place it over the crescent site-plan on your computer screen, and VOILA.) How come this reporter has never done it? And why is she treating news (that people are demanding a simple answer to a devastating question), as a hostile action against herself?

Same answer to both questions. She sees herself as a defender of the Memorial Project and the crescent design. Maintaining that defense requires willful blindness to voluminous evidence of terrorist memorializing intent. The press is as much involved in this behavior as Joanne Hanley and Mary Bomar and the other Project Partners. (Advisory Commission member Tim Baird said last year that ALL of the Project Partners know about the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent.)

Compared to this, seeing a reporter poke her own eyes out, trying to blind herself permanently to news about people confronting the Memorial Project, is hardly even strange.

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.)

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maggie,

I'm not sure if I am behind the 8 Ball on this issue, but I have not seen a letter/email campaign directed at Congress (and the White House for that matter) addressed in your coverage. If the main focus is on the Park Service and the local PA media you may want to aim a little higher. The following are attached for reference:
House Committee on Appropriations/Subcommittee on Interior and Environment and Related Agencies

Majority Members (Democrats)

Norman D. Dicks (D-WA) [Chairman] 202-225-5916 (W)
202-226-1176 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/dicks/email.html

James P. Moran (D-VA)
202-225-4376 (W)
202-225-0017 (Fax)
Email:
http://moran.house.gov/zipauth.shtml

Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
202-225-6335 (W)
202-226-0774 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/hinchey/contact/zipauth.shtml

John W. Olver (D-MA)
202-225-5335 (W)
202-226-1224 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/olver/contactme.html

Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
202-225-4172 (W)
202-225-7564 (Fax)
Email: CongressmanMollohan@mail.house.gov

Thomas Udall (D-NM)
202-225-6190 (W)
202-226-1331 (Fax)
Email: http://www.tomudall.house.gov/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=223
Ben Chandler (D-KY)
202-225-4706 (W)
202-225-2122 (Fax)
Email:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
202-225-4065 (W)
202-225-1655 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Minority Members (Republicans)

Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)[Ranking Member] 202-225-6216 (W)
202-225-3489 (Fax)
Email:
http://tiahrt.house.gov/?sectionid=12

John E. Peterson (R-PA)
202-225-5121 (W)
202-225-5796 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/johnpeterson/ima/contact.htm

Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
202-225-4404 (W)
202-226-0326 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/emerson/contact/

Virgil Goode (R-VA)
202-225-4711 (W)
202-225-5681 (Fax)
Email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Ken Calvert (R-CA)
202-225-1986 (W)
202-225-2004 (Fax)
Email:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Just a reminder that your own representative can be contacted as well, and the level of attention that petitioning gets follows this general format:

(1) Visits get the most attention
(2) Certified Mail and Faxes are next (traceability and delivery confirmation)
(3) Non-Certified Mail and Email are last

Good luck.

V/R,
Benjamin Walthrop