Flight 93 Blogburst

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 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.”

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!"

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.


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