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 off
icial 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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