The desecration has begun. A ground-breaking ceremony was held at the Shanksville crash site on Saturday. Bulldozers will start reshaping the land this week. Never mind that the only rule for the Flight 93 memorial’s design competition was that the landscape had to be left as it was. In order to complete the full arc of the Crescent of Embrace (now called a broken circle, but still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent), an earthen causeway will have to be built across the wetlands that lie about 50 vertical feet below the crash site.
A contractor posted recently about his decision to turn down work on the memorial, despite economic hard times. Our friend Jeff just could not stomach the idea of helping to build a tribute to the enemy, a sentiment that is easy to understand and much appreciated. To anyone else who might find themselves in this situation, just be aware that there are other options. Someone is going to do the work, and if the pay is lucrative, it could be better for our cause to have that money go to someone who is on our side. Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Burnett Sr. and his wife Beverly did some 9/11 interviews the last couple of days, remembering their son Tom Jr., who was murdered by Islamic terrorists aboard Flight 93. Mr. Burnett has been trying for several years to stop the Park Service from planting a giant Islamic-shaped crescent on the Flight 93 crash site. In their interview with WSAU radio in Wisconsin, the Burnetts were joined half-way through the hour by Alec Rawls (the author of this blogburst post), who has written a book about the terrorist memorializing Crescent of Embrace design.
Mr. Burnett’s words are always heartfelt, yet marked by a constant scrupulousness. Emotion never carries him to utter a word beyond what he actually has grounds to assert. Highly recommended listening, perhaps especially for those who are better at judging people than facts. Let’s face it, show some people the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent, and they just aren’t sure what they are looking at. Point out that the central feature of every mosque is a Mecca-direction indicator, and somehow the pieces don’t fall together in their brains: Read the rest of this entry »
In 2007, Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird told me that everyone at the meetings he attended is fully aware that the giant crescent, originally named the Crescent of Embrace, really does point almost exactly at Mecca. Professor Baird says they all just assume (himself included) that the Mecca orientation must be an innocent coincidence.
Pretty crazy, when they have also been told the meaning of a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca. Every mosque is built around a Mecca-direction indicator called a mihrab, and the classic mihrab is crescent shaped. Geometrically, the Crescent of Embrace is the world’s largest mihrab.
However honestly Project Partners believe that the Mecca orientation of the crescent must be a coincidence, this is not what they tell the public. When reporters asked Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley about the Mecca orientation, she denied it:
“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said.
Thinking that the Mecca orientation of the crescent must be a coincidence in no way justifies lying to the public about this explosive information. If Baird’s account is accurate—that the dozens of Memorial Project Partners all know that the giant crescent actually does point to Mecca—then the Memorial Project has a lot of explaining to do. Now an overlooked article from 2007 corroborates Professor Baird’s information. Read the rest of this entry »
Two Pennsylvanian’s quit the Flight 93 Memorial Commission last week, protesting Park Service plans to condemn five crash-site properties that it never negotiated for in good faith. Consider the case of the Lambert family, who have been on their land for three generations:
“It’s absolutely a surprise. I’m shocked by it. I’m disappointed by it,” said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land, he said, he had always intended to donate for the memorial.
“To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have taken place with the park service where we’ve sat down and discussed this,” Lambert said.
Lambert said he had mainly dealt with the Families of Flight 93 and said he’s provided the group all the information it’s asked for, including an appraisal.
They are condemning land that he was trying to GIVE to them, just because he had the gall to expect the Park Service to actually do its part. Read the rest of this entry »
A Muslim consultant told the Park Service in 2006 that the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 cannot be seen as a mihrab (the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built), because the giant Islamic-shaped crescent does not point exactly at Mecca:
Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.
Saudi religious authorities recently had to address this question when observers noted that some 200 mosques in Mecca itself do not point directly at the Kaaba (the “Sacred Mosque” that all Muslims are supposed to face for prayer). Meccans who worried that their prayers might not count were assured by the Islamic Affairs Ministry that “it does not affect the prayers.”
The necessity for such a rule is obvious. Throughout most of Islam’s 1400 year history, Muslims who were any significant distance from Mecca had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca. Thus it became established religious principle that what matters is intent. It is the mind of the believer that needs to face directly towards the Kaaba, and directly towards God. This principle applies in Mecca the same as anywhere else. Read the rest of this entry »
Architect Paul Murdoch split his giant Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 into two separate arcs at the top, in effect creating two separate crescents:
Detail view shows the pair of thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal walls. Both walls roughly follow the line of the circle that is symbolically broken by the flight path (seen coming down from the NNE). Read the rest of this entry »
FrontPage managing editor Jamie Glazov interviews Alec Rawls in this week’s FrontPage Interview.
Rawls takes the opportunity to lay out the basic facts for a new set of readers:
1. That the giant crescent (originally called the Crescent of Embrace) points to Mecca.
2. That this giant Mecca oriented crescent is STILL THERE in the Circle of Embrace redesign (explicitly described as a broken circle, just as the Crescent of Embrace was).
Punch line:
It’s like gate security catching a terrorist with a bomb and telling him to go back outside and see if he can hide it better the second time. All [architect Paul Murdoch] did was add some completely irrelevant disguise.
Please give FrontPage a visit, and if you haven’t bookmarked them already, the site is well worth your time.
Frontpage founder David Horowitz has been exposing the far left’s takeover of the Democrat mainstream since the 1980’s, and since 2001 has extended his Discover the Networks approach to our Islamofascist enemies. If you are drawn to the sound of the guns, FrontPage is on the frontlines of both the culture-war and terror-war battles for accurate information.
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In what is a less controversial rememberance of those that died, and those who risked and gave their lives in the aftermath of 911, a flag draped, cross of the steel debris from the North Tower is traveling via motorcade to it’s new memorial home in Shanksville, PA… about 1.5 miles from the embattled Flight 93 National Memorial.
Retired firefighter Pat Concannon, owner of an excavating business involved in the WTC rescue efforts, pulled the cross shaped debris from the wreckage.
Retired Lieut. Paddy Concannon of the Family Transport Service
for the FDNY stands beside the cross. Both photos courtesy of The Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company
Cancel as well the urgent action alert that was going to be the subject of today’s blogburst post. The Memorial Project has just abandoned the “gala” tribute and fundraiser they were planning for almost a year. The event was to be held in Washington DC on September 11th, and yes, they actually called it a “gala,” until Flight 93 family members said NO WAY.
Joanne Hanley, superintendent of the Flight 93 Memorial Project, cannot answer the damning facts about the crescent design (now called a broken circle), so she has decided to slander the people who are pointing them out. In a speech at the Memorial Project’s August 2nd meeting, she cited a list of “threats” she had received from critics, saying for instance that her “career would be destroyed.”
In defense of Superintendent Hanley, Flight 93 family member Calvin Wilson expressed his disgust at the violent threats and charged that critics were acting like the terrorists themselves. ThreePennsylvanianewspapers covered Hanley’s claims to have been threatened, one editorialized against the uncivilized critics, and a Memorial Project press release highlighted Wilson’s outraged response to the supposed threats.
It is all a lie. Here is the Letter to the Editor that Alec Rawls just sent to the duped Pennsylvania newspapers, exposing Superintendent Hanley’s deception:
A warning is not a threat. A warning is to protect against a threat.
As the lead organizer of the movement to stop the crescent design, I can tell you who made the statements that Superintendent Hanley was complaining about. I recognized every one of the phrases she cited as coming from myself. It is ME who Joanne Hanley is accusing of making threats, an accusation that is not just false, but grotesquely dishonest. Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Burnett Sr. entered the lion’s den on Saturday to oppose the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). An excerpt from the beginning of the Somerset Daily American’s banner headline story about division amongst the families: Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Burnett Sr. and Alec Rawls will be in Somerset PA this weekend to condemn the crescent/broken-circle memorial to Flight 93. Here is Alec’s notice about the press conference that he and Mr. Burnett will host after they speak at the public meeting of the Memorial Project Saturday morning: Read the rest of this entry »
Not all of us can make it to Pennsylvania next week to help Tom Burnett Sr. stop the re-hijacking of Flight 93, but if anyone needs another reason to try…
The crescent memorial to Flight 93 will have the 9/11 date inscribed on a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag.
Check it out. As can be seen on our blogburst logo, there will be a copse of trees that sits roughly between the tips of the giant crescent (roughly in the position of the star on a crescent and star flag). That is the Sacred Ground Plaza, which sits just above the crash site. Inside the Sacred Ground Plaza is a two part Memorial Wall that follows the flight path down to the point of impact: Read the rest of this entry »
Thanks to Muslims Against Sharia for putting together a short video on the re-hijacking of Flight 93:
The voice at the beginning is flight attendant CeeCee Lyles.
CeeCee’s family has really struggled without her. One of the many stories that clearly illustrate how much one life matters. (Serious tear-jerker warning.) Read the rest of this entry »
Al Qaeda’s 9/11 sneak attack cast suspicion on all Muslims. After the hijackers hid amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends while plotting acts of war, how can we know that other Muslims are not doing the same?
American Muslims could undo much of this suspicion by helping to expose the terrorist memorial mosque that architect Paul Murdoch is trying to plant on the Flight 93 crash site.
Non-Muslim Americans can tell themselves that the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent is esoteric or unimportant (even if they go by semi-Islamic sounding names like Allahpundit), but every Muslim will instantly recognize this orientation as the central symbol of Islam. Read the rest of this entry »
