For two years, Tom Burnett Sr. has been speaking out against the crescent-shaped memorial to Flight 93. This week Beverly Burnett (mother of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.) stepped into the public eye to support her husband, and to make her own appeal for a full investigation:
Today, I am adding my voice for a full and transparent review of the National Park Service and Flight 93 design selection process that produced Crescent of Embrace. Does it have Islamic symbols or doesn’t it? Let's settle this once and for all.Thanks to The Somerset Daily American for publishing Mrs. Burnett’s complete statement, which she also entered into the record of the most recent Memorial Project meeting. Read the whole thing.
Why do you think Tom Sr. opposed this design? It is pretty simple; Tom Sr. saw the Islamic symbols and knew those symbols did not belong at the crash site of Flight 93.
Tom Burnett Sr. traveled to Pennsylvania last August to attend the Task Force Meeting to voice his opposition to the memorial design. A Family Board member as well as a commissioner accused Tom Sr. being “just like the Islamic terrorists” that killed our son.
Why didn’t someone speak up and defend Tom Sr.’s right to voice his opinion?
Two other mentions of the memorial controversy in the local PA press this week
In a letter to the editor, a local woman echoed Mrs. Burnett’s sentiment in favor of preserving the site as it is, instead of demolishing the highly regarded Temporary Memorial and radically transforming the landscape, as the Memorial Project intends.
At present the Temporary Memorial looks down over the “field of honor.” Because this temporary memorial is located roughly in the center of the planned half-mile wide crescent, it will be eliminated. Visitors who stand at the location of the Temporary Memorial will no longer look out over the original landscape, but will instead see the crash-site framed between the pincer tips of the giant Islamic-shaped crescent.
They call the crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11 (originally called the Crescent of Embrace) remains completely unchanged.
Nice words from a local columnist, but no fact-checking
In the area’s second local paper, The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, columnist Ralph Couey offers a very nice tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 in which he mentions Mr. Burnett’s opposition to the planned memorial. Unfortunately, Mr. Couey goes on to describes Mr. Burnett’s opposition as “hopeless intransigence,” and expresses his optimism that it can be gotten past.
Given that newspapers are supposed to get to the truth, one would hope that those who gain the privilege of this public platform would bother to check the facts. If Mr. Burnett is correct in his warnings about Islamic symbolism, then finding a way to get past these objections is like finding a way to sneak a hijacker past gate security. It is a bad thing, not a good thing.
The petition that Mr. Burnett sponsored along with our blogburst group lists four damning facts about the approved design that can all be verified in a matter of minutes. Can Mr. Couey check just one: that a person standing between the tips of the giant crescent and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing within 2° of Mecca?
The Muslim prayer direction in this animation (qibla) is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. (If you have trouble getting their calculator to work--your Java has to be configured correctly--there is another Mecca direction calculator at QiblaLocator.com.)
This Mecca-orientation makes the giant crescent a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. Does Mr. Couey really want to see the world’s largest mosque planted on the Flight 93 crash site? It is fine to speak highly of the heroes of Flight 93, but it would be a lot more meaningful if he would honor the Burnett’s urgent appeal for fact-checking by stepping over to a globe and checking this one simple factual claim.
Mr. Couey is not the only one who wants the crescent controversy to go away without caring to know the truth. Sorry, but that is insufficient. Planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the crash-site will dishonor the heroes of Flight 93, and it fails to follow their example. They didn’t just have good intentions. They got the job done, and we have to get the job done too. We can’t be asleep at the wheel while an al Qaeda sympathizing architect hijacks our memorial.
What? Is it just too outlandish to think that the enemy might try to hijack one of our memorials? The same way that it is just too outlandish to think that the enemy might dare to hijack our commercial airliners? Do these people even know what they are memorializing?
But they CAN wake up. All they have to do is actually check the facts. Then they will know. So please Mr. Couey, take the time to check a few facts, then write a second column, reporting your findings. Somebody out there in Somerset needs to start telling the truth. It might as well be you.
To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url.
1389 Blog - Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
A Liberal's Worst Nightmare
ACT Golden Gate
Al Salibiyyah
All American Blogger
Almost Midnight in the West
American Commentaries
And Rightly So
Anne Arundel Maryland Politics
Alamo City Pundit
ARRA News Service
Atlas Shrugs
Auntie Coosa Campfire Journal
Bare Naked Islam
Battle Dress U
Because I'm Right
Best Destiny
Big Dog's Weblog
Big Sibling
Blackboot Jacks
blogito, ergo, sum
Bob McCarty Writes
Boston Maggie
Cao2's Weblog
Cao's Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Chester Street
Chicago Ray
Christmas Ghost
Classic Liberal
Clay Ritter
Clay's Rants and Musings
Cocked and Loaded
Colonel Robert Neville Always Dresses for Dinner
Common Sense Junction
Concrete Bob
Covertress
Creeping Sharia
DC Protest Warrior
Democrat = Socialist
Dr. Bulldog and Ronin
Error Theory
EW1's Intercept Log
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Flopping Aces
Founding Fathers of the Vast Right Wing
Four Pointer
Francase Place
Freedom's Enemies
Freedom Warrior
Fried Green Onions
From My Position On the Way!
Ft. Hard Knox
Freedom Ain't Free
Garbanzo Toons
General Rachel's weblog
GM's Corner
Green Country Values
Gunservatively
Haid Dasalami
Hard to Swallow
Holger Awakens
Hollywood Conservative
Hoosier Army Mom
iOwnThewWorld.com
Ironic Surrealism v3.0
Ivy League Conservatives
Jack Lewis
Jihad Press
Jim-Rose - the Libertarian Popinjay
Judge Right
Just Barking Mad
kae's bloodnut blog
Kender's Musings
Lemur King's Folly
LGF 2.0: Little Green Blogmocracy
Maggie's Notebook
MELAMPUS'S MENAGERIE!!!!
Miss Beth's Victory Dance
Monkey in the Middle
Muslims Against Sharia
My Own Thoughts
Neoconstant
Nice Deb
No Apology
No Compromises When It Comes To Being Right!
Noli insipientium iniurias pati
Not A Sheep
Redesigned Flight 93 memorial still an Islamo-fascist shrine
Ogre's Politics and Views
Old Soldier
Papa Mike's blog
Part-Time Pundit
Political Islam
Principally Political
Protest The Church
Protest The Left
Publius' Forum
Race, Politics, and Religion in the USA
Rayra.net
Republican Attack Machine
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Ron's Musings
Rosemary's Thoughts
Sarah Palin in Español
Seattle Express
Sharia Finance Watch
Sheepdog Barking
Shot in the Dark
Sad Old Goth
Smooth Stone
Space 4 Commerce by Brian Dunbar
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
Teen Pundit
the Avid Editor
The Conservative Guy
The Gadfly
The Great Lie of Islam
The Grid
The Hinge of Fate
Liberalguy
The Loyal Eagles
The Midnight Sun
The Mountain
The Paradigm Shift
The Political Octagon
The Renaissance Biologist
The Sanity Sentinel
The Sisyphus Files
The Strata-Sphere
The Truth of Islam
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Talk Wisdom
Thunder Run
Tizona's Weblog
Tough Girl 101
Traction Control
United Conservatives
War of 2 Worlds
We Have Some Planes
Yes, but can I dance to it?
