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	dracothelizard 2005-09-12 09:11 pm UTC (link)
	Wind chimes? Dude, that's going to annoy the hell out of people who work/live nearby. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	fourthage 2005-09-13 12:56 am UTC (link)
	There's nothing nearby. It's being built at a reclaimed strip mine, surrounded by 2000 acres. Damn, but that's a lot of land. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tangentialone 2005-09-12 11:15 pm UTC (link)
	Oh em gee, we're ~~internet~~ REAL LIFE famous! (Reply to this)

	elkins 2005-09-13 01:19 am UTC (link)
	Hmmm. Add a handle to the cresent, then cross the whole thing with a hammer, and the designers' true affiliations are exposed. I knew if I just waited long enough, the 1980s would eventually come back into fashion. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2005-09-13 02:43 am UTC (link)
	I know! We're on kind of a 1980s-Gilded Age fusion for the ultimate nostalgia-kitsch effect. How fun! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	elkins 2005-09-13 12:05 pm UTC (link)
	All of the hubris, complacency and paranoia that you remember so fondly - but now! Without all of that fattening economic expansion! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kelschuu 2005-09-13 10:34 am UTC (link)
	OMG ~~COMMUNIST~~ ~~SOCIALIST~~ ~~TERRORIST~~ ~~COMMUNIST~~ damn I just don't know anymore. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dwarfjen 2005-09-13 11:53 am UTC (link)
	Nobody show these people the new Tesco ads. (If I could find the people responsible for those, I would shake their hands - and then raid their drug supply, because that is some good shit). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tronella 2005-09-13 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	(I haven't seen them. What did they do this time?) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

teruhiko
2005-09-14 04:16 pm UTC (link)

It's their usual 'design by Cherokee, price by Tesco' clothes ads with the little red stars "ping"-ing up with the cheap-as-hell pricetag on, only it's done in a fancy patriotic Russian constructivist style, with models dressed as iconic working women, looking fearlessly into the distance while holding tools, etc. One model is holding up a sickle and hammer, while standing on a giant red star. It's pretty cool. =)

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	Whee, eighties! ashenmote 2005-09-13 02:22 pm UTC (link)
	Can I hmmm back at the webdiva person or would that be rude? Also, hey!!! clings like a clingy thing (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Whee, eighties! elkins 2005-09-14 02:47 am UTC (link)
	Hey! clings back Cannot...resist...apocalyptic post-HPB wankstorm... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Whee, eighties! gloria_mundi 2005-09-14 10:45 am UTC (link)
	Your icoon is dancing to Portobella's "Covered in Punk", just thought you might like to know (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ealusaid 2005-09-13 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	Apparently somebody's missed the memo that the commies aren't the Big Bad anymore. For the Big Bad Du Jour, a simple crescent would've been good enough. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aerobot 2005-09-19 05:59 am UTC (link)
	Geez, calling liberals 'commies' is sooooo 1980's. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	vigilanterodent 2005-09-13 01:35 am UTC (link)
	So wait, I can add "philistine" to my list of Reasons I Don't Like Michelle Malkin? AWESOME. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	felinephoenix 2005-09-13 10:47 am UTC (link)
	Don't forget to add Michelle Malkin to the list! ~~The fact that she exists is enough for me.~~ (Reply to this)(Parent)

	princessdot 2005-09-13 02:11 am UTC (link)
	MmMmMm, crescents.... (Reply to this)

	luthe 2005-09-13 02:25 am UTC (link)
	You know, I wasn't planning of adding to F_W's Internet fame, but whatever I must do for the cause... (Reply to this)

	capn_triangle 2005-09-13 03:42 am UTC (link)
	Actually, it's in the shape of a crescent because they wanted to moon America. (Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2005-09-13 06:05 am UTC (link)
	The comments on Making Light were quite amusing. :) And not laugh-at-them funny, but actually witty. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	ealusaid 2005-09-13 06:40 am UTC (link)
	And after that, they all set to writing a 1950s science fiction story. It's fantastic! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	felinephoenix 2005-09-13 10:46 am UTC (link)
	Mmm, croissants. Ils sont délicieux, et je suis rebelle ananas. All for the croissants. Oh, right, and the wank is dumb. (Reply to this)

	silrana 2005-09-13 11:24 am UTC (link)
	Well, the design wouldn't have caused much of a stir if it hadn't A- been made with red trees to emphasize the crescent, and B- come so close on the heels of the terrible design suggested for the 9/11 memorial. Personally I think the design would work just fine if the foliage was green and the curve was broadened a bit. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	ealusaid 2005-09-13 03:27 pm UTC (link)
	Duh! Red maple trees! Think! This exposes the designers' true affiliations! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	silrana 2005-09-13 04:07 pm UTC (link)
	No, it simply creates a rather tasteless image, by design or not. It would be like visiting a memorial to slain civil rights leaders and realizing that it included an element that resembled a flaming cross. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	darkrose 2005-09-13 07:55 pm UTC (link)
	The analogy might work if the red crescent was a symbol of Al-Qaeda, but since the only thing a red crescent symbolizes is the humanitarian organization of the same name, I'm not seeing how it applies here at all. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

silrana
2005-09-13 09:05 pm UTC (link)

To most Americans, the crescent is seen as the 'cross' of the Islamic religion. Rightly or wrongly, it has that association, partly helped along by the existence of the Red Crescent. While the red color has no special significance to Islam, it serves to highlight its existence in the memorial design.

The memorial, after all, is to commemorate the courage and sacrifice of people who decided not to sit in their seats and let themselves be slaughtered by Islamic fundamentalists. To have a symbol that is, even tangentially, associated with their murderers incorporated into that memorial is something I find tasteless.

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darkrose
2005-09-13 09:20 pm UTC (link)

To most Americans, the crescent is seen as the 'cross' of the Islamic religion.

That's because most Americans are clueless. The crescent has no particular significance in Islam: it was chosen back in 1870 at the request of the Ottoman Empire, because it was their symbol. It has nothing to do with Islam as a whole, and is not a religious symbol.

To have a symbol that is, even tangentially, associated with their murderers incorporated into that memorial is something I find tasteless.

What I find tasteless is the assertion that if something is associated with Islam, it is, by default, tangentially associated with terrorism.

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silrana
2005-09-13 11:00 pm UTC (link)

What I find tasteless is the assertion that if something is associated with Islam, it is, by default, tangentially associated with terrorism.

The ugly fact is that we were attacked by people who use the symbols and verbiage of the Islamic religion. Any sensible person knows that they were not typical members of Islam, any more than the Klan are typical Christians.

That is why I brought up the idea of a flaming cross at a civil rights memorial. The cross does not belong to the Klan, but they use it and claim to be Christians. Al Qaeda claims to be acting on behalf of Islam. Both use religion and its symbols in a way that can create a negative image. It's all a matter of context.

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darkrose
2005-09-13 11:28 pm UTC (link)

The crescent moon is not inherently a symbol of Islam.

If it were, however, by your logic, any use of a cross should be offensive to me:

If symbol X is associated with religion A;

And if followers of religion A commit atrocities;

Therefore, symbol X will always be associated with those atrocities.

Of course, if I started a movement to, say, remove crosses from headstones in Arlington National Cemetary because the Klan uses it as a symbol, you'd say a) that I was nuts, and b) that all Christians shouldn't be blamed for the actions of a few psychos who call themselves Christians.

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silrana
2005-09-13 11:40 pm UTC (link)

As I said, it's context. If the Klan were the ones who killed all the people in Arlington, then I would think you might have a point. And if someone suggested a large red crescent as part of, say, a Hurricane Katrina memorial, I would have no problem with it.

All I said was that I personally found it tasteless. I know a lot of people who are not foaming at the mouth wackos who feel the same way, and that was my only point. That many people are displeased with it, not just ones willing to be offended by anything.

And that will have to end things for me, because it's another bleeding-fingers day and I'm out of fingertip band-aids.

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darkrose
2005-09-13 11:52 pm UTC (link)

All I said was that I personally found it tasteless. I know a lot of people who are not foaming at the mouth wackos who feel the same way, and that was my only point. That many people are displeased with it, not just ones willing to be offended by anything.

Given that the families of the victims did not find it tasteless, it sounds an awful lot like the people who are displeased with it are people who equate Islam with terrorism--which is just as stupid as assuming that all Christians are homophobes because of Fred Phelps.

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	panthea 2005-09-14 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	Marry me plz. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	absurdwords 2005-09-13 11:16 pm UTC (link)
	What I find tasteless is the assertion that if something is associated with Islam, it is, by default, tangentially associated with terrorism. Word. I don't think christians would like to have their name immediately linked to godhatesfags. There's more to Islam than what you see on television. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

gloria_mundi
2005-09-14 10:51 am UTC (link)

Anyonw know if Phelps got the security he "asked" the King of Sweeden for after calling him several derogatory names?

I can't make this stuff up. Phelps and some of his cronies were going to Sweeden to protest the country's gay-friendly policy's.

As Phelps has recieved death threats from some Sweeds (can't imagine why), he wrote to the King and demanded protection while calling the King homophobic names.

Here's his three letters.

http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/aug2005/20050830_letter-to-king-of-sweden.pdf

http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/aug2005/20050829_king-carl-gustaf-letter.pdf

http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/aug2005/20050823_king-carl-gustaf-lawsuit.pdf

And one LJ 'ers (Me) take on it

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pandoras_closet/549507.html

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	absurdwords 2005-09-14 01:08 pm UTC (link)
	BWAHAHAHAHAHA! It's hard to believe those fuckwits are serious. Thank goodness those idiots don't seem to be aware of the existence of Belgium yet. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	gloria_mundi 2005-09-14 01:10 pm UTC (link)
	What I find interesting about the letters is that they read like they were written by two people. One is calm and businesslike, the other is like the swearing friend from Sexy Losers (Reply to this)(Parent)

darkrose
2005-09-13 09:41 pm UTC (link)

To have a symbol that is, even tangentially, associated with their murderers incorporated into that memorial is something I find tasteless.

Also, given that the families of the victims don't seem to find it "tasteless"--including the woman who served on the design jury whose mother was one of those killed--I'm having a hard time seeing the complaints over this as anything other than wankiness.

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oystergal
2005-09-14 01:40 pm UTC (link)

To have a symbol that represents the best of the Islamic world (the Red Crescent, their best-known humanitarian organization, at least to Westerners) joining in the celebration of the passengers' courage is something I find quite positive.

The last thing I would want would be any sort of triumphalism. The passengers really spit in Al Qaeda's eye, yessir. Let's build something that encourages us to wave our guns and ride our bombs.

Let's not.

Instead, we have a design that encourages contemplation. That crescent that people are so up in arms over is an amphitheatre open to the Sacred Ground of the crash site. It's more than symbolic; it's a practial use of the topography. It's also a very minimalist design, easy to construct, easy to maintain, based on what is already there. As you already know, I'm very partial to keeping the historical topography as intact as possible.

And frankly, have you seen the other finalists? I could go with the Bravery Wall; it reminds me of the power of the Sunken Road at Antietam. But the Luminous Roofscape? *shudder* Memory Trail, with its intrusive modern architecture?

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silrana
2005-09-14 07:05 pm UTC (link)

To me, the symbol and the Islamic religion are immaterial. It's the association. Let me put it this way, if the plane was hijacked by a group most people associated with pink fluffy bunnies, then I would disagree with the image of a pink fluffy bunny being in the memorial. It has nothing to do with the circumstances or politics, it is a simple equation of memorial to dead people + symbol that brings to mind their killers = yuck.

And I adore your icon.

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oystergal
2005-09-14 08:24 pm UTC (link)

One would have to go out of their way to incorporate pink fluffy bunnies into any design, much like the finalist who designed the approach to the Sacred Ground as a scale model of the plane's flight path.

If you want to create seating for contemplation of the crash site, the topography pretty much forces you to use a semi-circle. The scale drawings I've seen haven't looked much like a crescent to me; without Malkin's foaming at the mouth, I doubt it would have occurred to me. What it does look like to me is the seating for a gazebo/bandstand in a small-town park I've been designing off and on over the last year.

While I love the idea of the crescent representing the rest of the Muslim world grieving with us, I have no illusion that it was intended by the designer. The path along which the trees are planted turns at a point on the crash trajectory and then swings around a deep natural bowl and wetland area. The infamous crescent is the curve around that bowl. Odds are, someone looked at the cost and effort of making a direct path ADA compliant and said "If we use an arc around this way, we can maintain a shallow enough grade and create a place to plant lots of trees!"

memorial to dead people + symbol that brings to mind their killers = yuck.

The crescent brings the hijackers to mind only because of a concerted effort to link them with and thereby demonize all Muslims. We saw it happen in WW2 with the demonization of the Japanese, it happened during the Cold War with the Soviets, and I've been watching and hearing the exact same techniques being used to demonize Muslims the last four years. Propaganda is propaganda, no matter which side uses it.

The five-pointed star is also a symbol strongly associated with Muslim nations. In fact, Iraq used stars with no crescent. Designs incorporating stars should also draw heavy criticism on the same grounds. Think they would?

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	oystergal 2005-09-14 08:51 pm UTC (link)
	Got interrupted. :P And I adore your icon. I like him, too. :) Wish I could remember where I found the original animation so I could give credit. I found it in a graphics archive I was converting from Zip disk to CD. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ealusaid 2005-09-13 11:19 pm UTC (link)
	See, I was joking. I think we all got the reason why everyone's so upset. This is me mocking them for it. Also, how does the shape of a flaming cross differ from a cross cross? Squiggly lines on the top of the cross-piece? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

silrana
2005-09-13 11:32 pm UTC (link)

I knew you were mocking. I was simply trying to point out that someone could find it tasteless without foaming at the mouth.

As for the shape, I was thinking of something like I remembered from when I was a kid. One of the ladies of our church wanted to put a flower bed in front of it. She wanted to make a big cross with red flowers. My aunt looked at her and said, "Uuuuuh, you want it to look like a burning cross?" Everyone agreed that would not be the smartest thing in the world to do.

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	selene_avis 2005-09-16 01:06 am UTC (link)
	...the terrible design suggested for the 9/11 memorial. What happened? Details, please. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	adora_spintriae 2005-09-13 11:57 am UTC (link)
	These people don't know a smile when they see one. Or maybe it's a giant eyelash. Or a Freedom Roll. I dunno... (Reply to this)

	mistal 2005-09-13 11:54 pm UTC (link)
	headdesk Is the Moon a terrorist too? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2005-09-14 06:10 am UTC (link)
	Only during some times of the month. The moon--like my sister, in a way! (Reply to this)(Parent)