Burnett Sr: "Withhold my son's name from 9/11 Islamic Memorial"

Alex, intrepid blogger on the Islamic Memorial to the Flight 83, writes that Post Gazette reporter Paula Ward’s had an article today on Tom Burnett Sr.’s protest of the crescent design. In it she does some real legwork, getting a bunch of insane comments from several of the principles. I just put up a post that exposes their various lies and willful blindness.

Nearly two years after the design of the United Flight 93 Memorial was changed to eliminate any perceived Islamic symbolism, the father of one of the people killed in the crash has asked that his son's name be withheld from the monument.

"It's something I'd rather not do, but I can't get anyone to listen," said Tom Burnett Sr., of Northfield, Minn. "In a sense, I'm asking for a call to action."

Mr. Burnett, who served on the Stage II jury that picked the winning design originally named "Crescent of Embrace," said that he raised his concerns about using a crescent-shaped grouping of red maple trees around the crash site then.

"It's almost as though it's intentional," he said. "This design should not invoke any Islamic impression of any sort."

He called the crescent a well-known, widely accepted Muslim symbol that doesn't belong in a memorial honoring the 40 passengers and crew members who were killed on the flight headed from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, on Sept. 11, 2001, in their efforts to thwart an attack on the capital.

When the concerns about the use of the crescent first arose, the designer of the memorial, Paul Murdoch, willingly changed the shape to an almost full circle.

But criticism, largely driven by online blogs, has continued.

Thank Gd for the blogs, that's all I can say.

Mr. Burnett has based many of his concerns in the theories put forth by conservative blogger, Alec Rawls, who has also written a book, "Crescent of Betrayal," on the matter.

On Mr. Rawls' Web site, errortheory.blogspot.com, he cites a number of examples of how he believes the Flight 93 memorial is really a monument to terrorists.

Among his allegations:

• "A person facing into the giant central crescent of the Flight 93 Memorial is facing Mecca."
• There are 44 glass blocks being used in the design, representing the 40 passengers and four terrorists who hijacked the plane.
• The 93-foot tall Tower of Voices, which will include wind chimes to represent those who died, is an Islamic sundial. "Shadow calculations confirm that, on any day of the year, when the tower shadow reaches the inner arc of trees, it will be time for Islamic afternoon prayers."

Check out the lunatic  statements that Alex has rounded up from the Flight 93 Memorial Project  article, , quoting a host of principles from the memorial debacle making the most insane statements.