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4 of the Most Logical Solutions to the Mosque at Ground Zero Issue

4 of the Most Logical Solutions to the Mosque at Ground Zero Issue by Erin Gibson at the Huffington Post

This whole "mosque at ground zero" thing got me thinking about how we could build a mosque that wouldn't make its opponents so angry. So, I made a list of how we can, as Tim Gunn says, "make it work".

#1 - Build the mosque, but surround the mosque with puppies.
You see American's, heck humans, love puppies, and once they see those cute little furry dog babies, they'll forget all about the religion going on inside that building. Next thing you know, Americans and Muslims will just be standing around the mosque, giving those puppies cute names like Max, Rockie or Bushra. And they'll all be happy, all the time. Because when the puppies get too old, they'll replace them with new puppies!!**

#2 - Ice cream!!!
Not just an ice cream truck, we'll install an ice cream slide that carries ice cream from the minaret straight into people's mouths. Think about how happy you are after eating ice cream! So happy! I had multiple servings of mint chocolate chip ice cream after my grandma died of cancer and instantly I was almost back to normal. It's a magical, milky cure all for the blues, and I think it could really help solve this problem. We'd have to figure out a good rotation of flavors. I'm not dumb enough to think that everyone's favorite flavor is vanilla, so I think putting in a nice rotation of chocolate, strawberry and pecan should satisfy everyone.

#3 - An invisible mosque.
You remember Wonder Woman? That lady had an invisible plane, so why not take that cartoon technology and apply it to an actual building in real life? I don't see any reason why not, especially since it's a particularly good idea.

#4 - Take everyone who doesn't like the mosque idea, put them in a spaceship (I'm looking at you, Richard Branson) and take them to another planet.
Then, the people who want the mosque will live on Earth. Those people who are against it can start their own civilization (we'll help them, of course - we're not monsters who would just maroon people on another planet). I mean, how fun would that be? To start your own planet? Really fun! But I won't be going, because I like the mosque idea. Which means I'll me missing out on a free trip to space, which sounds like a nice time.

You know , writing these out and posting this first draft without proofreading it has shown me that if you just spend a few minutes, you can open your mind and maybe, just maybe you'll solve some of the world's biggest problems. Like I did today.

Keep ona thinkin'!

** I haven't figured out what will happen to the old puppies. Hopefully, they'd be adopted, but logically, I know there are not enough people to adopt all the puppies it's gonna take to surround the mosque with cuteness. This plan may actually call for a lot of dogs to be euthanized.


Mosques don't kill puppies, people kill puppies. Read more!

My Whole Street Is a Mosque

My Whole Street Is a Mosque by Mira Schor of the Huffington Post

I live on Lispenard Street just south of Canal Street in Lower Manhattan, 14 blocks north of Ground Zero. My daily life on this street and this neighborhood gives me an insight into aspects of Muslim worship in Lower Manhattan people outside of New York City may not be aware of.

From my corner I saw with my own eyes the second plane hit the South Tower. I lived downtown through the scary nights and the many rough months after September 11, and I am here to say that my whole street is a mosque. Several times a day, small groups of Muslims -- mainly African street vendors who peddle carvings or fake Vuitton bags and Rolex watches on Canal Street -- pull out prayers mats, often just rolls of cardboard they store in the nooks and crannies of the buildings around, take their shoes off in all weather, wash their feet with water from bottles, kneel towards the east and pray, 14 blocks from Ground Zero, on ground they've spontaneously "hallowed." And the only thing one can say, in the words of my late Holocaust-refugee Polish-Jewish mother, is "Only in America."

Or at least, only in New York, where these outdoors rituals take place on the street surrounded by crowds of Chinese vendors, NYPD cops, business men, rich men's children and their nannies, and busloads of women tourists from the American South who have come to buy those fake Vuitton bags from those vendors (nice Christian ladies who have no problem breaking New York City's tax laws by buying fake label merchandise). Every day I pass these men praying across the narrow street from my front door and on corners throughout Lower Manhattan. It is an example of the religious freedom and tolerance that has made this country a beacon of freedom around the world.

And so the notion of keeping a mosque from the Ground Zero area is absurd: the streets all around it are already provisional mosques, because these men need to pray somewhere. Out of necessity they put the most private religious worship into the most public and the most humble of spaces. Along with the many who perished on September 11, they too bring to mind President Abraham Lincoln's words in the Gettysburg Address that "in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." Ground can be hallowed many different ways. This is one that I witness every day.

Politicians like President Obama should be wrapping themselves in the American Flag, waving the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights and hollering about Freedom of Religion, the Mayflower, the Founding Fathers, Ellis Island, the Land of the Free, at the top of their lungs, throwing every righteous trope in the rhetorical book of the myth of America at those who would destroy "the better angels of our nature," not getting all wimpy and conciliatory in the face of people who pander hatred and bigotry and who are cynically manipulating the strong emotions of some Ground Zero Families and using the "hallowed ground" of Lower Manhattan as this week's battering ram against America's true greatness. Read more!

Are we having fun yet? Comments on "The Anti-Social Network"

Anonymous commenter "K":

Nancy,
Posting anything political on FB is not going to win many friends. Political nonsense is divisive and if there were consensus, then we probably would be living in a dictatorship, something I'm sort of opposed to, and offended by, being an American. When someone posts a benign comment, it's best to take it that way versus turning someone's commentary into a hate-fest. I neither hate Muslims nor any religion, regardless of whether I call myself a Christian. It seems that for all the painstaking defense of other religions, Liberals have taken to criticizing Christians at every turn as fanatical. Actually, I don't care because it's kind of amusing, to be quite honest. But to some, who aren't able to see the hypocrisy, it is offensive. And yet, no one seems to care. When I complained about an exhibit at a local gallery which displayed Christ with someone urinating on him, I was told that free expression is "artistic". And though you might be one of those who believe that as well, it's actually quite sickening and would not be tolerated if it were anyone else's religious symbol. So, I'm glad that there are people like you who are out there defending other religions, but actually, this country was built on the foundation of Christianity and so be it. For those that want to join other religions or no religion, there are ways to do that and still respect the majority who are Christian.

There is nothing inherently wrong in being a Christian. Fanatics are present in every religion (and political party)and so is hypocrisy. Enjoying political commentary whether it be Glenn Beck or Jon Stewart does not inherently make you a "hater" or "fanatic" or "anti-social". You cannot defend someone's rights only when it is convenient to your belief system. Everyone has the right to believe what they wish.

As for my suggestion which you found "physically sickening", it really was a benign comment. Being a horse lover, it might be hard for you to pass a slaughter house for horses everyday or a battered Women's shelter next to a prison. These might be emotional issues for you. Other people too, have valid emotions that should be respected. At what point do we decide whose emotions are to be respected? I vote for those who are citizens of our country.

I have found, that Liberal ideology is really a lack of the human experience. Gun control for instance, might make sense when you listen to the Liberal dogma, but when you are being held at gunpoint by a stranger, you might wish you had a gun. To suggest though, that your opinion on any matter is the correct one, is one of egocentricity. An opinion is based on whatever nonsense you listen to as well, whether it's Michael Moore or any network news that presents illegals as "victims". Regardless of whether people want to flee their country, there are legal processes and it would be illegal in any country to sneak in and collect benefits, not just ours. Having an opinion that all illegals should come in freely might be interesting fodder for discussion but regardless it is against the present law, despite the current president.But that's a whole other discussion.

August 18, 2010 1:36 PM

My response:

To my anonymous friend K,

I strongly recommend you start your own blog.

Comparing law-abiding Muslim worshippers to sex offenders still makes me physically ill. These people have NOT committed any crime, and wish only to exercise their right to freedom of religion, in a mosque that was there before 9/11 even occurred. THAT--freedom of Religion--is what America was founded on--not Christianity. We got sick of being pushed around by the Church of England and therefore founded our own country (on Native American lands) to do so. So we had to kill a few Indians--it was worth it. They were Luddites, really.

Finally, this political discourse is as much nonsense as a debate over the constitution. I will continue to work to destroy appalling stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as long as I live, just as I do for gays (oh no, more sex offenders!) and other groups maligned due to lack of education in this country. I'm not doing it to win or keep friends. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do, and I'll do it alone if it comes to that. That does not bother me in the least.

August 18, 2010 7:37 PM

Muslims do not equal sex offenders. Just wanted to repeat that, make sure we're clear on that one. Thanks. Read more!

Comments from Aug 17: News Outlets Split

This Ground Zero worker, Bob Pernal, is NOT the anonymous commenter, as far as I know. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Anonymous commenter:
I've been to the WTC, there were no strip joints next door despite what libs want to use as an excuse.

My response:
Well, we knew you might get suspicious, so a few weeks ago we rushed up there and created a few building facades to make the article appear more convincing. But you're too clever for us Libs! Getting the businesses listed in the NYC Yellow Pages at such late notice cost us a small fortune, but we used all our hoarded welfare payments and made it happen!



From FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood

THE FACTS:

No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal Lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearest of the two destroyed in the attacks.

The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.

Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.

To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.

[Scary Muslim!] Guests listen as President Barack Obama speaks at an iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast for Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 13, 2010. For over a billion Muslims, Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection. Obama emphasized the American tenet of religious freedom just as New York City is immersed in a deeply sensitive debate about whether a mosque should be built near the site of the World Trade Center that was destroyed during the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Read more!

News Outlets Split in Describing Mosque

Photo: AP/ Seth Wenig

News Outlets Split in Describing Mosque
By Michael Calderone

There is no mosque being built on the site of Ground Zero. It's a simple fact, but one that news consumers can be forgiven for missing.

In covering the growing controversy over the proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, the national media, led by the big cable networks, have by default shaped the increasingly heated debate by repeatedly referring to the project as the "Ground Zero mosque." An MSNBC spokesman said that describing the project is a "show-by-show decision," while a CNN spokesperson said the network guides anchors in written copy to refer to the project as "an Islamic center that includes a mosque that is near Ground Zero, or is two blocks from Ground Zero." Of course, political pundits may stray from the network's phrasing and inaccurately describe the location of the planned building at the center of the furor.

But Phil Corbett, the New York Times' standards editor said, "Given how politically volatile this discussion has been, we think it's important to be accurate and precise," in explaining the paper's consistent references to the planned structure being two blocks from the Ground Zero site.

The "Park51" project, as it's officially dubbed, is in fact planned for a site two blocks from where the World Trade Center towers fell, amid other lower Manhattan establishments whose names have never featured the words "Ground Zero." If built, the 13-story community center and mosque project will be one of hundreds of buildings located within blocks of Ground Zero — a densely populated area that already includes a couple of mosques, along with less "hallowed" institutions, like strip clubs, bars and Off Track Betting operations.

But Park51 is getting all the attention downtown — and now, nationwide. President Obama affirmed the constitutional right to build a mosque on private property Friday, breathing new life into an already long-raging controversy. In covering Obama's recent remarks — and the past couple months of debate — the media's played a pivotal role in framing the issues at hand. Here's a rundown of how the media covered the debate as it took shape.



Location, location, location

News organizations make conscious decisions when they describe a construction work-in-progress as either located on the site of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history or two blocks away. The New York Times — except for one blog headline — has consistently described the mosque in headlines as not being built at Ground Zero but "near" the site.

Corbett, who oversees the Times standards on such questions, told The Upshot that he hasn't issued any formal guidelines but has discussed that particular phrasing with editors.

"To call it the Ground Zero Mosque not only would give you the impression that it's on the site of the Trade Center," he continued, "but it might even give you the further impression that it's part of the rebuilding process to that site."

The Times appears to be in the minority, judging by headlines related to Obama's remarks.

Many news organizations ran headlines this past weekend describing a "Ground Zero mosque," including the Associated Press, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Fox News, New York Daily News, Politico, and AOL's Politics Daily site. (Yahoo! News, linking to an AP story on the remarks, similarly went with "Ground Zero mosque.")

Several other news organizations routinely place "Ground Zero" in quotation marks, which is more of shorthand way of describing the debate without pinpointing the location.

Still, shorthand also plays a significant part in how the media frames debates. Anyone who's picked up a newspaper or turned on cable news has likely heard about the "Ground Zero mosque" and the controversy surrounding it. It's perhaps the simplest way to jump into a story that's now lasted more than two months.

Beginning of the "Ground Zero mosque" narrative

Salon's Justin Elliot noted Monday that the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy started to take shape in early May, with conservative Pamela Geller, of the Atlas Shrugs blog, and the New York Post leading the charge. It was only after such opposition gained steam — and in the wake of an important local community board vote — that the words "Ground Zero mosque" started appearing in headlines of national publications.

The AP, for one, didn't refer to the project as the "Ground Zero mosque" until late May, according to a Lexis-Nexis search.

On May 6, the AP ran the following headline: "Plan for mosque near 9/11-damaged site." Up until May 24, AP headlines were always clear that the project isn't going to be built at Ground Zero. That day's headline: "Landmark status could stop mosque near ground zero."

But on May 25, the AP ran the following: "Groups to present NY ground zero mosque plans." And the next day: "NYC community board OKs ground zero mosque plans."

Since late May, the AP has described the projected in headlines as the "Ground Zero mosque" on numerous, but not all, occasions. Following the president's remarks, the AP ran this headline: "Obama supports 'the right' for ground zero mosque."

Chad Roedemeier, assistant chief of AP's New York bureau, told The Upshot in an email that "the slug" — a journalistic shorthand for what an article's about—"on the story has always been Ground Zero mosque, and it has appeared that way sometimes in headlines."

"But the proposed mosque is actually two blocks away from ground zero, and our stories have always said 'a planned mosque near ground zero,' " Roedemeier continued. "We never say 'a mosque at ground zero.' "

It's true that the AP's coverage of the debate is always clear, often in the lead sentence, that construction would be two blocks away. Roedemeier noted that the AP has used "ground zero mosque" twice in the body of a story, but only "when it was described that way by mosque opponents."

AP spokesman Paul Colford told The Upshot that AP "headlines are a telescoping or a shorthanding of a text and a story." Colford said he was also unaware of any official change in policy that would explain why AP stories before May 25 didn't refer to a "Ground Zero mosque" in headlines.

The 1,500-plus newspapers and websites that run AP copy can change the headlines as they see fit. But given that many newsrooms follow AP style, it's possible they'd also go with the news organization's own usage of "Ground Zero mosque" in headlines.

There goes the neighborhood?

The phrase "Ground Zero mosque" may not only create a perception that the project would built at Ground Zero, but also that there's a section of Manhattan by that name. Nate Silver, the blogger behind FiveThirtyEight.com, pointed out to headline writers this past weekend that Ground Zero is not a neighborhood.

Unlike Manhattan's Upper East Side or Soho, no New Yorker says they live in Ground Zero. Also, two blocks can be worlds apart in Manhattan's real estate market — particularly at the narrow lower tip of the island. In an earlier life as a New York real estate reporter, I've seen firsthand how building prices rise, or dip, considerably, depending on which side of a given street they're on — that's how small a New York neighborhood can be.

The Times' Corbett also pointed out that there are probably hundreds of buildings within a two-block radius of Ground Zero. The decision to shy away from dubbing one the "Ground Zero mosque," he said, is "really a question of being accurate."

"We all fall into these forms of shorthand sometimes, when you've written a story so many times," Corbett said. "Sometimes the shorthand can really confuse people or become inaccurate and we need to be wary about that."

The Upshot has reached out to Fox News to see if it has specific policies and will update when we hear back.


Read more!

The Anti-Social Network

Who even started this bullshit claim?
Are churches therefore celebrations of the Crusades?

Racism on Facebook (and everywhere else, really) is making me want to throw up all over my keyboard lately. I finally suspended my account after enough racist comments about Muslims surfaced to make me lose all hope in humanity--or sanity.

There is an impermeable belief that Muslim = Terrorist. For everyone who has been under a fucking rock for the last 1000 years, this is actually FALSE. But the people writing this have never studied the culture they fear or spent more than a few days in an Arab country. They get their news from Glenn Beck, so what can you expect?

I tried to ignore the racist comments--especially if they were friends of friends--not my actual FB friends--but it's too much. The two final straws?

1. Man I just met at Lolla informed me I wouldn't be able to understand the tragedy of 9/11 because I don't live in NYC and didn't know anyone who died. That was completely insulting to ANYONE outside NYC and personally extremely disturbing. How fucking arrogant.

2. A casual horse friend commented on my post that building a mosque near ground zero was equal to putting up a facility for sex-offenders next to an elementary school. That one made me physically ill.

I have friends who believe as I do--obviously in the minority--but I can't even open the front page without seeing more hate, ignorance and misinformation. Just the Obama-bashing alone is so fucking tired. Do these people have nothing better to do that promote racism and hate?

Well, I do have better things to do than read about it. Maybe it will blow over--maybe it will blow up--but I have said my peace, and that is all I can do. I can't fix the fear of millions. I can understand it--but I can't understand why they don't recognize it and educate themselves about the true nature of Islam, which has NO CONNECTION to the men who destroyed the WTC. For that, we can look to our own CIA-trained ex-agent Osama bin Laden. Wonder where he learned his tricks? Ask Reagan. We taught bin Laden and armed him during Russia's occupation of Afghanistan. People have such short memories.

So I left FB--no big deal--and opened Yahoo. And found this article and picture.

On Facebook: Israeli soldier posed with bound Arab

You do the math.

Is there any hope for peace? It sure isn't looking good from where I stand.

Read more!