“Okay, Georgie, can you show me on this Uncle Sam doll where the enduring event touched you?”
You’re saying you think the designers knew the crescent was a symbol of Islam, but then you accuse the critics of politicizing it? That is easily the single stupidest thing I have ever seen posted on the SDMB.
God, what an infant you are. It’s a big fucking crescent, on a memorial to people who were killed by fanatical adherents of a religion one of whose symbols is a big fucking crescent. I’ve got a great idea - why don’t you just finish the job, and build a big sign saying “Allahu Akbar” next to it?
You know, the swastika is really a symbol of peace in certain Eastern religions. So why don’t you erect one over at Auschwitz? I’m sure Jews the world over would be most receptive to your boneheaded self-hating rationalizations. Get a fucking clue, assbag.
Personally, I think this is a secret project of the U.S. military.
Scene: a cave in Pakistan
Enter Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Someone turns on the radio.
Radio: In America, a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 hijackers has been designed. The centerpiece is a huge crescent-shaped grove of trees.
Bin Laden: What shaped?
Henchman 1: I think he said a crescent.
Henchman 2: Yeah, he definitely said it was going to be a crescent
Bin Laden: Heh heh. Ha ha ha. HEE HEE HEE! HAH HAH! By the Prophet Mohammed, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! By the blood of the martyrs, are you guys are pulling my leg! WOOAH HOOAH HAAH Huuh cough…cough…uhhh…I don’t feel so good. (Lies down, pale and trembling)
Henchmen (together): I think we’d better get out of here before al-Zawahiri finds out.
The next day.
Radio: In Pakistan, the lifeless body of Osama bin Laden has been found in a cave. Doctors say he died of a ruptured abdominal aneurysm, possibly brought on by overexertion of the abdominal muscles.
I think the symbol is just fine. I think it looks nice. I think it will piss off a lot of people. If it was an artistic project I would think that is good, as art that challenges people can be more effective, but it is not. It is a memorial, thus it would simpler and more appropriate to change the design to one that annoys people less.
Had they actually built the thing before everyone raised hell, then tough shit, but it is still in the planning stages. There were several other designs that had also been considered so it is a simple matter to just choose one of them. Problem over.
As to the liberals on this board who are gettting irate and laying down general accusations of constant conservative offense, I wonder what is going on inside your heads. Liberals are offended just as much as conservatives if not more. In general people are too damn sensitive and you should all just relax a great deal and worry about things that actually make a damn bit of difference. Lets look at some headlines:
Crescent monument: Consevatives offended
Ten commandments displayed: Liberals offended
Janet’s tit on TV: Conservatives offended
Indian mascots for sports team: Liberals offended
God in the pledge of allegiance: Liberals offended
Motion to change the pledge: Conservatives offended
Georgian flag containing Confederate flag: Liberals offended
Changing that flag: Conservatives offended
Everybody bitches and moans about trivial shit and, in my own humble opinion, would do better to shut the fuck up.
The Washington Monument is rather phallic.
Hmm. A group designs a memorial, and a bunch of hypersensitive, ignorant, imaginative activists come in and politicize the memorial’s innocent design. The designers, rather than standing up for what’s right and rejecting the ignorant and inaccurate interpretation of the design, buckle under the political pressure and change the design in order to avoid offending the political activists.
You were right this first time: this IS an example of political correctness run wild.
Daniel
Bin Laden: You guys are joshing me, right? Maybe it’s just crescent-shaped, like a crescent roll or a cookie with a bite out of it.
Henchman: No, sir. You know the crescent on the Tunisian flag?
Bin Laden: I am aware of that flag, which depicts a representation of the most holy Muslim crescent, Allah be praised.
Henchman: Well, it looks a lot like that. The curvature, the width, the distance between the points and the arc length match within a few percent. And they call it a crescent, not an arc or a curve or anything generic like that.
Bin Laden: Get out of here!
Henchman: O honorable sheikh, if it is not true, may Allah send a pack of rabid hyenas to feast upon the living flesh of my buttocks.
Bin Laden: You guys are great, really. I needed a laugh. I love how you keep playing it completely straight. This is the best one since when you guys were telling me how the cowardly plutocrat Bush won re-election by portraying himself as a stalwart defender and a man of the people.
Yeah, that’s what Bin Laden would say all right about a symbol of the Ottoman Empire. Betcha a cookie that the man HATES the Ottoman Empire pasionately.
Did you read the previous posts about what the red crescent symbolized?
Daniel
Sure. What you seem to have a hard time understanding is that to the vast majority of Westerners, the crescent, in fact, symbolizes Islam, and has for hundreds of years. I also assert that most Muslims will immediately recognize the symbolism. Some mullah in a tent in Saudi Arabia doesn’t think the crescent symbol should be associated with Islam? Fine. He’s not coming to see the memorial anyway.
This reminds me of the bitching that went on when Giuliani tried to to get rid of the Virgin Mary with elephant shit on it that some artist was trying to hang in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. You had idiots saying that elephant shit was some kind of venerated artistic symbol in Africa. This gave them not only a phony-baloney defense of the “art”, but also the chance to prove themselves intellectually and culturally superior to the philistine Giuliani. But you know what? The painting wasn’t in Africa, it was in Brooklyn, and in Brooklyn, elephant shit is elephant shit.
I don’t expect artists to have common sense. But whoever is in charge of selecting the design ought to.
Then you have this gem. Oh, Islam as a religion was hijacked on 9/11? Sorry to hear it. News flash: We’re not going to build a monument to your religion. Build your own fucking memorial and put all the crescents you want on it.
Sounds like something Andres Serrano would do.
I worked in the mailroom at the National Endowment for the Arts when the agency was getting hate mail regarding him and Robert Mapplethorpe.
It was Chris Ofili, in a piece call “Holy Virgin Mary”. And the shit in question was elephant dung.
I see, thanks. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
People who argue that the memorial incorporates an islamic symbol are setting up their tents deep into Jack Chick territory.
Go back and look at the actual plan design. The plan does not in any way look like the Ottoman symbol (without a lot of screwing around by a geek in a .gif). It does not have the smooth edges with pointed tips that the eccentric circles of the Ottoman crescent have. The only connection between the Turkish symbol and the proposed memorial is the word “crescent,” a word that also appears in the Premier Condominium Company in the US., the longest standing nckname for the City of New Orleans, an nice upper class street in Washington, D.C., a yupper crust office street in San Francisco and another middle class street in San Francisco, a street in New Orleans (not sure of its current condition), and one of the prettiest lakes in the Northwest, located in Olympic National Park.
Talk about the offenderati grasping at straws so they can be mad.
If the actual design had really been in the shape of the Ottoman symbol, I would consider the rerctions a bit overheated, but perhaps understandable. Getting worked up over the word “crescent” when the actual shape does not even follow the shape of the “objectionable” symbol is simply ludicrous.
Ridiculous. If it was shaped like a triangle, they’d have called it a triangle. It’s shaped like a crescent, so they called it a…parabola? No - crescent.
I note that nowhere have I claimed that the designer intentionally used a Muslim symbol (that was George Kaplin’s contention.) However, the jury noticed the symbolism attached to the crescent and some members recommended that the name be changed to “arc” or another word. I would like to know why the designer rejected the proposed name change - did he think people were too stupid to connect the crescent with Islam, or did he just figure the only people who’d be offended would be people he would never deign to share fondue with?
I’m going to predict that there ain’t a-gonna be no crescent built at that memorial.
I suspect that you are right. People enjoy looking for things about which to be offended and this is a sufficiently hot-button issue that it will probably result in scrapping the plan. I just think that the whole thing is stupid as there is no evidence (presented so far) that the creator intended to invoke a Muslim symbol, the design does not look like the Ottoman symbol, and the places that use the Ottoman symbol tend to be places where the Wahabbist zealots are not found.
It is an insult invented for the purpose of being insulted–sort of a Right wing approach to PC.
No, he just underestimated the number of complete morons out there.
I will reiterate my observation that the design itself was fine; the mistake was using the word “crescent” in the title of the piece.
But why? Do we need to rename Crescent Lake, WA? Does New Orleans (if it survives) have to obliterate all references to “Crescent City” in organizations and landmarks?
The whole issue of taking offense at the mere word “crescent” smacks of “Freedom Fries” and “Victory cabbage”–the sort of thing that is gently mocked at the time and ridiculed to the extreme in the future.
I don’t agree.
When the disaster you’re commemorating occurred because a group of fanatics misued a particular religion, the memorial for that disaster ought not to be called a name that brings to mind that religion.
Your other examples are slippery slope-ish. “Freedom fries” is a wholesale rejection of the word “French” when it’s not justified.
But here’s a thought: if we were catering an event meant to honor WWII European veterans, I don’t believe I’d serve German chocolate cake, Jagermiester, and Fleischkaese Loaf. I would not lobby to change “German” chocolate cake to some other name, either; I just recognize that for that particular event, it’s not the right way to go.
Only the willfully obtuse would (a) fail to acknowledge that the memorial is a crescent and (b) pretend that a crescent is not a widely known symbol of Islam.