Don’t Take Flight 93 to Mecca Week 3
Oct 18, 2007 Uncategorized
The exact Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 Memorial
A person facing directly into the giant central crescent of what was originally called the Crescent of Embrace will be facing 1.8° north of Mecca. Defenders of the crescent have used the inexactness of its Mecca orientation to dismiss concern.
•Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93, argues that the giant crescent cannot be seen as a tribute to Islam because the inexactness of its Mecca orientation would be “disrespectful to Islam.”
•Both major Pittsburgh newspapers are denying that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca.
•The internal investigation conducted by the Park Service denies that there is any such thing as “almost”:
…mihrab orientation either points to Mecca or it does not … [it] cannot be off by “some” degrees. [From page 2 of report summary. Page 1 here.]
All of this willful blindness about the simple orientation of the crescent structure has been effective in keeping public inquiry from reaching a second startling fact: that the crescent design also contains a hidden exact Mecca orientation, corresponding to architect Paul Murdoch’s own description of how the crescent structure should be interpreted.
Physical crescent tip vs. thematic crescent tip
What points not quite exactly at Mecca is the physical Crescent of Embrace structure (every particle of which remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign). Connect the most obtruding tips of the physical crescent, form the perpendicular bisector to this line (the bisector of the crescent), and it points 1.8° north of Mecca:
Click for larger images. The green circle with “qibla” direction marked is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. “Qibla” is Arabic for “prayer direction,” which Muslims calculate as the “great circle” or “shortest distance” direction to Mecca.
But Paul Murdoch has also given a thematic explanation for the crescent structure, indicating how the thematic or “true” upper crescent tip should be understood. In Murdoch’s description, the flight path breaks the circle, turning it into a giant crescent. Thus the thematic upper crescent tip is what is left of the crescent structure after the parts that are “broken off” by the flight path are removed. Take away the parts of the Entry Portal Walls that extend out beyond the flight path, connect the most obtruding tips of the remaining structure, and a perpendicular to this line points within a couple hundredths of a degree of Mecca (i.e. it points exactly at Mecca, as far as can be determined given the pixel resolution of the graphics).
The flight path is represented in the Crescent/Bowl design by the Entry Portal Walkway, which comes down from the NNW. The Walkway passes through the Entry Portal Walls and projects out into the crescent:
Take away the parts of the crescent structure that are “broken off” by the flight path, and the remaining crescent structure is oriented exactly on Mecca.
[The above graphic was created by laying the Crescent of Embrace and the Bowl of Embrace site plans on top of each other. This was done to accurately capture the one real change that Murdoch made in the Bowl of Embrace redesign: the lengthening of the Entry Portal Walkway. (See “Memorial riddle #2: Why did Paul Murdoch lengthen the Entry Portal Walkway?) So that the new Walkway length can be seen, the low resolution Bowl of Embrace site plan is enhanced by overlaying it with the high resolution Crescent of Embrace site plan.]
The 44th inscribed translucent block on the flight path
At the end of the Entry Portal Walkway (marking the thematic or “true” upper crescent tip, according to Murdoch’s own description), sits a large glass block, inscribed with LAFD Captain Stephen J. Ruda’s dedication: “A common field one day. A field of honor forever.”
This will be the 44th inscribed translucent block emplaced along the flight path, matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists. 40 will be inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes (despite Tom Burnett’s demand that Tom Jr.’s name not be used). Three more will be built into a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent (the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag). These three blocks will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. Thus the date goes to the Islamic star. The date goes to the terrorists.
By having the 44th glass block mark the thematic “true” upper crescent tip, and by having that thematic crescent tip create a hidden exact Mecca orientation for the giant crescent, Murdoch is able to tie his Islamic and his terrorist memorializing design features together into a perfect bin Ladenist embrace.
TACKLE THE BARE NAKED HIJACKER!
After all, it does not get much more naked than this:
Or this:
Or this:
The Walkway riddle: When Paul Murdoch extended the Entry Portal Walkway, he was doing more than just perfecting the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. This slight adjustment in the placement of the 44th block also perfected two other terrorist memorializing elements of Murdoch’s mosque. Anyone who can figure out either of these elements before looking at the answer wins a glorious prize.
There is a great video here
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If you want to join the blogroll/blogburst for the Crescent of Betrayal blogburst, email Cao at caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com, with your blog’s url address. The blogburst will be sent out once a week to the participants, for simultaneous publication on this issue on Wednesdays.
Crescent of betrayal/surrender Blogburst Blogroll
Tags: Flight 93, Mecca, memorial, Stop the Memorial
Don’t Take Flight 93 to Mecca
Oct 1, 2007 Uncategorized
Pennsylvania Newspapers Pretend There is No Direction to Mecca
In September 2005, a half dozen different bloggers verified that a person facing into what was originally called the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 would be facing almost exactly at Mecca. Some surrounding trees have been added to the design, but the giant central crescent remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign:
With Tom Burnett Sr. condemning the crescent design and refusing to allow Tom Jr.’s name to be used, there is now a big public controversy in western Pennsylvania over whether the giant crescent really is oriented on Mecca. In response, the Memorial Project has decided to deny that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca, and Pittsburgh’s two major newspapers are both backing up this transparent falsehood.
Professor Daniel Griffith, who is serving as a consultant to the Memorial Project, told the Post Gazette that: “anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round.” …
He made similar statements to the Pittsburg Tribune Review and the Johnstown Tribune Democrat. None of these papers asked for a second opinion from any of the one billion Muslims who face Mecca five times a day for prayer, and it isn’t that the media has been duped by Griffith.
Editors and reporters at both the Post Gazette and the Tribune Review are fully aware that a host of bloggers have independently verified the Mecca orientation of the crescent design. It was actually the Tribune Review that first commissioned Professor Griffith to analyze the blogosphere’s Mecca-orientation claims. Alec Rawls, who has written a book about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent design, has a copy of Griffith’s report for the Tribune Review posted online. The first thing Griffith does is calculate the direction to Mecca:
I computed an azimuth value from the Flight 93 crater site to Mecca of roughly 55.20°.
“Azimuth” is the technical term for “direction,” measured in degrees clockwise from north. Now Griffith is denying that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca, and the Tribune Review refuses to tell its readers that Griffith is contradicting the report that he wrote for them.
The Post Gazette is even more outrageous. Rawls was told by Post Gazette reporter Paula Ward that she and her editors saw all the blog posts on the Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace back in September 2005 and decided not to publish this explosive information. (Crescent of Betrayal, download 3, p. 108.) At the same time, the Post Gazette was running editorials that called critics of the crescent paranoid bigots:
But like those who look at innocent kids trick-or-treating at Halloween and see only the devil’s work, a few small and suspicious minds couldn’t look past the crescent to see a remarkably sensitive design.
When Tom Burnet Sr. asked the American people last month to please take his and Mr. Rawls’ warnings about the crescent design seriously, the Post Gazette responded with an editorial titled: “Efforts to sully Flight 93 memorial deserve scorn.”
What is the significance of a crescent that a person faces into to face Mecca? Such a structure is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. That is why the surrounding trees added in the Bowl of Embrace redesign do nothing to alter the Islamic significance of the design. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque.
One local paper actually did fact-check the orientation of the giant crescent and validated the Mecca orientation claim in print, but the larger papers are all refusing to pass this fact checking on, or to do their own, even though it is simple one-two operation. All that Tribune Democrat reporter Kirk Swauger had to do was use the Mecca direction calculator at Islam.com to print out a graphic of the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA, then place this print out over the Crescent of Embrace site-plan PDF on his computer screen:
The green circle, marked with the qibla direction (the direction to Mecca), is from Islam.com. Graphic shows that a person standing at the midpoint between the most obtruding tips of the crescent structure and facing into the center of the crescent (red arrow), will be facing almost exactly at Mecca. (Hat tip Sarah Wells.)
As Swauger put it in his news article:
[Rawls’] claims seem to be backed up by coordinates for the direction of qibla from Somerset that can be found on Islam.com. When superimposed over the crescent in the memorial design, the midpoint points over the Arctic Circle, through Europe toward Mecca.
Having suppressed this information for two years, Pittsburgh’s major newspapers are desperate to keep it suppressed now, or they will be ruined. Thus they find themselves camped out on the very spot that the blogosphere ranged with its artillery two years ago. They know full well that the Mecca-orientation of the crescent has been verified numerous times and are counting on their control of public information to keep this knowledge from getting out to the general public.
The challenge to bloggers could not be more overt. Can the blogosphere retrieve its earlier fact checking from the memory hole and bust these news frauds? Easy and permanent access to existing fact checking is the blogosphere’s natural advantage, but we still have to take advantage of it.
This information was also mentioned at Newsbusters here on September 27, 2007.
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If you want to join us outraged protesting bloggers
- in objecting to planting an Islamic symbol instead of an American one on the crash site,
- in objecting to its pointing to Mecca and the terrorists’ intended target,
- in objecting to dishonoring the memory of the people who fought the terrorists on Flight 93
- in pointing out how Paul Murdoch cleverly and symbolically cast the passenger and crew out of the Islamic heavens in the design while the terrorists are inside the Islamic heavens
- in pointing out how the date and the site are dedicated to the terrorists
- in pointing out the numerous redundant mosque design features
- in pointing out the terrorist memorializing features
- and post along with us on Wednesdays,
please contact caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com with your website url. She will, in turn, add you to the email list, send you the blogroll code (if you want to put it in your sidebar), and will send you the prewritten text to post. You should receive the email from Cao a day or two prior to the Wednesday it should be posted, and tracked back to Cao’s blog and Error Theory, if your blog has that capability. This will help us track who in the blogroll is posting the blogburst.
Let’s roll.
Stop the Memorial Blogburst
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Riddle me this
What was Paul Murdoch, the design’s architect, thinking? What was his ulterior motive? When controversy over the original name “Crescent of Embrace” and the bald Islamic symbol planted on the crash site brought a public outcry, the entire memorial was hastily re-titled “40 Memorial Groves.”
As Alec is apt to do, he’s having some fun with this: So why only 38 Memorial Groves?
His answer should appear today at Error Theory, go check it out!
Trackbacked to Cao’s blog and Error Theory.
Tags: Flight 93, Mecca, Murdoch. memorial, Stop the Memorial