Memorial superintendent admits giant crescent still present in memorial design

No comment from the Park Service yet on Congressman Tancredo’s request for a new Flight 93 Memorial. We did a little better with last week’s blogburst letters. Some emailers got a response from Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley, answering Mr. Tancredo’s contention that the original giant crescent is still present in the redesign. Interestingly, her description of the redesign actually admits that the giant crescent IS still present, both geometrically and thematically.

In 2005, architect Paul Murdoch explained his original Crescent of Embrace design in terms of the flight path: as the hijacked airliner came over the ridgeline above the crash site, its flight path symbolically broke the circle, turning it into a giant crescent. In the original design, the broken off part of the circle was removed entirely:

Flight 93 came down from the Northwest (the upper left). The flight path breaks the circle at the upper crescent tip, says Paul Murdoch, then continues down to the crash site, which is located between the crescent tips (roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag).

In describing the barely altered redesign, Superintendent Hanley uses the exact same “breaking the circle” language that Paul Murdoch used to describe the original design, only now the broken off part of the circle is not completely removed. A broken chunk of it remains, so that the design now includes “two breaks” instead of one:

The most prominent refinement was in the treatment of the naturally occurring bowl-shaped landscape feature. The design now surrounds that area with a circle of trees which is broken in two places – the location which marks the flight path as it breaks the circular continuity of the bowl edge, and the Sacred Ground where the crash occurred. The locations of the two breaks in the circle are based on the flight path and crash site of Flight 93.

The site plan graphic for the redesign was dramatically re-colored, making the crescent LOOK more like a circle. You have to examine closely to see that the original break in the crescent is still there, along with the new “second break.” But as Superintendent Hanley admits, the original break IS still there, and it is still intended to be seen as being there. Hanley is directly admitting what Congressman Tancredo is complaining about, that the original crescent has only been disguised.

A side-by-side comparison of the Crescent of Embrace site-plan and the redesign site-plan confirms that the only change was to include a chunk of the symbolically broken off part of the imaginary full circle:

Ignoring the re-coloring of the image, the only change is the additional arc of trees to the left side of the crescent. (Click pic for larger view.)

Including a chunk of the broken off part of the circle does nothing to remove the original crescent, but on the contrary is perfectly consistent with it, both geometrically and thematically. The terrorists are still depicted as breaking our humanitarian circle and turning it into a giant Islamic shaped crescent.

Just to make sure people get it, Paul Murdoch has placed a huge glass block at the spot where this circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat takes place. It is the 44th translucent block emplaced along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists) and is inscribed: “a field of honor forever.”

Earlier admissions that the redesign retains the crescent and star configuration of an Islamic flag

An August 18th article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette quoted Superintendent Hanley denying the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent:

“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said.Mr. Murdoch reinforced that idea.

“It’s oriented toward the Sacred Ground,” he said. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

The symbolism of the memorial, he continued, is representative of the geography of the crash site, an idea that predates Islam or any other major religion.

They are not calling it a crescent and star configuration, but that is what they are describing, and what they are talking about here is the redesign. They are admitting that the design still has the arms of the crescent reaching out towards the crash site, which sits between the crescent tips, in the position of the star on an Islamic flag. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

Connect a line from the lower crescent tip to the thematic upper crescent tip (the 44th glass block, commemorating the spot where the flight path breaks the circle) and a perpendicular to this line (the direction of a person facing directly into the giant crescent) points exactly to Mecca. Thus does Paul Murdoch tie the Islamic features and the terrorist memorializing features of his design into a perfect bin Ladenist embrace. The 44th block defines the exact Mecca orientation of the giant crescent.

Very simply, we hosted an open design competition in time of war. Of course the enemy would enter. The only thing that is hard to understand is why the Memorial Project is willfully blind to this ploy.

Blogroll for Wednesday “stop the crescent memorial” blogbursts

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog

Big Sibling
Cao’s Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Error Theory
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Four Pointer
Ft. Hard Knox

GM’s Corner
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
Kender’s Musings
My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
Ogre’s Politics and Views

Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

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LCDR Hobbs, at the end of last week, had just finished shredding one overly full of himself Fleet LT, and a fine job she did, merely by directing his attention at the time honored (and higher authority directed) manner in which qualifications were to be documented.

Lunch happened and then the crew of the WAINWRIGHT mustered the Combat Systems Training Team (CSTT) to brief the drills they would run on two sections of the crew. For you readers who might not have had the pleasure of a Combat Systems Assessment (CSA), the drills were run just like the Engineering Casualty Control Training Teams (ECCTT) did in days gone by. My team listened to the setup for the scenarios, the safety checks, and the training objectives. We took notes now, and wouldn’t say anything until the drills were all over and debriefed. Kathy sat in with us, as we listened carefully to all that was said. She tagged along behind me, as I went with the CSTT Leader and found a fairly unobtrusive place near the Tactical Action Officer in the Combat Information Center (CIC). The afternoon drill set was run and copious notes taken, by my team and the CSTT. Evening meal was quickly eaten and the Wardroom set up for the next briefing. We did it all over again, ending the second drill set near 2200. At this point, my team and I split off to have our discussion on how the crews performed, and early comments on the CSTT’s performance.

About an hour later, we and the CSTT, the CO and XO all met in the Wardroom to hear the evaluation of the two drills. CAPT Fahey offered LCDR Hobbs a tour of the Main Spaces (Main engineering spaces) and she accepted, with one of the Engineering Department Officers leading her below to the hot places where the Snipes lived and worked. We went on with the debriefs.

I can’t recall the exact issue, but something hadn’t gone well and “Iron Mike” made it clear he wasn’t going to consider it acceptable. Pretty striking, yet dead on target one way commentary flew for a few minutes, then it was back to work. Kathy returned about an hour later. We were still at it.

Sometime around 0100, she leaned over and whispered “I had no idea this took so long.” IN the grand scheme of things, that had been my point, for her to understand a little extra long smoke break at the office was already comped by the time put in at sea for those who did the CSAs and many of the training evolutions of the rest of the command.

Sometime around 0200, we headed off to get a few hours rack time, with an on the deckplates for the Detect to Engage runs at 0630. She was there, ready to observe on time later that morning. She didn’t just watch, she hung over in “Tracker Ally” with OSCM(SW) Roddy, asking some questions. While she didn’t have all the terminology down, the questions were all thought provoking and more detailed than we ever might have expected.

To wrap this several week “sea story” up, we got to the piers in Norfolk and picked up to head back to the office at NAB Little Creek late in the day. Arriving there about sunset, we had put in about 38 hours from the time we arrived for our boat the prior morning. To my team, it was normal. To LCDR Hobbs, it was an appreciation for the effort of the guys on “shore duty.”

For me: I came to look at the women around me very differently. From then on, I realized hard workers come in all shapes, sizes and genders. So did whiners and complainers. No longer did I just act polite to LCDR Hobbs in the building, I treated her as a professional, like she always had been, before I had managed to accept that premise.