[UPDATE: THE LANDMARKS COMMISSION DID INDEED DENY LANDMARK STATUS TO 45 PARK PLACE. THE NEWS HAD IT RIGHT.]

Like I said already, New Yorkers are not stupid bigots.

According to the New York Daily News, the City Landmarks Commission will not block the razing of an old building to construct a Muslim-financed community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Fire-breathing opponents to the project, led by dragonmasters Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, were banking on the Landmarks commissioners to put the kabosh on Park 51 Project, a community center that would include (oh, noez!) a mosque. Geller, Spencer and other Muslim haters were pressuring the commissioners to protect the historic value of the existing 152-year building at 45 Park Place in Lower Manhattan.

But it has none. It’s nothing special. From the News:

The Italianate building on Park Place, two blocks north of Ground Zero, simply does not meet architectural criteria for protection from the city, sources with knowledge of the issue said.

 
“The building is not worthy,” a source said. “It does not rise to the level of an individual landmark.”

The new building will probably be a better looking landmark than the heap that’s there now, if this conceptual drawing at right is any indication.

The commission is expected to vote unanimously at its meeting Tuesday morning to let the project continue.

August 2nd, 2010 | Tags: Cordoba Institute, Ground Zero, mosque, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, World Trade Center | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, religion | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — The developer of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” sat down for an interview recently with a blogger at Beliefnet.com. Compared to the frothing-at-the-mouth demagogues opposing the project, Sharif el-Gamal espouses true American values: rational discourse and freedom of religion.

His interview is worth reading, because it contradicts the wild assertions made by the likes of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, co-founders of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Geller and Spencer consistently object to proximity of the project, which includes a mosque, to the former site of the World Trade Center about two blocks away. They claim the Muslim-backed center will somehow “desecrate the sacred ground” of the ruined buildings which entombed about 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

el-Gamal’s response:

We are not at Ground Zero. In fact we’re as close to City Hall as we are to Ground Zero. Lower Manhattan is pretty small. You can’t see Ground Zero from our current building and on completion of our planned building some years from now, there won’t be any views of the Ground Zero memorial from the building. To honor those who were killed on September 11th, we have planned for a public memorial within our future facility as well as reflection space open to all.

He also mentions that there are two other mosques in Lower Manhattan, which are too crowded. He doesn’t mention that there two strip clubs also near the “sacred” WTC site.

July 24th, 2010 | Tags: 9/11, Islam, Manhattan, mosque, Muslim, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, WTC | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, Random rants | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — I am going off-script here because I am fed up with hearing about the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in Lower Manhattan.

Let’s get some facts straight first.

I am a native New Yorker. I visited the World Trade Center at least twice before it became a pile of rubble and a tomb for 3,000 people. I was one of the millions of Americans who watched in horror as a part of my hometown – my hometown! — was destroyed live on TV.

The people, the terrorists who committed this horrible act are dead. They were extremists, crazy people. They happened to be crazy Muslim people.

Now, a group of Muslims in NYC want to convert a old, nearby building that was also damaged in the attack into a community center with mosque. Local community officials have approved the plan. The neighbors have no problem with it.

And I don’t either. Read the third and fourth paragraphs again. Then read my lips. I don’t care if they build a mosque near the former WTC site. (I refuse to call it Ground Zero. Sorry if I offend anyone. It’s not fucking Hiroshima.)

Now that we got that straight, it’s time for me to cut loose.

Would all the know-nothing, paranoid, conspiracy-theorist, bigoted, knuckle-dragging idiots just shut the fuck up? Get outta town.Take a long walk off a short pier. Stuff a sock in it. Dry up. Shut yer piehole. Find somebody to fit you with cement boots for a dip in the East River. Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck — I mean you! STFU!

July 20th, 2010 | Tags: 9/11, Cordoba Initiative, Islam, mosque, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, SIOA, WTC | Category: Civil liberties, Random rants, religion | Comments (2)

[UPDATE 20/11/09: I ended up in my own Google news alert on Rifqa Bary. Not sure what to think ...]

JISHOU, HUNAN — I find the whole Rifqa Bary thing fascinating, if only because it highlights the paranoia and/or religious nuttery of some segments of the American populace. I have a Google news alert set up for “rifqa bary,” so I get a daily digest of wingnuttiness. (Frankly, I prefer Nutella, though Nussa is pretty damn good, too.)

Well, it turns out that one of the speakers at the Rally for Rifqa in Columbus (capital of the Islamic Republic of Ohio) was another Muslim-turned-Christian, Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born author of anti-Muslim, pro-Israel books and founder of Former Muslims United. Darwish popped up in my Google news alert because of that brief association with Rally for Rifqa.

The link was to a conservative blog called, “Ruthfully Yours: The Right News, Front and Center.” Darwish was scheduled to speak at both Columbia and Princeton Universities, but both invitations were canceled at the last moment.

Apparently, the students who had invited Darwish got wind of her anti-Muslim rhetoric a little late in the game, and changed their minds.

The blogger, Ruth King — who by the way organized the Rally for Rifqa — sees a hidden agenda in the cancellations.

For those of us chronicling the advancing islamisation of America, things have gotten decidedly worse since Obama took over. We have entered a dark age.

November 19th, 2009 | Tags: Columbia, hate, Islam, Nonie Darwish, Pamela Geller, princeton, Rifqa Bary | Category: Commentary, Media, religion | Comments (1)

JISHOU, HUNAN — You would think Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, was some kind of political prisoner, or a modern day Joan of Arc, instead of a runaway in foster care.

People held signs that said “Free Rifqa” and “Sharia sucks. Free Rifqa Bari. (sic)” There was a large poster that showed violence done to Muslims who have converted to Christianity, as Bary said she did four years ago. People prayed, and people spoke, and people made a controversy where none exists.

Hence, a manufactroversy.

How many people? Well, one of the organizers demagogues, Pamela Geller, says “hundreds.” The Columbus Dispatch says “about 120.”

Bary ran away from her Columbus home back in September. She and her family are Muslims from Sri Lanka, and according to newspaper accounts, her parents were perfectly OK with her reading the Bible, hanging out with Christian kids, and being a cheerleader.

But her many “supporters” — most of whom are fervent Christians — fervently believe her family, or the middle-of-the-road mosque to which they belong, will put the girl to death if she is sent back to her family. Law enforcement officers discount that likelihood, but since when do True Believers™ believe John Law?

The rally “crowd” was also upset that a family court judge has closed to the public the hearings being held to decide whether Bary is an unruly teenager, as her parents allege, and whether she can leave foster care. They also have their underwear in knots about court orders restricting the girl’s access to the Internet, email and her cellphone.

November 17th, 2009 | Tags: Christian, Islam, Nonie Darwish, ohio, Pamela Geller, rally, Rifqa Bary, runaway | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, Skepticism, religion | Comments (1)