Quote of the Day

"Kebabs do not threaten our way of life." 

~ Eugene Robinson on the Republican politicization of the not Mosque not on Ground Zero

In the Shadow of Columbine

POSTED BY JHW22

On April 20, 1999 two boys entered their high school loaded up and ready to shoot in a town called Columbine.

On May 1, 1999 the National Rifle Association held it's annual meeting in Denver, CO approximately 20 miles from Columbine.

Victims were still in the hospital. Parents were still looking into bedrooms that were just as their children left them 11 days earlier, never to return. The grief was raw. Time had not yet had a chance to pass for families suffering the shock and despair of violent deaths of their loved ones. Colorado did not want the NRA meeting in the shadows of their grief.

The N.R.A., which is fiercely opposed to sensible gun laws, has urged its members to attend as a show of unity, if only for a day. On a purely emotional level, this is an insult to grieving families and to a city still shaken by tragedy. Mayor Wellington Webb bluntly told the group last week, ''We don't want you here.''

The NRA derided the desire that the meeting not be held so close, so soon:

Heston waved to the crowd from the dais with gritty determination and what appeared to be a dead raccoon stapled to his head. He began his opening remarks by addressing Mayor Webb's request that the NRA not "come here. We don't want you here."

The crowd booed at the mention of Webb's name, and one attendee shouted out, "Get out of our country, Wellington Webb!" much to the amusement of the crowd.

Today, almost nine years after the horror of September 11, famous members of the NRA say it's too soon, too close, for Park51/Cordoba House, a community center, to be New York City blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood.

But if 11 days was soon enough for guns, shouldn't nine years be soon enough for community?

Olbermann: "There is no 'Ground Zero Mosque'"

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"...[T]his is America, dammit.

And in America, when somebody comes for your neighbor, or his bible, or his torah, or his Atheists' Manifesto, or his Koran, you and I do what our fathers did, and our grandmothers did, and our founders did. You and I speak up."

This Guy Wants To Be President

Newt Gingrinch: "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington," Gingrich said on Fox News. "We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center," he said.

Equating Islam, a religion with 1.5 billion followers... to Nazis.

Presidential

President Obama: "As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure."

Greg Sargent: Obama's speech transcends the politics of the moment, and will go down as a defining and perhaps even a breakthrough performance. Obama recognized that this dispute is a seminal one that goes to the core of our running argument about pluralism and minority rights and to the core of who we are. He understood that the gravity of the moment required an equally large and momentous response. And he delivered.

Of course, those who say they are trying to help elect politicians that "know the Constitution" have a different take. Sometimes I wish that those who say they support the Constitution and want to protect it, actually read the damned thing once in a while.

Stewart and the Ground Zero Mosque

Funny that I would comment on the compromisers and nutbags of the sort-of-near-Ground-Zero-Mosque-but-not really-at-Ground-Zero ridiculousness and the Daily Show would cover it just minutes later. I've got my finger on the pulse, people!

Anyway, they do it a lot better.

Stop Catering to the Crazies

I knew New York Governor David Paterson was blind, but I didn't know he was dumb too.

Paterson agreed that there is "no reason" why the Cordoba House shouldn't be built at the site known as Park51. But in light of political response from conservatives, the governor is open to state intervention to help explore alternatives. "Frankly, if the sponsors were looking for property anywhere at a distance that would be such that it would accommodate a better feeling among the people who are frustrated," Paterson said, "I would look into trying to provide them with the state property they would need."

What the fuck, Dave? I know you're having a "can't we all get along" moment, but for fuck's sake, the argument against building Cordoba House is based on rage, bigotry, religious intolerance and irrational fear.

And where is this proposed property you'd look to provide? North of 14th Street? The Upper East Side? The Bronx? ...Buffalo? How far away from Ground Zero is far enough? Because the fact of the matter is that those you are trying to appease with your good intentioned idea will never be satisfied. They range from the politically opportunistic to the irrational to the just plain crazy. They will never agree to any cultural center or any mosque, anywhere. And to think that the overall problem of their intolerance will go away if only the site for the proposed center were further away from where hundreds of American Muslims tragically died at the World Trade Center along with the rest of the 9/11 victims is astonishingly naive.