I don’t recall doing any posts on the “Crescent of Embrace.”

But to answer the irony here, the difference is one of in intent: the argument from the anti-Crescent folk proceeds from the idea what that the the architect intended his Monument to carry with it a particular subtext — in short, that he was hoping to slip some inappropriate political content into the design. Personally, I’m not convinced, but it’s certainly not too farfetched given what’s publicly available about his political leanings.

Whereas I don’t think anyone is arguing that Burger King’s graphic design crew set out to suggest — however imperfectly — that Allah is a swirly cone.

Hell, I’m not even sure why that’s a bad thing.

Yeah, that’s what the architect intended. Sadly, No. They stated they were aware of the use of the cresent, and possible connotations with Islam, and proceeded with the desing anyway. While intent can be important, no argument I have seen against the monument has hinged on intent at all (albeit many try to accuse the designer of certain indended symbolism), thus the allegation of irony stands, my fair friend.

You don’t hear the Muslim guy claiming you should never, ever use the letter ‘a’ when writing ‘-ll-h’ because that would be a sin, do you?

So I think we know whose most-chock-full-of-nuttiness prize is safe, eh?

Wacky jackass complaining to BK in the UK…

Wacky jackass on Protein Wisdom complaining about whatever.

The Muslims get offended by anything that doesn’t conform. Just depends on how”fundamentalist they are. We’ve got our own brand here; Dobson, Falwell etc. All the same. Religion will be the destroyer of us all.

Actually I belive BK is a British company.

Regardless, are we saying here that Allah is not in fact a diety filled with chocolatey goodness?

That is the ultimate blasphemy, IMHO.

I’ll have a Mocha Allah Fudge, please. Mmm…Sacrilicious.

British Knights. The worst shoe EVER. Didn’t Hammer wear those? That is something to complain about.

Something about the name “Protein Wisdom” makes me nauseated. It just seems ripe and rife with unintentional and intentional cobaggery.

Also, Jeff G, I smell the distinct aroma of pants burning…

Some versions I have seen of this accusation say that if you get out your compass & straightedge and construct a line segment from one tip of the crescent to the other, then bisect that segment and draw a line perpendicular to the line segment passing through the point of bisection, that line passes through Mecca.

And now we know what happens when the crazies stop taking their meds. Time for the tranquilizer rifles.

One problem with equating complaints about the crescent memorial with complaints about the Burger King ice cream package is that the two items are vastly different in terms of significance, meaning, and longevity.

One is, well, a memorial. It will commemorate Americans who heroically fought back against an enemy who launched an attack on this country based, in part, on an Islamist rationale.

Given that the memorial is meant to last for ages and stand for certain principles, and given the role that radical Islamists played in the events inspiring its construction, it is entirely approrpiate to ask whether it is serving that end, or if it is in fact sending an inappropriate or mixed message, intentionally or not.

The Burger King ice cream lid, on the other hand, is designed, simply, to package a tasty portion of ice cream. It has nothing to do with remembering any event, and has no connection to any religion. It not meant to send any message (other than “ice cream inside”). And after use, it is thrown away and forgotten, if indeed it was ever consciously considered.

When it comes to scrutinizing their meaning, should we equate a war memorial with a fast-food wrapper? Sadly, no.

You know, my first thought was to try to fit this with a Monty Python skit, but the only one stupid enough was the dead parrot skit.

Then I thought about writing kitschy limerick, but I could figure out how to work “fuck” in with those squishy-bottomed LGFers.

Next I thought about cute n’ furry gun-totin’ kittys.

Then I thought about making fun of a song by Dr BLT. Still not it.

Damn, is there anything out there stupid enough to properly match this absurdity

Then it hit me..

A simple mental image!

Picture Bush wearing a toy western gun belt, plastic chaps, with a soft serve chocolate ice cream cone on his head (ala Pryor/Wilder at the end of “See no evil, hear no evil”), running into a BK with one of those rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat-tat plastic machine guns, yelling “Die you unAmurkan pro-terraist commies!”

(Sorry, that was the best I could come up with….)

I think that the Muslim gentleman was perfectly within his rights to complain about the ice cream wrapper, and that the ice cream man did the right thing by changing the packaging. No point in creating needless offence over something so trivial. You need to pick your battles…

How much more important not to create offence over something so profound – something actually monumental.

The offence was an accident, but the design has to be changed. The selection team should follow the example of the ice cream man and do it quickly and without fuss.

Man if that icecream pic called for a Jihad then this picture of Fella the three breasted gnome should cause a few aneurysms.

It’s all about you suckwads that CHOOSE to be offended. If they had mocked up the design any other way, such as a drawing at eye level, how the monument is mean to be seen, nobody would have said a word. I just wish you could try to see that- because that is what people will see if they build the thing.

My vein is popping out of my forehead, I;m done with you guys. Somebody just posted a “thanks for your support” from Mohammed Atta at my plaec because I took a stand against the jackasses about this monument. Fine, have playtime. Let’s let LGF build the goddamned monstrosity. Let’s let them fill it with Jr. High level symbolism. Maybe it will reach so high big G will smite them in their arrogance with the second tower of Babel.

I’m out. These people are really crazy and they are doo doo heads, and I’m taking my ball and going home.

Pinko, I think people really truly believe that if and when they go to the monument, that crescent is what they’ll see. Seriously. They are that stupid. They simply don’t realize that it’s a mock-up of a shot from directly overhead. And that the red things are leaves of trees in the fall, meaning that the thing will be green in the spring and summer, and all white in the winter.

So to idiots like Kip and Gaijin, unless you’re hovering over the thing in a helicopter or hot air balloon during the last week or so of November, you won’t even see what’s pictured in the mock ups.

last week or so of November

Umm, make that October.

(Thanks, I appreciate the ‘idiot’ tag – I copped a bit of that earlier on a Protein Wisdom, so perhaps it has nothing to do with political leaning, it’s just your lousy neighbourhood.)

…anyway…

I understand the crescent was an accident, but that’s not the point. Everyone knows it’s there now, so the design is compromised. To continue would be to thumb one’s nose at people’s sensitivities in an unpardonable way.

The same thing happened in my city one time. Some outdoor landscaping innocently laid out in a squarish arrangement. But someone pointed out the negative spaces looked a bit like a swastika (only a little, but that’s enough).

The council had the good manners to apologise for unintended offence and immediately change it. It was an honest mistake quickly rectified, no harm done.

But if they’d refused – how extraordinarily obnoxious would that have been?

Your selection team could learn from that gracious bit of public relations, too – as well as the good mannered ice cream man.

An observation: what a strange world we live in, where people no longer understand when people’s sensitivities must be ignored (for example when considering laws that affect freedom of speech) and when they must be considered (as in an extremely delicate matter of a public monument to murdered innocents).

Curiouser and curiouser…

From a Hindu point of view, all this vilification of swastikas is racist. Seriously. And you can’t get out of this by saying “well, it would be all right if it was the other way round, the Hindu one points one way and the Nazi one the other. It ain’t so.

Seriously, I agree Kip. Since this was realized concerning the memorial, a redesign is in order. But ice cream??

I keep hearing David Lee Roth singing “I’m your ice cream man, stop me when I’m passing by…” and can’t help but giggle at the silliness of a symbol for ice cream being offensive. I mean it bore as much resemblance to the symbol for Allah as an ‘a’ does for a ‘u’ in the English language…

Maybe we should consult our resident English professional, Marie Jon’.

I agree that the ice cream thing was pretty far fetched, but you pick your battles.

You can look at it two ways, you could say it’s PC gone mad (and it probably is), but there’s also a lot of ‘the customer is always right’, which is a nice generous-spirited old fashioned philosophy.

The other thing is, the complaint wasn’t made by some hook handed fanatic, the guy is a middle manager. We need to triangulate the Muslims, because most of them are really OK – if they can get over all the victim cr#p they get through the LW media and their own rabble rousers.

(NB – I’m not trying to be holier-than-thou. I’m still as angry as a hornet after 911 and our own Aussie version.)

Maybe they could prevent the infiltration of Mohammedality by turning the semi-circle into a complete circle.

But what happens if some gardener leaves a rake lying on the ground between two trees? All of a sudden it’s a crescent again and everybody’s offended.

The other thing is, the complaint wasn’t made by some hook handed fanatic, the guy is a middle manager.

So it was Dilbert’s boss. I thought so.

Goddamn it, I’m sick of people getting offended by shit that just isn’t offensive. You want offensive? Let’s sculpt Janet Jackson’s nipple into Mount Rushmore.

“We need to triangulate the Muslims”? You mean, initiate them all into Freemasonry?

Finding sort-of arabic script in an ice cream lid, and being mortally offended by it, is ridiculous. It’s a vague resemblance to something inexplcicably offensive, in the context of a FREAKING ICE CREAM TREAT.

Now, the flight 93 memorial, we’re talking about something that is not at all vague, and incredibly offensive in the context of a memorial to a planeload of people murdered in the name of religious extremism.

It’s sort of hard to compare the two. DO we really need a disclaimer, “NO PERSONS WERE HARMED OR KILLED IN THE MAKING OF THIS ICE CREAM CONE”?

It’s like making a memorial at Dachau or Auschwitz in the shape of a swastika and arguing that “people are just seeing things, and even if it was one, it’s a symbol with a long history in Greek and Native American art”

Kip, some people are offended by the use of the word “niggardly.” Once they’ve seen the etymology and realize there’s no slight, should I still change my vocabulary?

To me, the most interesting thing about all this is that “Allah” in Arabic really does look like a swirly cone on its side. just like “God” in English looks like a hotdog on a roll, as seen end-on. And “Vishnu” in Sanskrit looks like a side order of fries, with catsup.

I think the gods are trying to tell us something here.

Having studied Arabic (briefly), writing anything is pretty hard. The fact that Burger King could write “Allah” without even trying — well, that just has me steamed….

Thanks, I appreciate the ‘idiot’ tag

Hey, no problem. You made it easy for me.

Yarr, me memory takes me to th’ Barbary Coast whar I used to live it up to th’ highest order or all tha’ be piracy! An’ BK do be a British company tha’ be makin’ th’ finest boots for plunderin’!

And as we know, Kip, a crescent and a swastika are exactly the same. Kind of.

And Tim, let me guess: you voted for Santorum, didn’t you?

What really amazes me is how worked up the LGF’ers are getting about a fucking semi-circle. Let’s see here, I complain about thousands dying needlessly and the environment getting destroyed and I’m a nutty left wing commie faggot, they spend 70 pages ranting about the shape and position of landscaping and that’s perfectly logical. “How the hell does crap like this happen? Was it not Muslims that took over the plane that was forced down by Americans? If they don’t get that Allah damned crescent off the memorial someone is going remove it for them after the memorial is erected.””We simply cannot allow this travesty to be constructed.””We should spread the word about this so-called monument and DEMAND that a true monmument be built upon this site.

Then turned the sand to glass. “
Ok, well maybe some are funny and some are death threats, but they’re all crazy.

anyone ever notice that many telephone poles are shaped like a crucifix? it’s like the government is planning on mass crucifixtions of it’s enemies and incorporated this plan into the public works department or some shit. i mean i have definitely seen some telephone poles that were not shaped like crucifixes, but concievably one could still be nailed up to it.

the moral of the story:

“nutty nutty sees what nutty nutty wants to see, and draw conclusions thusly”

p.s. i have a pop-tart in my possesion, in which the multi colored sprinkles form the discernable bodies of allah and yahweh breakdancing together.
i take it to be a sign that dance is the universal
prescription for religious animosity. peace thru dance people! peace thru dance.

Although, Timmah, I did enjoy the misspelling of “monument” as “monmument.”

Thank you teh l4m3, we have a winner.

The quasi-crescent-shaped-if-you-squit-just-right memorial is only offensive to those who believe certain religions are inherently evil (COUGH..Kip..COUGH..Islam) or that their symbols are equivilent to the symbols used by the most reviled people in modern human history.

So changing the memorial would be offensive – get it? *SIGH* probably not.

Now, BK’s ice cream bars imprinted with a picture of a snickering Calvin pissing on graven image of Mohammad, well that’s just offensive no matter how you slice it.

But that’s just me.

Allah, schmallah. The BK lid design resembled Kip’s Big Boy’s hairdo. Then I saw the sandwich crushing the towers and I knew. Kip is pissed that his flip hairdo has been stolen to decorate a rival’s ice cream treat!

tigrismus,

You personally? No, why would you bother.

But if you were a businessman and it was your customers who didn’t like a particular word, you just might – and who could criticise you? What better customer relations is there than to do something because a customer asks, even though you’re not obliged to.

***

As for some of you others… I understand (but don’t support) your desire for class war, or Blue/Red war, or culture war, or PC counter-counter-revolution or whatever, but do really want to make the 911 memorials a battlefield?

Kip Watson:

What, exactly, does this discussion have to do with “class war”?

Really, this is one of the few political debates that’s pretty much entirely free of marxist dialectics (known outside stuffy academic circles as “the haves vs. the have-nots”).

Or are you just ignorantly red-baiting in an effort to overlook Jimbo pointing out exactly what I was about to? Namely, you’re unquestioned assumption that anything related to Islam is inherently evil.

“…but do [you] really want to make the 911 memorials a battlefield?”

Yes, because we’re the ones who got all bent out of shape over some trees.

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