It’s like “Shazam!”; you have to actually be anointed by the magic hermit
From comments: Gaijin Biker, the wingnut proprieter of the actually pretty thoughtful RidingSun.com, writes:
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.
Posted by Gaijin Biker at September 19, 2005 05:35 AM
No, watch; it’s like this.
But doesn’t the meiwaku foreigner’s point beg the question: Was Murdoch’s intent in fact to make a sly political dig with his design?
It sort of does look more like the Arabic script than like a soft-serve abstraction, doesn’t it?
A war memorial? it is a memorial for the people that lost their lives on that plane. are there lives more meaningful than anyone else’s? In some sense to our national psyche, they must be. Memorials should be for reflection on the value of the lives lost. For the last time, it’s not a G.D. big red crescent, it’s a bunch of trees meant to stun the viewer at eye level into being surrounded by nature and contemplation of the place on this earth where a plane slammed into the ground. Why can’t it be nice? It looks like a place I would like to go. What do you want instead, some Mussolini type concrete monstrosity? Oh, yeah, you do, never mind. Just pave it over, remember to put in a McDonald’s so I can super size it ot my way to the monorail.
Dude, Aida, I’m telling you: Mocha Allah Fudge. Or is it a Fot Hajj Sundae? Whatever. I’m off to Micky D’s for a Shamrock Sheik.
Hah hah.
That Subway image is obviously a clear, literal, and intentional reference to the 9-11 attacks, while the Burger King lid is not a reference to anything besides ice cream.
Even so, while I would call the Subway image tasteless (much like their sandwiches), I would not declare a jihad against the company.
P.S: “actually pretty thoughtful”? Awww… thanks!
For my two cents, I still maintain that the proposed freedom towed skyline resembeles a middle finger, complete with appropriate supporting knuckles, poining vagulely eastish.
Mecca? France?
You decide.
I’m dense so forgive me for looking at things too literally and too superficially but I see an ice cream cone wrapper, maple trees and a killer burger. It seems to me that a strongly held faith or a deeply felt pride in country could withstand the attack of the killer symbols, whether they be intentional or not.I would like to think that America could withstand maple trees aligned in a semicircle and would hope that Islam could withstand the occasional ice cream cone wrapper. Get a grip.
This is a wonderful example of semiosis (which is like an osmosis of the symbols)
Gaijin Biker,
If you think those collapsing buildings on the Subway placemat look anything like the Twin Towers, you need to visit http://www.skyscraper.com.
Also, unless you missed it, planes hit the WTC towers, not hamburgers.
Talk about inventing subtext!
I am never eating at Subway again. Their mockery of the Fall of the Quintuplet Towers has chilled me to the wingbone.
planes hit the WTC towers, not hamburgers
Yes, but the German word for citizen is “B?rger”. So the terrorists were burgers — US-B?rger to be precise. How naive you all are.
I have to admit, life’s grandeur becomes ever more awe-inspiring. In years past, my world was empty, left-wing and prosy, bound by logic and dogged by dismal fact. But now, thanks to the daily contemplation of this website, I am well on the way to achieving a state of Sadh-Li Gnosis.
Signs and symbols stalk my steps. Innocent food purchases reveal a wealth of conspiracies undreamt-of by my dull neighbours. Every object that crosses my path reveals a hidden truth concerning the perfidy of the Left. My world is blossoming like a rose — a right-wing rose of rigmarole and reification, beauty and bewailment, horror and triumph. Thank you.
Y’know, if most Americans were like Charles Johnson (paranoid, hateful, etc.), I’d hate us too.
Obviously, the ice cream label is far worse. The crescent shape suggests an embrace by the maples, a “tree hugging” if you will, and as such teaches a gentle, hopeful lesson on the rewards of environmental stewardship. The ice cream lid instead counsels the consumer to give God a swirlie, a statement replete with disrespect for God and for the Judeo-Christian heritage of this great nation. The BK designers should be stoned, and the stones returned undamaged to their original locations.
When we glorify death it’s usually because of some heroic incident. While the “official” story is supposedly one of bravery of a doomed flight there are many questions unanswered about that flight.
There is a question about the extent of the crater; there is a question about the remains of the plane not being examined properly nor investigated by the Transportation and Safety Board; there is the question that the plane was “destroyed” very soon after being trucked away.
With the revelations of gross impropriety, lies and falsifications of this administration, it’s entirely possible that the deserving recipients of the memorial may have instead been some order following fighter pilots.
Shazam be that film wit’ th’ giant man who be a rappin’ genie? Yarr…
does this spell the end for giant, malformed objects attacking major cities? i would certainly pray that it is such. it is so “pre 9/11” to think that a film like “the attack of the killer tomatoes” should even get produced in today’s climate. oh what a simpler time it was then. so innocent, so innocent.
my point is, when a massively oversized burger/tomato/breast/lizard/ant wreaks havoc on a non-descript metropolitan area, it is hard not to think that the terrorists are somehow heartened by this. it is hard not to think that they are sitting in some cave-like bunker, stroking their terrobeards and sighing, “ah yes my friends, allah is pleased that those the big,juicy,succulent, flame kissed beef patties also see the evil inherent in the great satan and have too decided to strike.”
moral:
when burgers attack, the terrorists win.
That Subway image is obviously a clear, literal, and intentional reference to the 9-11 attacks
That Subway image is obviously a clear, literal, and intentional reference to Godzilla. Or maybe Mecha-Godzilla. Or any number of gigantic, city-stomping Japanese guys in rubber monster costumes.
Now how do we decide which of us is correct?
If you check out the comment section people are saying totally hilarious things like: “Darn i used to like subway, now i can’t eat there because of the islamofacsistcommiegayocists”.
That in essence is the kind of change right wingers bring to the world. That and renaming important side dishes.
Wasn’t Subway a co-sponser of that 9-11 war rally and graveyard hoe-down?
Do wingnuts see the Islamic crescent in the letter C?
mmmm, these Pillsbury crescent rolls are delici… oh my God!
Yes, Subway was one of the hoedown sponsors.