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War is an ugly business.  It’s even uglier when it entails bean counting, that “macabre calculus” whereby we compute acceptable levels of collateral damage and civilian casualties before “taking out” a target.  In American military practice, this calculus is always in play, because we are an ethical people concerned about loss of innocent lives.  Of course, we haven’t yet learned the ethics of avoiding armed struggle altogether, except as a last resort.

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Alec Rawls makes an important point in today’s blogburst installment, and he is  rather perceptive in recognizing the opportunity presented by the closing ceremony at the just-concluded Olympic Games to illustrate a compelling and subtle argument.   Point is, not just any interpretation of an artistic production is possible or valid, but interpretive criticism that is consistent with relevant thematic, structural, and symbolic considerations cannot really be refuted or denied.  Art—and there can be no doubt that the architect and his supporters consider the Flight 93 National Memorial to be a great work of art—will always generate some obvious, no-brainer understandings and interpretations.

It would be laughable if the Chinese government denied the obvious symbolism in the closing ceremonies in Beijing, and it is laughable that the Park Service has denied the glaringly obvious Islamic motifs in the  memorial design.

“Crescent?  What crescent?  You mean that broken circle?”

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It’s just flabbergasting, the nutty idiocy of the Flight 93 Memorial Project folks. They were actually going to call their fundraiser a gala, no doubt in emulation of the Twin Towers Gala and the Beslan Massacre Gala. I’m sure they’re simply shocked that the family members didn’t much appreciate that particular word choice, because the project managers are nothing if not verbally inventive and proud of it. We complain about a crescent and they call it a broken circle. They babble on and on about healing, embrace, love, and eternity. It’s enough to gag.

In today’s news video, Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley is at it again. Idealistic to a fault, literally, she believes in turning lemons into lemonade, so she revels in all the controversy. This time we are told that the design competition itself is “internationally renowned.” Heck, I guess. It certainly got my notice, and I was hardly even paying attention when they decided gratuitously to offend my sensibilities. Of course getting my attention isn’t necessarily a good or desirable thing.

These ass hats are so full of themselves it’s astonishing, and that’s after all what’s wrong with the memorial design. It shouldn’t be a tribute to a bunch of New Age pinheads who think they’re smart and morally superior. It shouldn’t be about their laughable artistic vision or their humanistic ideals. It shouldn’t even be about healing, as if such a thing is at all within their capabilities.

As for extending to us their loving embrace, I must reciprocate in kind.

So embrace this.

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Photoshopped South Dakota state logo by TheeErin (flickr)

Isn’t it rich? The “straight laces” in South Dakota continually strive to proscribe abortion there, so of course South Dakota women can be compared to Muslim women oppressed by their male overlords! It’s safe to speculate that the “artist” doesn’t know much about life behind the burqa, but she does appear to know a bit about moral equivalence, particularly the more absurd varieties.

In the last thirty-five years since Roe v. Wade there have been almost fifty million abortions performed in our great nation, roughly the equivalent of the combined populations of a dozen of our least populous states like South Dakota. There’s one state, however—and only one state—where there are no abortions being performed at all, at least temporarily. There aren’t any burkas being worn there either, although there are a few hijabs on display.

Can you guess which state?

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