You knew I had to talk about it here at some point, right? I mean, I’ve been tweeting & leaving comments on everyone’s fb statuses about it.

First of all, “mosque” is in quotes b/c it’s not a freakin mosque. It’s an Islamic Community Center. Yes, there will be a place for prayer there, but it’s a smaller part of a $100 MILLION Cultural Center. It will also have a swimming pool, a gym, basketball court, an auditorium, a restaurant (& culinary school), a library, and art studios. Are we calling it “the ground zero pool”? No? Then why “ground zero mosque”? Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to stimulate the economy ($100 Mill project) whilst adding to the community?

If you want to find a Mosque, there IS one INSIDE the Pentagon, open for worship, rebuilt after the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon.

Are we criticizing Christian churches around the Oklahoma City building site? Why is it that American laws seem to apply or be exempt for Christians? Division of church & state doesn’t exist like it should. Lots of religious organizations receive tax-exempt statuses, then give money to fuel their political interests. It’s like certain things are ok, as long as you’re the “right religion”.

“Ground zero” is in quotes b/c it’s not at ground zero! It’s 2 blocks away. Though, there was a mosque already 5 blocks from ground zero (GZ); it was there for like 30 years!

Though, there are currently strip clubs way closer to GZ. & they’re planning to build a 55,000 sq. ft. mall right on GZ. How is a mall paying tribute to those who lost their lives on 9/11?!?! Mall to me means a bunch of corporate stores. Not even small businesses. Starbucks. The Gap. Banana Republic. How does that remember fallen heros?

Roger Ebert recently re-posted an op-ed piece that he originally published on Sept. 12, 2001:

A Green Field

If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with the world.

Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the springtime, and a pond where children can skate in the winter.

Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell.

Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field. Every living thing that is planted here will show faith in the future.

Let students from all lands take a sunny corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions. Let the harvest show that life prevails over death, and let the sharing show that we love our neighbors.

Do not build again on this place. No building can stand here. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of the earth, to remind us that we share it.