Tag Archive for Imam Rauf

9/11, Debra Burlingame, Ground Zero, Imam Rauf, Mayor Bloomberg, mosque

Mayor Bloomberg and a political ‘fix’ in for the Ground Zero mosque

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The New York Post reports that ‘City Hall ghostwrote GZ mosque’s letter.’ There is more but let’s start there:

Dozens of e-mails between Mayor Bloomberg’s aides and developers of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero reveal a cordial, if not downright cozy, relationship and the length to which a top city staffer went to help the project — even drafting a letter for the group soliciting support from the community board, and providing the fax number to send it.

In one exchange, Community Affairs Commissioner Nazli Parvizi penned the draft of a letter to be sent by Daisy Khan, a key sponsor of the project known alternately as Cordoba House or Park51, to the chairperson of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, as the panel prepared to vote on its recommendation on the project.

The letter drafted by Parvizi thanked Menin for being open-minded about the plan for a mosque and cultural center — which by then had become a flashpoint issue around the nation.
…
Opponents of the plan were furious.

“The mayor was touting, ironically, government not being involved in religion, and here you have the mayor’s staffer assisting in a public-relations campaign on behalf of a mosque and Islamic center,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11.

Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf provided Nazli Parvizi a revised draft, In it, the Cordoba Initiative requested the Community Board 1 withdraw its resolution (later voted on and approved) to the Landmarks Preservation Commission that the Burlington Coat Factory be “de-designated” as an historical landmark.

Landmark preservation lawyer Shelly Friedman represents the Cordoba Initiative. Friedman (and Friedman and Gotbaum LLP) financially donates to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Robert B. Tierney chairs New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Friedman emailed Rauf and remindied him of the game plan:

“withdrawing the resolution may affect [Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s and City Council Member Chin’s] thinking about how helpful they can be on June 22 [at the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting]. That in itself may not be fatal to getting 45 PP de-designated, but I do know that Chairman Tierney was looking forward to the “political cover” their support would provide him.”

But Friedman holds a special disdain for the overwhelming majority of 9/11 family members and first responders who oppose a mosque and Islamic “cultural center” that would espouse the “merits” of discriminatory sharia law at Ground Zero.

As you read this next passage by him in that same email to Rauf, recall that in 2005, 9/11 family members and first responders successfully lobbied against the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation placing an ‘International Freedom Center’ touting “political discourse in the public square.” Mayor Bloomberg was all for a ‘hate America first’ cultural center being built at the entrance-way to the 9/11 memorial and museum on Ground Zero. Friedman wrote:

“Your local opponents have chosen their position against Islam as mere convenience. As I said earlier, these are the forces that have already buried two governors and fought to a standstill the current governor, the current mayor, the strongest economic development agency in America (the Port Authority), the NYC Real Estate Industry and at least two investment banks (Morgan and Goldman Sachs) which saw their plans for the WTC either destroyed of significantly reduced. [Bloomberg handed Goldman Sachs $130 million in Liberty bonds as a consolation prize.] They chased away every major NYC cultural institution off the site which interfered with or impinged upon their vision of the site as a memorial.”

Obviously, Mayor Bloomberg and his cronies put the political fix in for a ‘hate America always’ cultural center at Ground Zero.

9/11, Barack Obama, El-Gamal, free speech, Ground Zero, Imam Rauf, mosque, Muslims, September 11

‘Orgasmic’ Christ; Where’s the outrage from the Muslim world? (Update: Allah depiction suspected; backlash expected)

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The 9 News link came to me via my Google alert for ‘September 11’. As you will see, the museum also contains a gallery on that subject.

In a city-owned museum in Loveland, Colorado, where school children often make field trips, there is a 12-panel lithograph entitled “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” which the artist defends and the city refuses to remove. Not everyone there is amused.

“It depicts clearly a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ engaging in an oral sex act with another person,” says Deacon Ed Armijo of St. John’s The Evangelist Catholic Church. Deacon Armijo and several members of the community went to the gallery to voice their opposition to the exhibit.

The exhibit has raised a question society and the legal system have wrestled with for years: When does art go too far?

“I think people need to come in and see it for themselves. It is hard to take one piece in isolation. It is in the context of an exhibit and this one particular piece is not a stand alone piece,” says Susan Ison, cultural services director for the City of Loveland.

I Googled the work’s title and found it online. It is far sicker and more disgusting than the article describes. The second panel appears to have the cut off head of a soldier in a basket along with other “fruits,” in keeping with the sexual theme. The fourth panel appears to portray a Holy nun in a “maid’s” outfit (some sort of sacrifice is depicted in the background and I’m loathe to speculate what the sub-panels portray). Panels 5 through 7 apparently are of Christ on his road-trip. (The images are a bit small so I am only guessing that is Barack Obama in the sombrero and someone is in a turban. What either has to do with it all is beyond me). The eighth panel has Christ’s head, more accurately his holiness, literally on fire in a bedroom praying to be delivered from the temptation of two “pigs” on the bed. In pane1 12, a cross-dressing transgender Christ is shown having oral sex performed on him/her with the word ‘orgasm’ above them. You need not be Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to recognize the pornography.

It offends me so BE WARNED BEFORE clicking on this link.

Ground Zero mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal told the Today Show’s Matt Laurer on Wednesday, “In order to be a Muslim, you have to be a good Jew and good Christian at the same time.” Sharif El-Gamal was arrested during his mid-20’s for soliciting a prostitute (one of seven arrests in his “youth”) so there is plenty in “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” for him to recognize and be offended by. Maybe he will ask Imam Rauf to issue a fatwah, mention during his next State Department funded tour to the Muslim world that perhaps Allah was depicted, and go on Larry King Live to say if Loveland does not take it down, they’ll be another 9/11.

Where’s the outrage? Why aren’t all the “good Christian” Muslims out rioting, killing the innocent, and burning down churches?

Update: Someone pointed out to me the guy kneeling in the eighth panel is also wearing a turbin. So, the artist is surely not depicting Christ. That should earn Imam Rauf some more TV time and tells me this particular piece will soon make an early exit from the museum but it was okay when the artist was only offending Christians and potentially exposing children to smut.