Measure twice, cut once

"The American people want a solemn and sacred memorial. They don't want a slanted history lesson," Debra Burlingame told Neil Cavuto on FOXNews this afternoon.  History, shmistory, where's the beef? Baby wants to know.  In this case, he was focussed on our breakfast sandwich of ham and mayo on toast (upper left) this morning.

"They need to have something they can be proud of, not to be dragged through history's failures." an emotional Debra Burlingame told Neil Cavuto on FOXNews this afternoon, even as Neil promised to offer a bully pulpit to the other side next week.  Debra seems to embody the spiritual yearning of what used to be called the "great, silent majority," who have had it up to here with our betters' telling us what?  How to think? How to reject what common sense and everything we were brought up on tells us is true? Debra continues:

I would like to see a majestic memorial, not something that is artsy and unpleasant to look at.  I think when you look at that memorial, you should get a lump in your throat.

We have nothing against the architect's model of how the International Freedom Center would look.  It was the programmatic anti-American sermons masquerading as apolitical thought poems that we couldn't stomach.  We were struck with something letter-to-the-editor writer David W. Lincoln of Edmonton, Alberta wrote to Opinion Journal the other day in response to Burlingame's op ed:

It begins with knowledge. That is how we get the 9/11 memorial back.  Knowledge as to who is behind the out-and-out theft of what truly belongs to all, not just those who have an axe to grind against President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld.  Then, if we have learned anything at all since 9/11, we will do something about it. For the old saying is still appropriate:  Measure twice, cut once.  So, if more time is needed for a fitting an proper 9/11 Memorial, then we can afford more time to get it right the first time.

That thought reminded us of a comment by the head of the German seminary where Pope Benedict XVI studied,"Only someone who knows tradition is able to shape the future" -- blogged here. The big mistake of the modernist project was to think we could wipe the slate clean, look to the mythic noble savage and deny the dark side in ourselves. It was doomed from the start.  But try telling that to the tenured reactionaries of academia, the MSM and the elite powers that be.

Comments

[pb]

This infuriates me. I have followed your link and posted input with our Governor Pataki.

A copy of my input is blogged at Pat's Pond, and I am linking to the article.

Thanks Sissy.

[Darlene]

Sisu. A Finnish name to be proud of, meaning strength and determination. I learned that from my best friend, who once had a cat named Sisu.

I can never forgive the culprits behind 9/11. To go back aways, my husband and I flew to New York to visit our daughter in 2001. The one thing that impressed me the most was how the multitude of religions and nationalities got along with each other, side by side, and respectfully accepted their differences. We saw a Jewish vendor next to an Arabic one. When the Arab rolled out a carpet and said his prayers facing the East, the Jewish vendor stopped selling his wares so the area wouldn't be filled with more commotion. When the prayers were finished, the two men turned towards each other and smiled.

That same sense of understanding prevailed wherever we went. I was thrilled, because this melting pot of New York was an explicit example of what could be accomplished by people everywhere.

That same day, we went through the World Trade Center, then stood on the pier to view the Statue of Liberty. That night our plane to return to Minnesota departed later than scheduled, so we got back about 2 a.m., on Sept. 11. When I arrived at work that morning, around 8 a.m., my boss told me to quickly call my daughter, and he explained about the Towers and the terrorists. She was fine; hadn't been able to leave Queens to get into Manhatten, where she worked. But to this day I feel a sense of loss, not only for the innocent people whose lives were lost or destroyed, but the loss of the idyllic harmony between mankind that New Yorkers proved could be accomplished, because they had been living it. This is what the terrorists destroyed.

[Sissy Willis]

Civilization is never secure. We have to be forever vigilant. Thanks for your beautiful essay, Darlene.