YOU CAN WHIP THE WAHOOS INTO A FRENZY....:

'Ground Zero Mosque' Furor a Faint Memory at Park51 Opening (Mark Jacobson, 9/22/11, New York)

Once planned as a fifteen-story structure, what opponents called "the Triumphalist Islamic Supremacist Mega-Mosque at Ground Zero" is still housed in the low-slung edifice that was once occupied by the Burlington Coat Factory. But while the gray-and-green carpeted "prayer space" that is primarily used by taxi-drivers and local merchants for Friday services remains the same, an ample exhibit hall been constructed. On the freshly painted sheet rock walls hung a series of photographs showing charmingly posed children from 160 different countries, but now living in New York. The portraits, taken by Danny Goldfield, were a manifestation of the project's overriding message, which Park51 chairman, Sharif El-Gamel, described as inclusion, community building, and diversity."

All in all, with the New York Arabic Orchestra and its four-oud section playing as guests imbibed non-alcoholic drinks and lamb balls, it was a relaxed, deeply secularized ceremony, an experience not wholly unlike one might have at the 92nd Street Y, the facility that El-Gamel says he wants to emulate.
...but, thankfully, In America you can't keep them angry.

[If you're one of the folks who lost the myriad side bets on this facility ever opening, hats in size 8", shirts in XXl. Email me for the address. Thanks.]

Posted by oj at September 22, 2011 6:30 PM
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