Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 8:20:59 am
Where did the inspiration for that appalling leftist Arizona 9/11 memorial come from?
Noam Chomsky. Yep, the way-left loon’s slim volume 9/11 was one of six books listed in the bibliography of research notes from which the memorial’s designers cribbed statements to etch into the Funyun.
Mere mention of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and American foreign policy critic sends rightists into convulsive spit-fits along the lines of those induced by George Soros and Bill Clinton. Chomsky’s slim, 128-page pamphlet is a fine example why. In it Chomsky alleges the United States is a “terrorist state,” while simultaneously condemning the 9/11 attacks on America.
The fact that Chomsky’s book is in the bibliography of these research notes, compiled by ASU historian Nancy Dallett on behalf of the commission, will be enough for Republigoober Len Munsil and fellow conservatives to conclude that the Funyun’s phraseology is the fruit of fuzzy-headed liberalism.
The taloned one recently thumbed through the binder of Dallett’s notes at the offices of AZ 9/11 Commission Prez Billy Shields. But Chomsky’s screed was hardly the oddest mentioned in this wack-ass anthology.
There was also Media Representations of September 11, a compendium including “Rituals of Trauma: How the Media Fabricated September 11” by Indiana University prof Fritz Breithaupt. In Breithaupt’s essay — reproduced in toto in Dallett’s binders — the daffy don theorizes that folks “harbor a secret desire” for events like September 11, in order to feel condemned, then purified. Sorta like a hot-lead enema for your soul.
Another, 9-11 in American Culture, is a 2003 collection of tweedy types sounding off. A quote from the book: “It is time for the quiet and powerful wisdom of butterflies and salmon. Let out your wings and strengthen your fins.”
Pardon The Bird while it takes a barf break . . .
Dallett asininely interviewed members of the AZ 9/11 Commission, and some of this PC bathos ended up on the Funyun.
For example, Paul Eppinger, commission member and exec director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement, told Dallett how he and his wife were on a road trip from Denver the morning of the attacks and came up with this script on the memorial: “You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles.”
In other words, “Let’s hug it out, Osama!”
From what little Matt Salenger, part of the architectural team working on the memorial, told The Bird, he, along with wife Maria Salenger and principal architect Eddie Jones, used Dallett’s, er, “scholarship,” to come up with almost all of the text fit to print. According to Shields, the commission then gave the verbiage thumbs up or down.
The memorial hubbub has come as “a real shock,” squawked Salenger. He admitted that “there’s probably a silver lining” to all the publicity. That’s in addition to his fee for services rendered, which Salenger steadfastly refuses to reveal.