Category: General

PhD-dropout Alec Rawls has a conspiracy-theory laden blog he’s using to rub salt in 9/11 victims’ wounds. Aptly called, “Error Theory,” Rawls latest has drawn the attention of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for his criticism of the proposed Flight 93 memorial. According to the Post-Gazette:

Nearly two years after the design of the United Flight 93 Memorial was changed to eliminate any perceived Islamic symbolism, the father of one of the people killed in the crash has asked that his son’s name be withheld from the monument.

“It’s something I’d rather not do, but I can’t get anyone to listen,” said Tom Burnett Sr., of Northfield, Minn. “In a sense, I’m asking for a call to action.”

Burnett’s suspicions have been inflamed by Rawls’ strange allegations:

“A person facing into the giant central crescent of the Flight 93 Memorial is facing Mecca.”

There are 44 glass blocks being used in the design, representing the 40 passengers and four terrorists who hijacked the plane.

The 93-foot tall Tower of Voices, which will include wind chimes to represent those who died, is an Islamic sundial. “Shadow calculations confirm that, on any day of the year, when the tower shadow reaches the inner arc of trees, it will be time for Islamic afternoon prayers.”

According to Rawls, he has Burnett’s full support:

He described his own efforts to stop the crescent design, including letters to the press that were never published. [Update: In a subsequent discussion with Mrs. Burnett, she thought that at least one of the letters was published by the Somerset Daily American. Will update later with what I can verify about who did and did not publish the letters.] With the crescent design still going forward, he has decided that it is necessary to up the ante, and has authorized me to publicize his decision to protest the crescent design by insisting that Tom Jr.’s name not be inscribed on one of the 44 glass blocks emplaced along the flight path, or used anywhere else in the memorial.

The problem with the theory, of course, is, like theories of Young Earth Creationists, it has no bearing on reality. There are only 40 glass blocks planned for the memorial.

Back to the Post-Gazette:

When the concerns about the use of the crescent first arose, the designer of the memorial, Paul Murdoch, willingly changed the shape to an almost full circle.

And this:

Regarding the claim that there are 44 glass blocks in the memorial, Mr. Murdoch vehemently disagreed, saying that, first of all, there is no glass block used in the design.

Instead, there are 40 inscribed marble panels listing the names of the passengers and crew at the gateway to the Sacred Ground, where their remains still rest.

There is then an opening in the wall, Mr. Murdoch said, and three additional panels, which would include the date, Sept. 11, 2001.

“Where the other one is being fabricated, I don’t know,” he said.

And there’s more in the Post-Gazette to refute these absurd allegations.

It’s enough that we collectively were victimized on September 11, 2001, and that some, like Mr. Burnett, felt that pain as no one ever should. But Rawls’ fabrications continue to divide us, and rub salt in old wounds. And Muslims were also horrified at the actions of a few, claiming their religion as justification for pure evil – just as the vast majority of Christians are horrified by the Ku Klux Klan claiming Jesus of Nazareth as inspiration for their hateful deeds.

Sifting through plans for a memorial to eradicate every imagined reference to Islam brings us all down.

Rawls and others of his ilk should visit a Mosque, or an interfaith gathering with Muslims, Christians, and Jews. For one evening, they should speak with, pray with, and get to know their neighbors. But perhaps that is asking too much.

After all, Jesus had a very unconventional response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

It was all too tempting to start this reflection with some quip, making light of the conviction of a Deerfield, Illinois, couple found guilty of allowing their son’s friends to drink in their basement one night last October. How easy it is sitting on this side of the monitor to mock, to ridicule, or to cry self-righteous.

One night last October

That’s when it happened. And I’ll bet everyone involved is crying to go back, to undo what was done, to bring back the two who were lost:

Killed were Daniel Bell of Bannockburn, and a passenger, Ross Trace of Riverwoods, both 18.

That’s the one line in tonight’s story in the Chicago Tribune that resonates more than any other on the page.

With my personal involvement with youth through the years, I’ve heard of too many incidents where young people report that parents buy alcohol sometimes for their parties. Or parents permit drinking in the house because, “they’re going to do it anyway, so they may as well do it here where we can watch them.” The so-called “chaperoned drinking” is the adults’ way of pretending that they actually still have some measure of control in the lives of their children.

Perhaps. The story gives the cold facts:

As the debate continues in courtrooms, at high schools and around kitchen tables across the country on who ultimately bears responsibility for underage drinking, a jury in Lake County weighed in with its own opinion Saturday, finding a Deerfield couple guilty of allowing their son’s friends to drink in their basement one night last October.

Two teenage guests were killed in a car crash shortly after leaving the Deerfield home of Jeffrey and Sara Hutsell. According to testimony given during the five-day trial against the couple last week, the 18-year-old driver had consumed alcohol at the party.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated seven hours before reaching its decision at about 7:40 p.m. They also convicted the Hutsells of one count of endangerment of a child and one count of obstruction of justice for lying to police officers on the night of the accident. The jury acquitted the couple of another obstruction charge for destroying evidence. The Hutsells showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.

Perhaps it’s an admission they no longer have control. Or perhaps they just want to be their kids’ friends. I really don’t know. I can’t analyze. I don’t know them. Many were expecting prison time for the couple. “They” should be punished, after all.

We will preach and analyze and throw this headline around for a while. We will yell at our kids, stand on street corners, carry signs, cry, and get angry. We will talk about “those parents” who let kids do those things. We will want to even further tighten our absurdly punitive laws in Illinois even further, put “them” in prison, take away the kids’ driving licenses, do something more to convince ourselves that we’re really in control.

We’re so fucking good at punishment, after all. We must know what we’re doing. Look at all of our prisons. We can’t build them fast enough. And now we’re sending two more away. Good for us!

But in the midst of finger-pointing, in the midst of our tears for two young lives snuffed out “one night last October,” we need to simply pause and let it all sink in:

Killed were Daniel Bell of Bannockburn, and a passenger, Ross Trace of Riverwoods, both 18.

And that can’t be undone, ever. No matter how many people we put in prison. If the possibility of death from driving drunk doesn’t stop people from driving drunk, is more prison time going to do it? Will these convictions stop the next idiot parents from winking at the kids in the basement as they hide their beers, “checking on the party,” and then return upstairs?

No. Parents have been convicted before of such things.

So the real question is, how do we really prevent the next senseless deaths?