in wishing I could hit the "like" button on Mike Palij's post, it occurred to me that TIPS might benefit from an alternative (21st century?) platform. Rather than each and every post being delivered to each and every subscriber's mailbox, it could be posted once to a group page (a la facebook or similar) for subscribers to see, comment on or ignore. Threaded responses would be easier to view, and posts from those who make you cringe would be more easily blocked. Links, attachments, videos, and other resources would more easily be shared. Just a thought while I put off making a syllabus :) Patrick ** Patrick O. Dolan Associate Professor and Chair of Psychology Drew University Madison, NJ 07940 973-408-3558 [email protected]
_ >>> "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> 8/17/2010 5:59 PM >>> I have to admit amazement at how the proposed islamic community center at 45 Park Place (formerly a Burlington Coat Factory outlet store) has blown up into a national issue with so much distortion about it. To help Tipsters better understand the issues and forces at play, consider the following: (1) The Community Center aka the "WTC Mosque" and "Ground Zero Mosque" is closer to NYC's City Hall then it is the old WTC site. Yahoo maps identifies where the address stands relative to the two locations; see: http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=40.713592&lon=-74.009653&zoom=16&q1=45%20Park%20Pl%2C%20New%20York%2C%20NY%2010007-2404%2C%20United%20States or http://tinyurl.com/26q99mg The address can't be seen from the WTC site and people visting the WTC, would have go out of their way to find itt. (2) There have been 2 mosques in the WTC area for decades, as a recent article in the NY Times pointed out. Quoting the Times article: |Masjid Manhattan, on Warren Street, four blocks from ground zero, |was founded in 1970. Masjid al-Farah, formerly on Mercer Street, |moved to its present location on West Broadway, about 12 blocks |from ground zero, in 1985. Both mosques — essentially one-room |operations — routinely turn people away for lack of space. | |When Masjid al-Farah moved into the neighborhood, the local Muslim |community was tiny, said Sheikha Fariha. But it has expanded exponentially, |especially with Muslims who work in the area, she said. Both mosques |now welcome doctors, street vendors, real estate agents and service |workers. The imam of the Masjid Manhattan has a day job in a nearby |post office. | |Lately, some of the spillover has been absorbed by prayer services |held in the vacant Burlington Coat Factory store two blocks from the |trade center site, by Imam Feisal Abdul al-Rauf, a longtime prayer leader |at Masjid al-Farah. He plans to turn the site into a Muslim community |center and mosque bitterly opposed by critics, who call it a “ground zero |mosque,” and which was backed by President Obama on Friday night. |The uproar has perplexed, even alarmed, those who have long practiced |Islam amid the neighborhood bustle of churches, government agencies, |corporations, delis and sidewalk vendors. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/nyregion/14mosque.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=+mosques&st=nyt Yes, even now there are prayer services at the 45 Park Place location. If people don't want a mosque there, they'll have to close the location NOW. It seems that most of the news media is more interested in promoting the 45 Park Place community center as an "Al Qaeda outpost" and are ignoring the fact that there is a muslim community already in the neighborhood. Perhaps it is a latent reaction to the Burlington Coat Factory? (3) Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and CNN's "Reliable Sources" program has writen an article, based in part on a Salon article, on how the urban legend about the "ground zero mosque" developed. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081701473_pf.html Quoting from the Kurtz piece: |Based on that Salon piece, the turning point came in May, when |the New York Post ran a short story under the headline, "Panel |approves 'WTC' mosque." That day Pamela Geller, who blogs |at Atlas Shrugs and is the author of a book subtitled, "The Obama |Administration's War on America," attacked the plan in a post |headlined, "Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World |Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction." "How disgusting," |she declared. Days later, Post columnist Andrea Peyser wrote |a piece titled, "Mosque madness at Ground Zero." | |Geller appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show. The Washington |Examiner ran a column by Diana West titled, "A mosque to mock 9/11's |victims and families." And the controversy took off from there. NOTE: The New York Post is part of News Corp which also owns Fox News. The Salon article can be accessed here: http://www.salon.com/news/ground_zero_mosque/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins (4) Besides being a cynical exercise in political warfare, the creation of the 45 Park Place urban legend and its use to divide U.S. citizens, it also re-directs attention from other important issues which cannot be politically exploited. One of these issues is the re-building of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church which was located in a parking area just south of the south tower of the World Trade Center. Ironically, Fox News has an article on its website today that points this out (it also contains an iconic photo of the church against the WTC tower and the WTC Marriot hotel on the left); see: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/17/ground-zero-church-archdiocese-says-officials-forgot/ The 45 Park Place community center is a private undertaking and has passed all local legal assessments. St. Nicholas' church, however, which was destroyed when the south tower fell, has been in negotiations with the New York and New Jersey Port Authority (state agencies) for the past decade on where to build a replacement church. Deals have come and gone and there is still no agreement on where to build the new church. I think that the efforts against the 45 Park Place community center would be better used to get St. Nicholas' Church rebuilt. The information above can be used in a variety of ways, ranging from showing the psychology of propoganda (one might want to look at Robert Kodosky's "Psychological Operations American Style: The Joint United States Public Affairs Office, Vietnam and Beyond" on background for "PsyOps" and propaganda as weapons) to the spread of rumors as facts to overconfidence in false memories; it can also be used to illustrate a type of madness that had taken over Americans at different points in time, from the Salem witch hunts to McCarthyism. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13443.99ec8b626a47132c52969dd081cdd808&n=T&l=tips&o=4272 or send a blank email to leave-4272-13443.99ec8b626a47132c52969dd081cdd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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