Ground Zero Mosque Outrage

While cruising the usual news websites, I stumbled upon this story about a recent stabbing. Two things caught me about this incident; the location (literally two blocks south of my residence) and the motive.

From NY1

A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Police say the passenger asked the driver, "Are you Muslim?" When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

There is nothing that can convince me that this incident doesn't have anything to do with the recent Ground Zero controversy. As a 9/11 survivor, I absolutely understand the feelings around the issue. Having said that, there are just a few things that are just fact:

One; we cannot as Americans allow for Muslims to be collectively guilted because of the actions of a fringe minority of Muslims. 9/11 was a horrible tragedy, but it's time we move on from that and learn to forgive the followers of Islam (which by the way doesn't mean forgiving the terrorists who committed these acts).

Two; regardless of your feelings towards the mosque, this kind of hate crime cannot, under any circumstances be allowed, condoned nor excused.

I hope this story gets wider coverage, so people can truly understand the power of hate and bigotry in what is nothing more than a land use issue. I'll end with the quote from a previous post:

Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can’t become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us

-Charlton Heston

Celebrate Originality...

...with a corporate logo

By Victoria Chang

From Poetry Daily

Dear P., IV

Five seconds to open a parachute, one
that smells like terror. I am a river and
you a body. When your body fell into
the river, you informed it, ignored it.
I handled you as a half-masted plank or
wooden vessel. When I received you, it was
night. The constellations broke their
vertebrae arching to see you. I stumbled
over myself to key you into my folds, river
of error, river of dirty whiteness. Now I know.
If I press hard enough on my eyeballs, I see
geometric shapes and stars. My love for you
is something like this. It is there like
the stars but nothing I can grab or free.

Dear P., XIII

Someone says it is difficult to write poems
that are both domestic and ambitious. If
your small round head is my earth, if I have
concerns only for the internal affairs of your
body, then how am I too not mining waves
of concentric circles outward? Our home has
more than four sides. There are wars in rooms,
furniture in formation. If I am your domestic
servant, why is it assumed we are domestic?
That we are small and petty, that we are
controllable, unwild. You betray me over and
over. I play you and prey on you. This is not
domestic. There is no plaid sofa here, no
salad plate, no bingo hall, just falling bodies.

Victoria Chang

Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin

Breaking Benjamin - Diary of Jane