I AM in favor of the Cordoba House being built at Ground Zero, because, you know, there is no context, no emotion, no meaning, no memory that attaches to a place where something very dramatic happened. Of course, it is totally appropriate for something else anything at all to happen there.
So, just as I am in favor of the mosque at Ground Zero, I am also in favor of:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government, relocating to the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.
The US Chamber of Commerce Vietnamese Culture Festival in My Lai.
The Presidential National Leadership Training Degree, conferred at Watergate.
The Elvis Presley Drug Rehabilitation Seminar, held in the room Elvis died in at Graceland.
The German History Institute, constructed at Auschwitz.
The Harris and Klebold Mental Health Center, based in the Columbine High School library.
The Japanese Peace Center, built at Pearl Harbor.
The Albert Einstein Academic Integrity Award, presented in Ward Churchills classroom.
The Mother Teresa Compassion Internship, announ- ced at the Idi Amin Personal Refrigerator/Cannibal Morgue, Uganda.
The Reformed Black September Athletic Initiative, slated for the Munich Airport.
The Alabama Civil Rights Remembrance, called for Bull Connors grave.
The Human Rights Sensitivity Training Program, held at Saddam Hussein Palace #6 (the Rape Room).
The Herb Score Baseball Injury Rehabilitation Lecture, held on the New York Yankees pitchers mound.
The Korean War MIA Memorial Book, printed in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The last two United States/Native American Treaties, signed at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek.
The Christopher Columbus Exploration/Breaking the Bonds of Borders Award, presented at Alcatraz.
The George Washington Exemplary Citizen Award, bestowed at the Benedict Arnold House.
The Confederate States Civil War Museum at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
The convention of Gamblers Anonymous in Ceasars Palace, Las Vegas.
The Nelson Mandela Freedom Award, bestowed at Robben Island.
The Serbian Survivors Healing Conference, scheduled for Srebrenica.
The Christian Morality Ceremony at the Clinton Presidential Library.
The Yogi Berra Pigeon English Finals, held in the Harvard English Dept. seminar room.
The Pope John XXIII Ecumenical Dialogue, to convene in Mecca.
The George Wallace Retrospective, slated for the Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman burial site.
The Centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, held at the Montgomery, Alabama jail.
The Challenger Rocket Memorial Symposium, convened at sea where the disintegrated rocket fell.
The Presidential Federal Worker of the Year Medal, awarded at the Oklahoma City Federal Bldg.
The Quinticentennial of the Inquisition Cross-Cultural Dialogue, held at the Queen Isabella/King Ferdinand Kill Them on the Rack Dungeon.
The Walter Cronkite Free Speech Lecture, held in Castros garden.
Finally, the Celebration of the Freedom of Information Act, held at that unparalleled font of information . . . Jimmy Hoffas tomb.
A mosque at Ground Zero? It is tasteless.
Indeed, context, meaning and memory do attach to a place where something very dramatic happened; and no, it is not appropriate for anything else at all to happen there, especially something emotional.
Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
