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Eye on the
Press
January 3, 2002
bin
Laden -- Architecture critic?
An interesting
piece in Slate tries to prove that bin Laden may have had a very
persSonal reason to target the World Trade Center in particular. Writer
Lauri Kerr explains how Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, a
Japanese-American, was a favorite architect of the Saudi royal family,
for whom the bin Laden construction group was one of the main
contractors, building mosques, airports and palaces across Saudi.
Yamasaki
first started incorporating Islamic styles in his architecture for the
Saudi royals, and from there he decided to include much of what he
learned in the design for the World Trade Center, which he referred to
as "a mecca, a great relief from the narrow streets and sidewalks
of the surrounding Wall Street area." Via photos and
descriptions, Kerr takes readers on an architectural tour of the twin
towers and their courtyard, making the convincing case that their
design was indeed based on the ka'ba in Mecca.
Her
conclusion, however, is a bit far-fetched: She writes that for
"someone who wants to purify Islam from commercialism, Yamasaki's
implicit Mosque to Commerce would be anathema. To Bin Laden, the World
Trade Center was probably not only an international landmark but also
a false idol."
That's
stretching things a bit -- on the other hand, a more insightful
thinker (which bin Laden probably isn't) would have instead felt proud
that Islamic architecture and Islamic metaphors figured so prominently
in the biggest symbol of Western capitalism.
Making
the case for reform
In this Washington
Post op-ed piece, a Pakistani
professor tries to argue that radical changes need to take place in
the Muslim world.
Media
or mouthpiece?
"The US coverage of this government is just a bit more edifying
than the local newscasts in Riyadh," writes Mark Krispin Miller
in "What's
Wrong With This Picture" in The Nation. Miller cuts hard into
the conglomeration of the news business, arguing that the public
interest, especially that of the poor and working classes, in America,
is being ignored in favor of entertainment-influenced journalism which
merely parrots government and big business interests rather than
sticking true to journalism's traditional mission of informing the
masses.
The
next-to-last paragraph of the article seems to sum things up
well:
"... the media continue to betray American democracy. Media
devoted to the public interest would investigate the poor performance
by the CIA, the FBI, the FAA and the CDC, so that those agencies might
be improved for our protection--but the news teams (just like
Congress) haven't bothered to look into it. So, too, in the public
interest, should the media report on all the current threats to our
security--including those far-rightists targeting abortion clinics
and, apparently, conducting bioterrorism; but the telejournalists are
unconcerned (just like John Ashcroft). So should the media highlight,
not play down, this government's attack on civil liberties--the mass
detentions, secret evidence, increased surveillance, suspension of
attorney-client privilege, the encouragements to spy, the warnings not
to disagree, the censored images, sequestered public papers,
unexpected visits from the Secret Service and so on. And so should the
media not parrot what the Pentagon says about the current war, because
such prettified accounts make us complacent and preserve us in our
fatal ignorance of what people really think of us--and why--beyond our
borders."
Miller's
list of the media's faults should be enough to convince any thoughtful
reader that to believe what they hear from big media would be akin to
putting on their own blindfold and walking straight into an oncoming
train
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