Monday, August 30, 2010

Mosque in Manhattan

Anyone who knows me knows I have no particular love for Islam. It ranks right up there with Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity and any other organized magical thinking you can list as far as I'm concerned. However, I do have a fondness for facts.

From Huffington Post:

"The 'Ground Zero mosque' is a genuine proposal," Brooker notes, "but it's slightly less provocative than its critics' nickname makes it sound. For one thing, it's not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn't a mosque."

Brooker goes on to note, correctly, that the project is a "cultural centre" with a "basketball court," whose purpose is to "improve interfaith relations."

And, to repeat, it's not at Ground Zero!

Perhaps spatial reality functions differently on the other side of the Atlantic, but here in London, something that is "two minutes' walk and round a corner" from something else isn't actually "in" the same place at all. I once had a poo in a pub about two minutes' walk from Buckingham Palace. I was not subsequently arrested and charged with crapping directly onto the Queen's pillow. That's how "distance" works in Britain. It's also how distance works in America, of course, but some people are currently pretending it doesn't, for daft political ends.

Read the rest from Charlie Brooker at Huffington Post after the click.