Oh God, bt. Such horrible news. Peace and comfort~ma to all of the families involved.

So sorry, billytea. My thoughts are with you all.

My low productivity streak continues today. I'm struggling to get out one massive email. If I can do that, the rest of the day will be no big deal. JUST THIS ONE MASSIVE EMAIL, with attached spreadsheet. And instructions that go with it. And all the details I have to fill in.

Um. And the phone calls I need to make to fill in the gaps.

On a normal day, this is a piece of cake.

bt, that is just terrible. My heart goes out to WB and the family.

amyth, I mean this in the most sympathetic, empathic, non-sarcastic, supportive, let-me-know-what-I-can-do way: Welcome to my brain.

(on the not-a-mosque: part of me is completely tickled that many NYers are responding "It's none of your effing business." B/c they're right, and b/c it's the archetypal NY response.)

Ha, smonster, funny we should meet HERE to talk about THIS.

Anyway, there's nothing you can do. I'm slogging through it. Coffee and fear are my gods, as usual, as long as I don't spill either one on my lap. But thanks.

That's just horrible. I'm so sorry for your loss and as Shir said, peace and comfort to you all.

Sorry, bt.

Ha, smonster, funny we should meet HERE to talk about THIS.

Poetic, in a way. Too bad coffee makes me jittery and fear paralyzes me. My gods are... mindfulness and water. Or something.

I'm convinced that part of the issue with the community center in NYC is people that have never been to NYC trying to asses how the city works. Manhattan isn't geographically large. A few blocks away in Manhattan might as well be a different world. It could certainly be a different neighborhood. In LA it would be like someone being offended about something in Pasadena being right next to Watts.

ND, I think that also plays into the "why don't you have it somewhere else?" thing. NY is a city of neighborhoods, right? Where people walk and take the subway everywhere. Move it across town and they could lose their congregation.

Matt, I agree with all of this, for the record. I don't think feelings should be given primacy over Constitutional principles. And I think it will be an American triumph when the community center is built.

I absolutely support the Cordoba Initiative's right to build the center (and, not that it matters, but I should note it does not cause me pain, unease, or offense). I wish, last night, that I'd thought to express my feelings thusly, "Were my congregation in the Cordoba Initiative's position, I would suggest that we change our plans, in order to avoid causing pain and strife."

As a very lapsed, very former New-England-Protestant-gone-native, I share the cultural referents you alluded to, and understand your general position.

That said, I respectfully disagree. Such decisions enact a sort of prior restraint which can only be explained by "I'm afraid of the conflict or social disruptions that this will cause."

While I understand the desire to not make waves, excessive deference to the dominant culture has (I think) a greater deleterious effect than open conflict. Such deference reinforces the idea that a given non-dominant-culture group must defer to the dominant culture even when the dominant culture's values and sentiment diverges from the law....and that is a very bad idea.