I don't know where he gets off on being weird about ketchup, I think it's considered its own food group in Utah.

also, the Word of Wisdom, ie, the source of the food and drink rules, is obeyed more in theory. Very few restaurants have caffeine-free options for soft drinks, and no one's complaining. I am not the only one who declares you'll take my diet Coke from my cold dead fingers. And pointing out the chocolate contains caffeine makes them very twitchy and quick to point out, "Well, the Word of Wisdom is actually referring to alcohol and hot drinks."

I've spent most of the morning and afternoon so far putting together a kitchen cart. It's almost done now -- I need to assemble one more drawer, then put on the top. I think I might take a nap first. This thing is going to be very cool when it's done, but it's taking forever.

Cousin Brent's a strange dude...his answering machine message is longer than my resume. But it might be because he is so used to undergrads following him around going "Of course, Dr. T. Whatever you think." more than even our considerable philosophic differences.

While 9/11 affected all Americans and was a terrible blow to the victims' families, I fail to see how it gives everyone in the country, in particular the families, jurisdiction over lower Manhattan. I'd guess that the first response from many businesses in the area, still blighted by 9/11, was the equivalent of "Maybe the dinner crowd will pick up."

What really is driving me around the bend is the huge emphasis on this, particularly as an example of how Obama and the "elite" don't care about the feelings of the "real" Americans, as a way to undermine Obama and reform. The country is going to hell on a souped-up handcart, and all this does is delay or prevent any real solutions. It's like hundreds of people are drowning and the people on shore are arguing about what color to paint the rescue boat.

I also wonder why I'm not a real American. I first noticed this phenomenon when Pat Buchanan identified real Americans as heterosexual couples with 2.5 children during the '92 GOP convention. My ancestors were among the earliest settlers in Massachusetts and fought in every American war from the French and Indian War through WWII. One great-grandfather bought the cattle coming into Abilene on the Chisholm trail and one was an Irish railroad man.

Billtea - really sorry to hear that.

Oh and point of interest:

Park51, the official twitter site of the project has denied it is contemplating backing down. Not the last word.Official spokescritters are sometime the last to know stuff. But, for what it is worth, [link]

A friend of mine linked to this essay on Slate about why the planned location is the perfect place for a Muslim cultural center. [link] In particular, I love this bit (emphasis mine):

First, opponents stirred up discomfort about the project by claiming that its sponsors were radicals and that any mosque near Ground Zero was inherently inappropriate. These claims, as explained above, are false. But that no longer matters. What matters is that people now feel discomfort about the project, and for that reason alone, it should be relocated. The same argument could be made against anything that upsets a local majority: same-sex marriage, Jews in restricted neighborhoods, Christians in Mecca, blacks sitting in the front of the bus. If you can't justify your discomfort, it merits no respect.

Gets back to Matt's point, and mine.

Post deleted cause Smonster said it better.

Man, I finally jumped into it on a friend's FB page. She re-posted this drivel from someone else's page:

If you think that putting up a mosque 600 ft. from ground zero and having the inauguration on the anniversary of September 11, 2001 is immoral, inhuman and a complete lack of respect for the memories of all that perished on that day THEN PLEASE COPY & PASTE THIS TO YOUR WALL!!

So I replied:

I've been reading a lot about this, and it's not a mosque; it's a community center like the YMCA that will have a culinary school, a gymnasium for sports, and a space that can be used as a prayer space. That doesn't make it a mosque.

Also, it's not being inaugurated on 9/11/11. Ground hasn't even been broken on it, and it's a 13-story building. It cannot be built that quickly.

Also, included in "all that perished that day" were 400 Muslims.

And, there is an actual mosque (strictly a house of worship) about 4 blocks from the WTC site. It was built in 1970, the same year the WTC was built, and has been holding services ever since.

I know this is an issue that has a lot of people talking, but I believe it's important to know all the facts.

(I can't actually recall the number of Muslims who died on 9/11, but I swear I read 400 yesterday. I'm hoping I'm not massively wrong and get called out on one damn data point.)

You know, I wouldn't be so upset about it if they could admit that it came from bias. Like when I think of my comments following the '04 election, I admit a great deal of them were based on learned bias against Southern Americans. So when the South went red, I freaked. It confirmed everything I'd learned. They were this, that, and the other thing too. But now I know many Buffistas came from and still live in the South and are not "cool because they got out," or anything like that. Once you get to know people, it's different. (I've actually met many Muslim techies from stepdad's jobs...they were VERY serious and very polite,)