I lightened up on my distance today. I managed 2.3 miles and it felt good. The Saints beat Minnesota last night and the simple fact that today is Friday had my adrenalin flowing. I may actually meet my desired weekly average this week and be on budget for my quota despite how taxing this process is.
Nine years ago tomorrow two airplanes flew into the twin towers in New York City killing thousands of Americans and making rubble of two immense symbols of American strength and ambition. Bending like steel beams all of our fears and ways of life were turned upside down and inside out in an instant.
Now a mosque is to be built in that sacred spot. Religious freedom in America is an imperative of our constitution, but this particular situation lacks reciprocation in respect and couth on the part of the Muslims who want to build this place of worship. To use the religious persecution card here is such a weak cop-out and to cite freedom of religion in America as a reason to build a mosque on the doorsteps of what was once the World Trade Center Towers is both conniving and menacing like a teenager that found a loophole with which to slant his parents’ rules. It comes down to this: There is no way any American would go to the Middle East and build a church of any religion you would like to choose next to or on sacred Muslim ground. Dome of the Rock with a Christian church next to it? Mecca with a life-size statue of L. Ron Hubbard along its walls? We accept everyone in America. You can put a Church of Scientology, a Jewish Synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, a Baptist Church, a Buddhist Temple, and an Atheist Meeting Hall of Disbelief on one single street when you are in America because that is how tolerant and understanding we are of religious freedom. In countries where Islam is the predominant religion these occurrences do not happen often. It is because they are intolerant and insensitive to other peoples’ beliefs and ways of life. The people who are behind building this Mosque at Ground Zero are being disrespectful of what happened there nine years ago and taking advantage of our tolerance to religion.
People come to America from all over the world and many of the countries they come from are in complete shambles. They come to America to start a new life and they usually succeed if they are naturalized just like anybody else would. But then, all of a sudden, a phenomenon occurs, in which many of these new citizens find it necessary to impose their beliefs and their culture, from the home country they just left to save their own lives, because it is completely cantankerous and fatally dangerous, on America and its longtime citizens because apparently they are so proud of their completely dysfunctional roots that they seem to want to make America into their own homeland of discontentment, which is ironically what they were trying to escape in hope of finding opportunity, which they have found and are apparently now unhappy with.
In America, a man in Gainesville, Florida threatened to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow. And it appears that he is going to change his decision after much coercing. In Afghanistan, they chose to go ahead and burn American flags and copies of the Bible, skipping threats all together. This is the dichotomy between America and so many other countries. So many naturalized immigrants, and illegal immigrants, leave one cruel and inhumane environment to come to America, the land of opportunity, and then they wave their flags and speak their languages so proudly as though they were in this country against their will and yearned to return to their original home. Now more than ever, and more and more everyday, nothing seems to make any sense in this country.
2,054.2 miles to go.
Nine years ago tomorrow two airplanes flew into the twin towers in New York City killing thousands of Americans and making rubble of two immense symbols of American strength and ambition. Bending like steel beams all of our fears and ways of life were turned upside down and inside out in an instant.
Now a mosque is to be built in that sacred spot. Religious freedom in America is an imperative of our constitution, but this particular situation lacks reciprocation in respect and couth on the part of the Muslims who want to build this place of worship. To use the religious persecution card here is such a weak cop-out and to cite freedom of religion in America as a reason to build a mosque on the doorsteps of what was once the World Trade Center Towers is both conniving and menacing like a teenager that found a loophole with which to slant his parents’ rules. It comes down to this: There is no way any American would go to the Middle East and build a church of any religion you would like to choose next to or on sacred Muslim ground. Dome of the Rock with a Christian church next to it? Mecca with a life-size statue of L. Ron Hubbard along its walls? We accept everyone in America. You can put a Church of Scientology, a Jewish Synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, a Baptist Church, a Buddhist Temple, and an Atheist Meeting Hall of Disbelief on one single street when you are in America because that is how tolerant and understanding we are of religious freedom. In countries where Islam is the predominant religion these occurrences do not happen often. It is because they are intolerant and insensitive to other peoples’ beliefs and ways of life. The people who are behind building this Mosque at Ground Zero are being disrespectful of what happened there nine years ago and taking advantage of our tolerance to religion.
People come to America from all over the world and many of the countries they come from are in complete shambles. They come to America to start a new life and they usually succeed if they are naturalized just like anybody else would. But then, all of a sudden, a phenomenon occurs, in which many of these new citizens find it necessary to impose their beliefs and their culture, from the home country they just left to save their own lives, because it is completely cantankerous and fatally dangerous, on America and its longtime citizens because apparently they are so proud of their completely dysfunctional roots that they seem to want to make America into their own homeland of discontentment, which is ironically what they were trying to escape in hope of finding opportunity, which they have found and are apparently now unhappy with.
In America, a man in Gainesville, Florida threatened to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow. And it appears that he is going to change his decision after much coercing. In Afghanistan, they chose to go ahead and burn American flags and copies of the Bible, skipping threats all together. This is the dichotomy between America and so many other countries. So many naturalized immigrants, and illegal immigrants, leave one cruel and inhumane environment to come to America, the land of opportunity, and then they wave their flags and speak their languages so proudly as though they were in this country against their will and yearned to return to their original home. Now more than ever, and more and more everyday, nothing seems to make any sense in this country.
2,054.2 miles to go.
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