I wanted to continue on a bit, so here are some more of my thoughts and the some additional information I found.

There have been all kinds of reports on the topic of this Mosque, I have heard many that almost defy logic on their face value. Others are easily debunked with just a few minutes of research and others still are more difficult - going through the financial information of the non profit entities involved to find the truth. When I say find the truth, I do not mean the truth as defined by a talking head on a news show, no matter if they use a bulletin board to map out their idea of the truth or not, it is just plain ridiculousness. I feel they (talking heads – I refuse to call them news people) are causing a lot of the problems we face by taking bits of a story and giving them to us out of context purposely or not.

Even the simplest of things can be blown way out of whack if given to us without context or in the wrong context. For example, I remember seeing a picture Barack Obama with a turban on during the Presidential campaign. The context of that photo was never very clear and it was exploited as something devious and evil and to make us believe Barack Obama was a Muslim. The actual context was, he was in Kenya to learn how tribes were organizing themselves, good background information when you are a community organizer. The outfit was a gift, and he was trying it on, as were folks in his entourage, including high ranking members of our military, Retired Air Force General Scott Gration for example. So information without context hardly constitutes news, it constitutes and equates into rating points, nothing more. With low or no ratings points, the advertisers will not pay to advertise and the show will not stay on the air. The hosts of news shows have a vested interest in keeping the ratings high, they do not have a vested interest in telling the truth and providing information in the proper context.

Anyway, I wanted to examine a bit the fundamental differences of opinion and look a little farther into some of the claims. The first plans to build Cordoba House started at the end of 2009, and just to clarify we are talking about rebuilding and expanding an already existing place of worship – I have not heard the news mention that little factoid. I have also not heard the fact mentioned that Cordoba house will be the world’s first LEED platinum Mosque, holy cow, they are going green to boot!! The original name of the center was meant to invoke the 8th–11th century city of Córdoba in Spain, which was a model of its time, but not the model they are portraying to us in the media. The city of Córdoba is a model of demonstrating a peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Christians and Jews, in the dark ages. This was of course before the first Crusade, which in my opinion is when the troubles between Jews, Christians and Muslims really began (more on this later) In the Dark ages Córdoba had a population of roughly 400,000 and before its fall in 1031ad Córdoba was one of the most advanced cities in the world.

But I want to back up just a bit, after its fall to a Muslim Army in 711AD Córdoba became the great cultural, political, financial and economic center of its day. It has been said that this Manhattan Mosque was named after Córdoba because “those people” say that Cordoba is a model of Muslims conquering Christianity – not sure how they got there but OK. They have found evidence of Neanderthal man there so folks have been hanging out in that area for a long time and it has been trading hands since about 32,000BC,even the Romans conquered the city in 207BC. In fact “those people” inhabited the city for starting in 711AD for only 200 years, they were just another in a long line, before them it was the Visagoth’s before them the Byzantine Empire and so on and so forth. The city of Córdoba changed hands many times throughout the dark ages, there is no model of anything other than lots of places were conquered lots of time during the dark ages. Over that 200 years “those people” built the city up into the “place to be” of its day. They did build a Mosque there that was over the foundation of an old Visagoth cathedral. The Great Mosque of Córdoba, under Caliph Al- Hakim the second created and grew what was then the largest library in the world, housing from 400,000 to 1,000,000 volumes. That dwarfs every estimate I could find for the great library of Alexandria, yes the one that was considered one of the seven wonders on the ancient world.

If someone chooses to believe what Fox News or CNN tells them, then they will never do any research into whether these “news” knuckleheads are putting their own slant on the story for ratings. Remember when your parents told you, don’t believe everything you see on TV. Well I work in television and I am here to tell you - verify what people tell you and don’t believe ANYTHING you see on TV. If you do, you are basing your views and decisions on someone else’s opinion and that is the worst thing that can happen to our country. But because of that story about Córdoba and the fear that followed they were forced to change the name from Cordoba House, not for any good reason, just in an attempt to get their Mosque built, they changed the name to Park 51.

So I mentioned the Crusades earlier and I wanted to talk about that for just a quick moment. For those who do not know about them it was a religious war over a holy city that lasted 200 years. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule and were launched in response to a call from the Christian Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia, what is most of modern day Turkey. Over 200 years there were 9 official crusades, but that war has raged at different intensity levels since then and in light of recent times I believe it is still raging. I can not understand how folks, in those times and now, can proclaim to be Christian or Catholic or any other religion and at the same time promote an atmosphere of hate, fear and intolerance. In my three trips through the bible, I came away with an overarching theme, that of peace, tolerance, understanding and most importantly - forgiveness. Since I do not practice any western religion it is possible that I misunderstood the gist of it. I have not completed my first trip through the Quran but from what I have read so far I get the same overarching theme from it, so how did we get to where we are, us true believers on both sides? Maybe it is fear, fear of the unknown, fear of the crumbling economy, fear of small fringe group of a peaceful religion, fear of something or someone different than what we are accustomed to. I do not know. Seems 9/11 has had a much bigger effect on our society than I had first thought, it seems to have changed us a nation in many many ways, not all for the good.

Well, for some reason I am not done yet, there will be more to come – thanks for following me on this trip of self-examination.