Jonathan V. Last reports that the disastrous “Crescent of Embrace” in Shanksville, Pa., was the result not only of insipid political correctness–but of abject, soulless bureaucracy. Read the whole thing. Here’s the conclusion:

At some point in the next few years, the National Park Service will give us its version of the Flight 93 Memorial. It won’t have any of the sentimentality of left-behind crosses or rosaries, motorcycle jackets or matchbox cars. Neither will it have any elements of the heroic or the classical–no obelisks or domes or statuary. Instead it will, as the NPS Flight 93 Memorial newsletter soothingly explains, offer the visitor “space for reflection, learning, social interaction, and healing.” Not to mention wind chimes. And a spacious visitors’ center, too.

To those who prefer their monuments to be monumental, this may come as something of a disappointment, if not an outright betrayal. Even at this late date, seemingly ordinary citizens can perform extraordinary feats, as Flight 93’s heroic epic reminds us. The problem isn’t that we’ve run out of heroes in America. We just don’t know how to honor them anymore.

Well, precisely.

***

Previous:

Flight 93 memorial update: redesigned
The real “Crescent of Embrace”
Flight 93 memorial: design will be altered
Flight 93 memorial: fighting back
(Dis)honoring the flight that fought back
Flight 93 memorial: Seeing is believing
Flight 93 memorial: controversy

comments (0)   trackbacks (5)