The new Freedom Tower design was released (if you don’t remember, the Freedom Tower will replace the World Trade Center) to a plethora of bad reviews. And I will jump on the bandwagon and continue the bad reviews! Read about the new building here: NY Times, Houston Chronicle, MSNBC, CNN.
Like the NYT article says — this building is one devised by politicians. Nothing about it is distinctive; nothing is fantastic. It starts with twenty stories of concrete (for safety, of course) with small window slits. It elicits the idea of the middle age castles.
The point here isn’t to complain about the new design (although I am doing a lot of that), but to show how reflexive we are. We get attacked–sure it stunk, and we don’t want to get attacked again. But our solution is to build a big, strong building that will protect us. That is never the solution. Imagine the Army fighting wars with castles now–it wouldn’t do them any good; the enemy would just bomb them.
I suppose the answer is never to build bigger and stronger buildings. The answer lies in rooting out terrorism from the source, doing what is right, and in the end, realizing that you cannot stop every attack (period).
I say go with the Donald–build the same buildings again. They’re ugly, yes, but the politicians have to shut-up!
See the new building…

The supreme court, in yet another moment of sheer stupidity, has decided to allow the government to seize private property for public works–except in this case, the “public” works are actually private shopping centers. In this case, Connecticut will raze houses for a new hotel…not roads.
I’m not really sure who voted for this but O’Connor, Thomas, Rehnquist and Scalia voted against it. That means there are at least five morons on the bench.
In the end, though, how could you suppose that your property can be taken for another private project. That’s ludicrous. How could the justices validate such reasoning?
Read the full story here [MSNBC]