They're building a what now?

How do you feel about the proposed International Freedom Center at the WTC site? I don't know if this is just reflected light from Slate, but I have a strong feeling that anything dedicated to strengthening "our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance" can only be insipid and unworthy of inclusion on that ground. Really, anything that deviates from remembrance of the dead and memorialization of our terrible loss strikes me as incredibly risky, not to say presumptuous. We would all love to go to the World Trade Center and see something that would make us feel all right about the fact that terrorists killed approximately 3,000 people there and destroyed two beautiful buildings. But that's not going to happen, no matter what anyone builds in the center. That being the case, I would rather have us live up to achievable goals than to aspire to attain the impossible and end up with an expensive, disappointing mess.* That should be reserved for the Operation Iraqi Freedom memorial.


*Here I refer specifically to any sort of statuary involving doves flying out of Freedom. Or towards Freedom. Wherever. Like this thing, for example, wherever it is.

[Edit: The NYT says it's been nixed--so much for being on the bleeding edge of blogging.]