Truth telling

In the media the name for the proposed Islamic center has become, "The Ground Zero Mosque."  The implication is that the center will be at, or overlooking the site of the former World Trade Center.  This simply is not true.  The actual site is over two blocks away.

Another blogger has taken a walk through the area.  At the same distance as the proposed center, are a strip club, a bar, a MacDonald's restaurant and a for-rent retail building.  Manhattan is an island of small neighborhoods.  The tribute to the spirit of New Yorkers is that the area around the ground zero site is what it is a vibrant collection of neighborhoods going on with their lives and business.  Al Quida failed, utterly to destroy it.  New Yorkers are to resilient to courage to buckle and they have not.

Two and a fraction blocks from the actual site is another place.  But, politically, calling it "the ground zero mosque" invests in it a connotation that the writers know makes it not a community center or place of worship but rather an insult.

That is the nature of "spin."  Turn away from simple truth towards a quick phrase that invests the object with a value that has nothing to do with reality.

 I have no issue with those who right headlines that are even handed summations.  Someone must tell the story and someone must get it read.   But, when as in this case the headline becomes the content of the story, someone has gone too far.  When that happens, and it has in this case, we have lost truth.

"The ground zero mosque" is not a headline, not a name, it is a lie.