Should the Freedom Center building that they are planning for Ground Zero now be called the non-Freedom Center? The International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center are both gone from the building because they apparently are not "patriotic enough for some political officials or some of the ridiculously shrill 9/11 families. So now we have a great Norwegian architecture firm designing a building that will be filled with some bland Disney-like patriotic display? Even more shopping? How about more life-affirming empty space?

Whether or not you subscribe to the theory that Islamic terrorists dislike us in part because of the freedoms that our society allows, these freedoms - one of the most important being the ability to speak ones mind about politics and criticize the government - are what make us the great country we are. It is sad to see the heavy censorship of the proposed cultural programming at Ground Zero. One would like to think that this country honors itself through great free thinking art and architecture - not through propaganda like one sees in communist and fascist countries.

Update: this article from The Guardian newspaper in London gives a great view on the purpose and usefulness of art in trying times:

Three points. One, why caution? Why not brave iconoclasm? In the wake of 7/7, London does not need art to tiptoe around the imagined sensibilities of those possibly affronted by [the art]. We need to swagger, not crawl. Otherwise art becomes decadently decorative, the 21st-century equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.