Cross-Shaped Ruin to Stay at Ground Zero

NEW YORK - The foundation in charge of developing ground zero’s memorial and museum pledged to permanently display the two pieces of steel left standing in the shape of a cross after the World Trade Center collapsed.

Gee. Wow. You’re right. What are the odds of two pieces of metal crossing each other in the structure of a building? I mean, it’s not like this is one of the most remarkably simple shapes one could imagine occurring both in nature and in human-made objects. Take a look at the photo in the upper right, kids. Squint your eyes and try to imagine. How many crosses can you count besides the one outside the window?

Now that I think of it, I am looking around my apartment and I count an upside-down cross on my chandelier (the devil in my dining room!), three of them at various angles in the branches of my potted tree (water me or I will die for your lack of a green thumb, sinner!)… Heck, that checkered table cloth has dozens of them! And what about the Venetian blinds?

I’m seeing crosses everywhere! The End Times have come!

WTC Memorial Foundation President and CEO Gretchen Dykstra agreed to find a place for the artifact at the site, though she acknowledged it’s a delicate issue and viewers should be allowed to draw their own conclusions about whether it has religious significance.

Because, in a politically correct society, all ideas, no matter how ludicrous, are equally valid — as long as someone strongly believes them.

In this spirit, I am contacting a number of religious groups around the country to discuss whether their beliefs were ignored in favor of the overwhelming Xian sentiment apparent among the rescue workers at Ground Zero. Was it a violation of their civil rights that this “cross” was preserved from the rubble when other likely religious artifacts went ignored?

Not surprisingly, I have quickly found a number of religious groups who feel that their beliefs have been trammeled by this whole affair.

Examples of artifacts callously cast aside as mere rubble — or worse — by the Ground Zero workers:

Hundreds of tube-shaped pieces of metal, clearly symbolic of the sacred Scientology stress test.

Many triangles, especially ones created by workers’ shovels leaned against debris during lunch breaks, could easily have symbolized the element of fire in the Paracelsian alchemical tradition. However, since the Christocentric workers ignored such clear messages from beyond the Firmament, any Alchemists who lost their lives at the World Trade Center may never have closure. Other important elemental symbols may also have been ignored.

Wiccans are outraged that sightings of a number of sacred spirals, symbolizing the Goddess, went unreported by the largely Christian work teams. The spirals were apparently most commonly noticed inside the poop chute of the porta-potties the day after the weekly visit by the taco truck. Still, others are claiming that the spiral artifacts could easily be construed as Taoist symbols.

However, most disrespectful of all the Christocentric Ground Zero work teams’ oversights, many believe, were the thousands of intertwined power cables used for lighting and rescue equipment, carelessly unplugged and put away at the end of the clean-up efforts. Seen by many Pastafarians as clearly symbolic of the Great Strands of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a civil rights suit is in the works against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

When asked what his church hoped to accomplish in the suit, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster founder Bobby Henderson said, “We just want, you know, something noodly as part of the permanent memorial installation. Heck, we’d settle for a shellacked box of mac ‘n cheese — preferably spirals. The Pastafarians who died that day, and their loved ones, deserve that much.”

Update: When contacted for this story, radical Muslim groups informed God is for Suckers! that any individuals claiming to have seen a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in the debris of the World Trade Center would be “summarily executed as the first order of business in the Royal Courts of the New Caliphate.”

Asked to comment on the statement, volunteer rescue worker James Graham of Paramus, N.J. — who worked for eleven weeks at the site — responded: “Cough! Cough! Hack! Hack! COUGH! COUGH! ACK-ACK! WH-E-E-E-E-E-Z. COUGH!!”

In fact, several religious groups have been vying for possession of recent X-rays of Graham’s poisoned lungs. “No, really,” said Staten Island rabbi Dov Simmons, pointing to the lab photo of Graham’s right lung. “Tilt your head slightly, cross your eyes and look again. Doesn’t that big, fuzzy white spot look like a Star of David?”