I've surprised even myself by not writing more about the various September 11 design proposals, now narrowed down to a mall dominated by a "Freedom Tower" and crying walls and wells "Reflecting Absence". But I'm not going to start now.
Real critics have described any number of reasons to be disgusted with re-building and memorial plans at the World Trade Center site. For myself however the most important reason is the evil purposes in support of which the September 11 tragedy has repeatedly been invoked, both in cynicism and in ignorance.
We already have our memorials to September 11, in the form of domestic tyranny and world war, and both have been designed for perpetuity. While these prevail, anything we are doing at the scene downtown is likely to be obscene, not just in execrable taste.