Bill Stewart wrote:
At 07:48 PM 12/26/2003 -0500, Michael Kalus wrote:
Certain symbols (e.g. Swastika) are forbidden as well. Are there exceptions for Buddhists and Amerinds? Moron. All symbols that are related to Nazism. One of the reasons (if not the reason) why they banned "Wolfenstein 3D".
As Tim pointed out, the Swastika symbol had long use before the Nazis picked it up. I remember going into a temple in Guangzhou China which had three large Buddha statues with it on their chests, and some of the Native American cultures prominently weave it into baskets. In Asia it tends to be a sun symbol, or sometimes a moon symbol depending on which way it's pointing; in the Americas it tends to be a whirlwind symbol.
Vaguely related.... I used to live in upper Manhattan. One of the subway stops I used was the 190th on the IND ("A" train). This burrows deep under Washington Heights, and has two entrances - a long tunnel which slopes *down* from the station to an exit near Broadway, and an elevator up to Fort Washington Avenue. This section of the line opened in 1932. The floor of the vestibule of the upper elevator lobby is laid with geometric patterns in red, white, and black terra cotta tiles, and when I moved there in the late 70's I was amused to note that the pattern included 4 swastikas, in black tiles against a white background, about 4 inches across. Sometime in the late 80's or early 90's, the swastikas where chisled out, and the square areas where they had been crudely filled with concrete. Ft. Washington Ave by that time had long been an area heavily populated by immigrant Russian Jews. I often wondered exactly what chain of events led to this vandalism. Peter Trei