Mm'kay, who dropped a dookie in the Muslim foot-washing basin?
Posted on 05/02/2007 2:04:12 AM PDT by Man50D
Kansas City International Airport officials have acknowledged installing foot-washing benches in a restroom at the airport, but deny they're intended for Muslim cab drivers.
WND over the weekend reported that KCI Airport recently constructed four foot-washing benches to accommodate a growing number of Muslim drivers who requested the facilities to prepare for daily Islamic prayer.
"Recently, a small expansion was made to the building," said Kansas City Aviation Department spokesman Joe McBride in a statement to WND. "Included were wash areas used for any wash purpose by any of the users, including filling car wash buckets."
He insisted the wash benches were not "built for the exclusive use of any ethnic group or culture."
However, the department director in an earlier statement to WND appeared to contradict that claim.
"The majority of our drivers are Muslim, so preventing them from praying at all was not an option, especially in our public terminal restrooms," said Mark VanLoh, director of the Kansas City Aviation Department. "This was the best solution, and those facilities were added without public money."
He added that cab drivers paid for construction through a one-dollar per-trip fee.
In October 2005, the KCI Airport Police first solicited advice from other law enforcement regarding "wash bench facilities for those of Islamic faith," according to internal e-mails obtained by WND. In one e-mail sent to members of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network, or ALEAN, KCI Airport Police brass asked, "If you do have such an area, do you refer to this location as a place for those of Islamic faith to [go to] prepare themselves for worship?"
The KCI Airport Police are responsible for the taxicab drivers and the building they use at the airport to wait on fares. The building contains the restroom with the four new foot-washing benches.
One airport official told WND the police are concerned about "catering" to Islamic rituals at the airport, particularly after the 9/11 hijackings and the more recent transatlantic sky terror plot. Airports have been operating under heightened security. The KCI Airport Police force, in fact, was beefed up after 9/11 to help prevent Islamic terrorism.
Islamic suicide attackers go through a ritual called ablution, or bodily cleansing, before carrying out their martyrdom operations. The 9/11 hijackers performed this ritual before entering airport terminals.
McBride suggested to a Kansas City TV news station, KMBC-TV (Channel 9), that it was, as the station put it, a "myth" that the airport installed foot-washing benches for Islamic taxi drivers. "It's a case of mistaken information on the Internet," McBride is quoted as saying.
However, a Savage radio listener yesterday offered photos he says he took of the benches on Monday in the taxicab facility restroom located in the middle of the airport under the control tower.
The photos clearly show four individual wash benches across from knee-high faucets and hand rails. Drains are visible in the floor.
In one corner of the room stands a rolled-up prayer rug. Smaller rugs can be seen lying on a cart behind it.
"There are foot bathes [sic] in the cabbie way station," asserted Phillip Morgan of Kansas City in an e-mail. Morgan went on to say he planned to lodge a complaint with the mayor's office.
Some 250 taxicab drivers operate at KCI Airport in Missouri, one of the largest airports in the U.S., linking some 10 million passengers between mid-America and other U.S. cities. One internal KCI Airport Police email said "approximately 70% of the drivers are [of] Middle Eastern heritage and practice the Islamic faith."
Muslims are required to wash their feet and other body parts before praying to Allah five times a day. They often complain that public restroom sinks do not accommodate their needs. Floor-level basins and benches make it easier for them to perform their foot-washing ritual.
Muslim taxi drivers at KCI Airport pooh-poohed concerns about the wash benches, arguing they are not just for their use.
"The guys [sic] making a big issue out of it – it's not just for Muslims," said taxi driver Shareif El-Mahdi in an interview with KMBC-TV.
Other major airports have dealt with increased demands from Muslim cab drivers. Cabbies at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, for instance, recently caused a stir when they refused to carry passengers possessing alcoholic beverages or accompanied by seeing-eye dogs. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and dogs are considered unclean.
Ugh. Remind me to stay out of Kansas City.
Hire some illegals with jackhammers and let’s get this show on the road....
Curious how the first religion mentioned in the article on airport chapels is the Muslim one - and “Christians can read the Bible” seems a strange description of Christians’ purpose for going into the airport chapel.
Possible solutions...
http://www.islam-watch.org/NoSharia/PreventEuropeIslamization6.htm
Many, many thanks to NoSharia.
In many cities, conscessions are required to operate a cab company. The city fathers grant these concessions.
Rumors of impropriety in city concessions have been rampant since forever. It is often a payoff to a friend of the mayor or other politically connected cab owner.
In Dallas there have been city councilmen who were sent to prison based on cab company payoffs.
In many cities the cab companies have almost overnight switched from ethnic American (often Irish) to swarms of other nationalities. Russians in Chicago, African in Atlanta, Somali in Minneapolis.
There is a major story to be written to examine the connection between illegal immigration and airport workers, on a national basis. Many cab companies that employ these barely employable drivers, IMHO, are underpaying them or using their earnings to finance their move and their families move to America.
We have no intelligent immigration policy.
Why? To make it easier for jihadists to have access to secure areas in time of need - some folks will neve get it.
I *do* have an issue with the statements put forth by the airport. Typical mealymouthed bureaucratese.
this is disgusting... in every way...
He added that cab drivers paid for construction through a one-dollar per-trip fee.
Unbelievable. This is what really grates me about these sniveling bureaucrats. They blatantly insult our intelligence like this. Saying "no public money" and then in the next breath saying that it comes from a trip fee, as if that "trip fee" just appeared out of thin air. They think we're so stupid that we won't see that the public is paying for it (just like for everything else).
Time to install a cross and a copy of the ten commandments next to the holy bidet. Let’s see how long they last.
I might not be able to resist the urge to urinate in one of these.
I wonder what would happen if a group of Catholics gathered there and prayed the Rosary...
Just wondering, how many people are filling up car wash buckets at airports?
How did they fill them up before, a sink? Is it not possible for a muslim to fill up a bucket to wash his feet, or is this asking too much, being too inconvient for them?
Mm'kay, who dropped a dookie in the Muslim foot-washing basin?
I do. The Christians in this country are attacked CONSTANTLY by Hollywood, the media and the government. The past 40 years have seen a concerted effort to rip any references to Christianity out of the government and out of public places.
Now, the government and governemntally controlled entities are bending over backwards to accomodate Muslims. Lest they forget, everyone of the 9/11 hijackers was Muslim.
Then no one will mind if I use one to wash my dog.
heh heh
Is this Tyson's Corner Mall in Vienna?
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