“On October 10, 2006, an Islamic website posted a message alerting Muslims to what it claims is a new insult to Islam. According to the message, the cube-shaped building which is being constructed in New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets in midtown Manhattan, is clearly meant to provoke Muslims. The fact that the building resembles the Ka’ba, is called ‘Apple Mecca,’ is intended to be open 24 hours a day like the Ka’ba, and moreover, contains bars selling alcoholic beverages, constitutes a blatant insult to Islam. The message urges Muslims to spread this alert, in hope that ‘Muslims will be able to stop the project,'” The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports in an article dated October 11, 2006.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
SJ on a popsicle st… This is a joke, right?
Apple Store Fifth Avenue opened as a destination, a “mecca,” if you will, meaning only “a place that attracts people of a particular group or with a particular interest” and we mean nothing else by the use of the word “mecca” — in fact, we’re sorry we used it already, but we did so only because the MEMRI story used the word and, oh, we used it once in a headline for the Apple Store Fifth Avenue. Let’s just forget about that one, okay?
As we were saying, the Apple Store Fifth Avenue opened as a destination on May 6, 2006, so it’s too late to “stop the project,” by which we mean no disrespect. The “Genius Bars” contained (below ground, not in the cube) within the retail store dispense Macintosh computer advice, when not being overrun with generally clueless iPod owners: NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES ARE SERVED (to customers, that we know of, not including ourselves – don’t ask).
The Apple Store Fifth Avenue is not “a new insult to Islam” nor is it “clearly meant to provoke Muslims.” Instead, it is meant a paean to the cube, as the perfect form or whatever the hell, sorry… heck, Steve Jobs thinks it is – even though the perfect form is a sphere (again, we mean no disrespect to Islam; or Jobs for that matter; in fact, we’re probably wrong about the sphere… Yeah, we’re definitely wrong). You see, Jobs has a serious love of cubes (see NeXT Cube, Power Mac G4 Cube), you might even call it a cube fetish… uh… or not… um, never mind.) and it is clearly meant ONLY to provoke retail sales for Apple products (and those products from certain chosen ones, you know, like Belkin, Bose, etc.) to all people, including Muslims.
Jobs, we hope this is a joke, by which we mean no disrespect to anyone if it isn’t. No disrespect whatsoever.
Related articles:
Apple Store Fifth Avenue’s 1 millionth customer receives prizes including MacBook, iPod and more – September 10, 2006
Apple Store Fifth Avenue grand opening generates worldwide press attention – May 22, 2006
Attention pilgrims: Friday Apple Store Fifth Avenue photos wanted [UPDATED with 360-degree QTVR] – May 21, 2006
Video of Apple Store Fifth Avenue Grand Opening from front of line – May 20, 2006
Man proposes marriage via Apple Store Fifth Avenue time-lapse movie (with images) – May 20, 2006
Videos of Apple CEO Steve Jobs on NBC Nightly News, CNBC – May 19, 2006
Apple posts time-lapse movies of Apple Store Fifth Avenue crowds – May 19, 2006
Apple fans crisscross world to attend Apple Retail Store grand opening celebrations – May 19, 2006
Video from Apple Store Fifth Avenue Grand Opening queue – May 19, 2006
JupiterResearch analyst: Apple Store Fifth Avenue ‘a stunning sight, puts a strong stamp on NYC’ – May 19, 2006
Steve Jobs at Apple Store Fifth Avenue (link to photos) – May 19, 2006
Attention pilgrims: Friday Apple Store Fifth Avenue photos wanted [UPDATED] – May 19, 2006
Apple’s Fifth Avenue Mecca could easily do $40 million in annual sales – May 19, 2006
As fans line up for Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue retail store, a third NYC store is in the works – May 19, 2006
Sneak peak into Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue Retail Store – May 18, 2006
Extraordinary Apple Store Fifth Avenue to open on Friday, May 19 (with photos) – May 18, 2006
Apple’s Fifth Avenue ‘Glass Cube’ store to test several retail innovations – May 17, 2006
Mac users to converge on NYC; plan overnight sidewalk camp for opening of Apple Store Fifth Avenue – May 13, 2006
Apple starts online countdown to Apple Store Fifth Avenue ‘Glass Cube’ Grand Opening – May 11, 2006
Apple CEO Steve Jobs may visit New York City to cut ribbon on glass cube – May 04, 2006
Apple’s Fifth Avenue ‘Glass Cube’ retail store grand opening on May 6 in New York City – April 27, 2006
32-foot-by-32-foot glass cube-topped Midtown Manhattan Apple ‘Mecca’ to serve the faithful 24/7? – April 18, 2006
Photos of Apple’s $9 million 32-foot-by-32-foot New York City Glass Cube – January 01, 2006
Steve Jobs to eventually take his NYC big glass cube with him – December 02, 2005
Glass cube assembly begins at site of Apple’s 25,000-square-foot 5th Avenue flagship store – October 28, 2005
RUMOR: Apple Store coming to Midtown Manhattan beneath transparent glass cube – March 04, 2005
muslims – the most humorless dickbags on the planet.
we can bridge the gap with iChat AV
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Mac4ever – no – 95% of muslims use Windows. Like the rest of the world.
1. MDN is correct to cover this article.
2. If MDN ever gets sold, I will mourn, too.
3. This must be a joke, right?
Pretty funny, MDN, and Object-X.
As for “WHAT,” resist the urge to generalize, even if it were true of 90% of Muslims. (Relax, relax, it’s only true of 50%, give or take.)
This article and the comments that followed remind me of the whole outsourcing article… both of these have shown that Mac users can been the biggest “dickbags” (that’s for you WHAT). You would think that as a Mac user who is a minority some of you would be a little more tolerent or at least intelligent about your comments.
it all originates from some presumably dumb PC-apologist (Mark Morford – mmorford@sfgate.com) who has written about this in his blog half a year ago (April 10 2006 at 09:17 AM)… a guy who obvious envies the mac and tries to insult mac users by calling them vodka drinking gays teens and German fetish porn addicts; hoping for some action and reaction! (he must have a problem i guess…)
(BTW: he also writes about other things on his blog – Hot car porn in Paris, Sex toys for good Christians, The next great iPod vibrator?, Lactating Mothers of the Apocalypse)
quote:
All kneel before the holy holy
picture of apple’s cube with link to gizmodo.com
image capture: All come. All kneel. All touch the holy magic. Then please buy two iPods and a MacBook. Praise!
It’s being dubbed Apple Mecca, a new and very huge (a whopping 25,000 square feet), mostly underground Apple store in midtown Manhattan, for how its above-ground entrance bears an uncanny resemblance to the big black Ka’bah (AKA: The House O’ Abraham) to whence all Islamic pilgrims take their grueling mandatory hajj and also because it shall be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and hence shall be the place New Yorkers shall take a holy pilgrimage whenever they crave a new iPod Nano at 4:00 am or when they desperately need to have the Mac geeks at the Genius Bar instruct them on how to purge all the gay teen chat transcripts and German fetish porn from their iBooks before their Senate confirmation hearings.
picture of Ka’bah from wikipedia.org
image capture: Similar but, you know, different
As if the cool and disturbing and telling and sexy and weird (in equal turns) iPod vending machines springing up in airports and at Macy’s weren’t enough. Mecca is rising at 5th and 59th in midtown Manhattan, and will also be the first Apple store to offer a full-sized iPod Bar which, presumably, will serve pink iPods blended with vodka.
Makes the downtown SF Apple flagship, at only 10,800 square feet, seem sort of meek and small and boring, no?
source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=4203
he’d obvious seen some pics on flickr with the headline:
Apple’s “mecca” begins to be unveiled
in the comments some guy (mr.thorn) asks:
is the title you gave this pic a deliberate pun? cuz that building sure does look an awful lot like the Ka’bah at the center of Mecca!
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the flick-guy who has posted the image (bhaggs) answers:
Mr.Thorn: Yes, it was a deliberate pun. The parallel is uncanny though. But that’ll change once the wood paneling comes.
source: http://flickr.com/photos/bhaggs/124900112/
so dear muslims… focus your anger where it belongs and get a clue for once in your lives. we danes are so tired of your childish and ignorant attitudes. grow up. do some research. get educated and get on with your lives. you’re giving the islam a bad reputation…. think different.
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I AM A MUSLIM…. AND I NEED TO GET MY MESSAGE ACROSS, SO PLEASE EXCUSE THE SHOUTING.
THERE IS NOTHING TO STRESS ABOUT. NOTHING TO BE OFFENDED ABOUT. THE FACT IS, THAT AS WITH ALL THINGS, THERE ARE ALWAYS A MINORITY HANDFULL OF IGNORANT PEOPLE THAT GET OFFENDED FOR NO REASON, AND GET SENSITIVE OVER THE PRISSIEST OF THINGS.
UNFORTUNATELY, THE MEDIA NOWADAYS LOVES TO REPORT THESE THINGS, AS THE MAJORITY MUSLIM OPINION.
NO WAY JOSAY.
I AM NOT OFFENDED. MY FAMILY IS NOT OFFENDED. MOST EVERYONE I KNOW WILL NOT BE OFFENDED….
BUT THERE WILL BE ONE MUSLIM SCHOOL-DROP-OUT THAT WILL GET THE EMAIL AND MASS MAIL IT TO ‘MOST EVERYONE HE KNOWS, KNOWING NOTHING OF THE TOLERANCE THAT IS FUNDAMENTAL TO ISLAM.
More about the Kabah
http://www.3dkabah.com
Thanks for the comment, Peter.
And yes, I came to the same conclusion – Apple had, prior to completion, a black temporary exterior on the building. The stupid SFGate article you mention got repeated nearly verbatim on CNet, along with the photo of the building (with black covering) in progress.
And the hate-mongering ensued.
This is all old news, with the exception of its being published on this “MEMRI” site.
In the meantime, could everyone please cool their jets? Give me a break with the insulting posts. Are any adults reading this?
Oh, sorry, I forgot. Adults still often confuse “different” with “insulting” and decide that “hate” and “death” must follow.
And yes, that includes ALL the radicals on every side of nearly every issue. When you can no longer see any colors besides black or white – when you see no possibility of something being between right and wrong – you are an extremist.
Peace. (crosses fingers, awaits moronic flames anyway)
Billy, of course you are right. There are always those that take offense.
The problem for us is – the media can now misrepresent that offense as universal. And some more people may read it – instantaneously, thanks to the internet and global news.
And eventually, enough people might believe it really is a big deal. And then everyone (on both sides) starts the hate cycle all over again.
And it all came from some idiot blogger – NOT APPLE! Apple’s crime – covering a cube in black. The blogger (as best I can see) created the whole “mecca” comparison, etc.
In any case, the truly unfortunate result of Sep. 11 is that now many people feel that it only takes one of that “minority handful” of people who are offended to commit some heinous act of violence.
THAT is the real legacy of terrorism.
And on that note, I’m going to bed…
What a lot of crap!
Sexually repressed, hypocritical, myopic, self-centered, brain-washed, gullible, sheeple with zero clue.
But enough about the Christian Right, we were talking about Muslims.
<rimshot>
Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week and The Riviera 8:30pm & 10:30pm Tuesday through Sunday.
Mandatory Ebola…. ’tis also true about the Muslim right, and the Jewish right..
Hell, I was surprised when I was in a Bhuddist temple in Penang, and met a Bhuddist priest who also fit that mold.
People will be people I’m afraid.
…but enough about the MDN regulars…
Let me just point out that the Ka’bah has DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS than the Apple Cube. The Ka’bah is not a perfect cube, it is TALLER than it is wide. Sheesh!
Personally, I think Saudi Arabia needs to be told that if anything is bombed here, we will drop a nuclear bomb on Mecca. Problem solved…
Apple..
Jobs…
You are my new enemy
I will bomb you … yada yada yada
Unless you repent, and release the new touchscreen widescreen Video Ipod immediately.
Yeah James.. Sure thing!
We need more people like you in this world.
Why we’ll last a whole 5 minutes before we blow our planet into smithereens
Billy Ash,
Of course.
But in 2006 America, there is more to fear on a day to day and long-term basis from the Christian (Wrong) than any Islamists, Zionists or, er, um, Buddhists.
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But hey, like ancient Rome, keep the troops perpetually busy at the outskirts, so they aren’t sitting around at home and start getting any funny ideas (Thailand 2006).
Anyone catch the article about the Pentagon complaining that Humvees use too much gasoline? Oh that’s rich on so many levels…</digression>
Oh yeah! I want to go on a hadj to New York, to drink water from the Water Cooler, and run thrice around the New MacPro.
we kicked their asses in the middle ages
we can do it again
bring it on , you camel fscking shitheads !
it’s one thing fscking with the catholics , or even the jews
but nobody , i mean NOBODY fscks with the apple faithful !!!
JI-FAAAAKIN-HAD !
Sounds like somebody is cranky from fasting during Ramadan. Either that or it was a slow news day in their part of the world.
hagar57
See I like that.. It’s really quite a funny post.
(With 3 knowing references.)
hagar57 isn’t the whole ritual supposed to end with throwing stones?