Subway: Imam Rapid Transit

New York City's fabled Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) subway, which I rode countless times as a kid, is, the New York Post Monday cover story reports, about to get an ad makeover.  It seems that a group innocuously named the Islamic Circle of North America plans an ad campaign to "educate" the system's 4.9 million daily straphangers (Apple-speak for subway riders) about Islam.  Oops!  Seems that a prime spokesman for the ad is a radical imam who--get this--appeared at the World Trade Center bombing trial...as a character witness (per Dave Barry, I am NOT making this up) for...Sheik Omar abd-el Rahman.  Yes, that Sheik Omar, the "Blind Sheik" who orchestrated the 1993 WTC bombing.

The Brooklyn imam who appears in the ad, one Shiraj Warraj (try to pronounce that one), once said: "In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam."

Democracy will crumble?  Sounds like a twist on Ira Gershwin's "It's Very Clear" lyric: "In time, the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble..."  Bet you the imam does not know who the Gershwin brothers were.  Which is reason enough for the MTA to reverse field and reject the ads.