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TONGUE TIED ARCHIVE
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December 10, 2005Update: Bible OK After All
This one has been rumbling on for a long time but this may be the end of it. If the notoriously Leftist 9th Circuit approves, it is not likely to be reversed later. Press excerpt:
"A federal appeals court reinstated a California man's death sentence, ruling Thursday that jurors did not invalidate their deliberations by considering biblical arguments in favor of vengeance. The Los Angeles jurors in the 1979 case of Stevie Lamar Fields unanimously agreed that death was the appropriate punishment after their foreman circulated biblical and other religious passages - "an eye for an eye," for example - that seemed to require it....A federal trial judge in Los Angeles reversed Fields' sentence five years ago, citing jury misconduct. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate it appears to be the first of its kind and could make Fields, now 49, a candidate for execution in the near future".
Christmas Fightback
A good email from a company manager who reads this blog:"This year I bought the Christmas cards my company sends to our clients from the National Rifle Association. I have been a member of the NRA for many years. The cards clearly state, "Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year, with the NRA logo prominently displayed on the back. I have instructed my employees to refer any calls complaining about the message to me. My reply will be "All of the folks in this office Celebrate Christmas, and our cards reflect our best wishes for you and your family. Sorry if it offends you. Your religion or lack of religion doesn't offend me."So far no complaints from the perpetually offended and aggrieved classes. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you good folks at Tongue Tied. Keep up the Great work."
"Insensitive" to Depict a Hellhole as a Hellhole
There are few misfortunes that can befall a human being which are greater than being born in Communist North Korea. I will spare readers details of the brutality and the millions of deaths from starvation but I hope most readers have heard of it already. Just to the South, however, is the wildly prosperous, capitalistic and democratic South Korea. So you might think that the Korean Southerners, of all people, would want to get the word out about the vast suffering among their cousins to the North. But it just aint so. Computer games that give any sort of negative view of the North are banned in South Korea! We read:"Ghost Recon 2, designed for Xbox players, is one of a host of new video games in which the virtual bad guys are North Koreans. But if the Korea Media Rating Board has its way, the game boxes will be stamped "Banned in Korea." While American game designers see North Koreans as diabolical enemies, South Korean game censors say they see North Koreans as wayward cousins. Unhappy that North Koreans are replacing Nazis and cold war Soviets as all-purpose bad guys in electronic battle games, the Korea Media Rating Board, appointed by the president of South Korea, is putting out the word to foreign game makers: check with us before you pay for a translation.It took a lot of American blood to rescue South Korea from a Communist takeover similar to what has happened in the North but if the North are just "wayward cousins" maybe America should not have bothered. Though the South Koreans are hardly alone in allowing "sensitivity" to elbow out truth.
Update on the Anti-Christmas Crusade:
Sanity has a loss in silly Seattle
"Lunch menus imprinted with the words "Merry Christmas" have been discarded and replaced in the Federal Way school district south of Seattle. The December lunch menus for all 23 elementary schools were recalled and reprinted with the words "Happy Holidays" at a cost of almost $500.But a win in Madeira, Ohio:
"A couple has struck a national nerve by offering bracelets that urge: "Just say 'Merry Christmas.'" "It has been so incredible. We've been bowled over by the response," Jennifer Giroux said Thursday.... "There's a national frustration," Giroux said. "Christians have kind of felt empowered to take back Christmas for Christ."
Speaking of Food Fights
A group of Danish Muslims is said to be refusing to eat a traditional yuletide treat there because they are offended by their name -- "Jewish Cookies."
The cookies, which are made with cinnamon and hazelnuts, are not particularly Jewish. But they are popular during the pre-Christmas period. The Danish daily B.T. quotes one Ole Poulsen, head of the public food consumer department, as saying that the name may have to changed at some point.
Denmark's chief rabbi, Bent Lexner, said he wouldn't mind a name change, but added that "I think that it would be better to educate Muslims to respect the culture of the majority in Denmark, if they want the majority to respect their culture."
Nutritious Food is Bad for you?
It is difficult to know where to start commenting on this piece of nonsense from a supposedly learned man. Excerpt:
"SpongeBob SquarePants, Shrek and other characters kids love should promote only healthy food, a panel of scientists recommended. In a report released Tuesday, the Institute of Medicine said television advertising strongly influences what children under 12 eat."The foods advertised are predominantly high in calories and low in nutrition -- the sort of diet that puts children's long-term health at risk," said J. Michael McGinnis, a senior scholar at the institute and chairman of the report committee.
The report said evidence is limited on whether TV advertising leads to obesity in children. A study hasn't been done that would demonstrate a direct cause and effect".
If something is high in calories, then it is also high on nutrition. Calories are a measure of how much nourishment a food contains. So the above statement is just politically correct nonsense. What they presumably mean is that advertised foods are TOO nutritrious. There is so much nutrition in them that they make you fat. So we have yet another abuse of language from our would-be dictators.
And they have the gall to tell people to do something while at the same time admitting that they have no evidence for what they say! And since what is supposedly good and bad for you keeps changing, the chance that they ever will have such evidence is remote.
Poisonous Tacos in Nashville?
First a news excerpt:"Citing health concerns, the city is considering a ban on taco trucks and other mobile food wagons that dot the busy streets in Nashville's immigrant neighborhoods. But critics say the proposed ban has more to do with cultural differences than health. "There's a resounding feeling that these actions are driven by racism," said Loui Olivas, a business professor at Arizona State University. Nashville is one of several cities with fast-growing Hispanic populations that have tried to restrict food trucks recently, he said. "Folks weren't pointing fingers or speaking loudly with traditional hot dog vendors or bagel or ice cream vendors," Olivas said. "That's always been a part of growing up in America. Why the concern now?"The racism accusation should succeed at putting the kybosh on the whole move of course and I think this is one occasion where such an accusation will do some good. We read the real reason for the ban a little later on -- a reason that goes all the way back to Adam Smith:
"The 31 trailers were chosen for inspection because they operate every day throughout the city, health inspectors say. "They're not created to function as a full-time restaurant, and that's become the case," said Bradley, who has received complaints from businesses near the food trucks.What Adam Smith said was that businessmen "seldom gather together except to conspire against the public interest." And getting governments to make rules that squash your competition is as old as the hills.
Now It's Giving Trees!?
A Christmas charity drive by some elementary school kiddies in BelleVue, Wash. has been axed after some parents complained that the "Giving Tree" with colored mitten all over it was a symbol of Christianity that has no place in public schools, according to KOMO-TV.
The tree at Medina Elementary School, described as a nondescript coil of silver with a star on top, had mittens as decorations with the ages and sex of prospective recipients along with some suggestions about what they wanted for Christmas.
When a parent complained that the tree was too Christian, the school covered the star on top with a bow to appease the parent but it wasn't enough. So the principal put the mittens on other secular symbols of the season -- a sled, a snowman, a 'regular' tree and a plain old counter.
Sexy Student Newspaper OK in Indiana
As a libertarian conservative, I just DON'T believe in censoring things -- which is why I was scornful of the banning of a student newspaper in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Tennessee paper got into hot water for frank descriptions of sexual activities. But just about the same thing has just got an official OK in Indiana. The only difference appears to be that the students there were more careful to get the authorities onside first. Press excerpt:
"Students were trying to protect fellow teens' well-being with a high school newspaper article on the risks of oral sex, school officials said. The four-page report in last week's Columbus North Triangle emerged after a student brainstorming session, said Kim Green, the school's publications adviser. The report, titled "That Other Sex," discussed oral sex and its medical and psychological risks and featured student interviews on how widespread it has become....Columbus North Principal David Clark said that he was uncomfortable at first with the content when students discussed the article with him before its publication, but agreed it was important after hearing their arguments".
"Insensitive" to Discuss the Death Penalty
The traditional method for executing criminals who have been condemned to death is hanging and that method was recently used by the government of Singapore to execute a Vietnamese-Australian drug-runner that they caught transiting their airport with a huge stash of heroin on him.
Well, it's no news that many people oppose the death penalty. Given how crooked police and prosecutors often are (See here), I oppose it myself. But Australia's hard-Left "Indymedia" thinks we should not even do opinion polls about hanging. They say:
"Media polls leading up to the execution by Singaporean authorities of an Australian man last week appear to have returned a sentiment that roughly half the country thought Nguyen Tuong Van "should hang". Apart from being grossly offensive and insensitive, the posed question of "Should Van Nguyen Hang" .... ".
So just asking if the drug-runner should hang or not was "insensitive". As usual, discussion of anything in plain language was being declared taboo. Plain language is the enemy of the Left. They NEED obfuscation to hide their total hypocrisy. They held all sorts of rallies and vigils to protest the killing of a death-dealing drug runner but killing untold numbers of totally innocent unborn babies is perfectly OK, of course. And when did any Leftists hold a rally against any of the innumerable executions that the Chinese Communists regularly carry out? Dramatizing themselves is all that Leftists really care about.
It does however make sense that the contemporary Western Left would want to make opinion polls on the death penalty as incomprehensible as possible because such polls regularly show that the general public favour exactly what the Left is arguing against. For more on that see here.
It's PC Gone Mad, I Tell Ya
A schoolgirl in the UK claims she was tossed out of school because she refused to remove a small crucifix necklace, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Sixteen-year-old Sam Morris says she was sent home from Sinfin Community School in Derby for breaking a school policy that bans jewelry. Her mother complained about the rule, claiming it is unfairly enforced because Sikh students are allowed to wear karas because it is required by their faith.
A school official defended the policy by saying Christianity doesn't require its adherents to wear crosses, but the Sikh faith does. "We have to be understanding," he said. "We live in a multi-faith society."
That Flag Again
A football fan in the UK has been told that a St. Georges flag with the words "Born in England Live in England Die in England" is racist and will not be allowed at future games, according to the Manchester Evening News.
The manager of the Brentford football club, Martin Allen, called the flag racially offensive to the several black players in his club.
"It made it a difficult afternoon," Allen said. "If we see it again at our ground I will find the person responsible and burn it in front of him. There is no room for it in society or in football."
Koranic Abuse
The Stockton Record says an art gallery at Delta College in California has been asked to remove a piece of art that features a Kalashnikov wrapped in images of Koranic script because it is offensive to some Muslim students on campus.
The piece, part of a show titled "My Country, Right or Left: Artists Respond to the State of the Union" in the L.H. Horton art gallery, consists of a ceramic assault rifle and is intended to make the point some that people in the world are using religion as a weapon.
Muslim students contend the work descrecrates the Islamic holy book and falsely equates Islam with terrorism. They want it removed, a request that school officials have so far resisted.
It Was Inevitable
The success of the Narnia movie is bringing the usual C.S. Lewis critics out of the woodwork -- especially anti-Christian zealots who object to its allegory and allusions to Christianity.
The Associated Press, in an analysis of Lewis' Christianity, points out that Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for offending the Constitution by choosing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for his state's annual student reading campaign.
"This whole contest is totally inappropriate," said Barry Lynn, the group's director. "This would be like asking children to watch the movie `The Passion of the Christ' and to write an essay with the winner getting a trip to Rome."
Oh, and Polly Toynbee of the UK's Guardian today says "Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion."
Monday Holiday Cheer Round-Up
The Toledo Blade quotes a high school principal as "quickly correcting himself" when he accidentally says his school has a Christmas tree up. "Oh, it's a holiday tree," he corrects himself when questioned about end-of-year decorations. "We try to respect everybody's beliefs," he said. "The music department does a Christmas concert. Well, actually it's a holiday concert." The anecdote comes in a roundup about how local schools have in recent years been sliding away from use of the C-word and opting for the more neutral "Holiday" instead.
A student at a high school in Missouri creating a giant calendar for the hallway was told by a teacher that Christmas tree imagery was off-limits, according to the Springfield News-Leader, and that only Winter themes could used. This follows news about an email sent out to fine arts teachers across the district who were preparing for an assembly to be held later this month. The e-mail stated: "This is just a reminder that we agreed to have a winter assembly on December 8th at 9:00 in the HPER. This assembly will display the talents of your students and can include holiday themes, but not direct references to Christmas or the birth of Jesus."
False "Racism" Charge Trotted out Again
This sounds bad:"A former lieutenant in the Allegheny County sheriff's office filed a federal lawsuit yesterday claiming she was discriminated against based on her race, gender and the fact that she chose not to donate to the sheriff's political fund-raising events.... Yvonne Evans, who was the first black woman ever to make sergeant in the department, began working for the sheriff's office in 1986"
But we also read:
"She was fired in February 2004. Chief Skosnik told Ms. Evans in a letter that she had been fired because of derogatory comments she made about Sheriff DeFazio. But Ms. Evans said that's not the case"
And we read next:
"Ms. Evans said she had a reputation for speaking her mind and for standing up for the deputies under her command. She said she always spoke boldly to the sheriff -- including swearing at him"
Sounds to me that by her own admissions the Chief had fair reason to sack her. And I guess it was SO racist to make her a Lieutenant in the first place. (Excerpts from here)
"Sexy" is Taboo in Spring Hill, Tennessee
Is "sexy" a "lewd" word? They seem to think so in Tennessee. The word was banned when it appeared on a sign that was advertising hair-care products in Spring Hill, Tennessee. As a suave Tennessean explained: "The city's sign ordinance says you can't have any lewd language," he said. "I know it's the name of a product, but people objected to the word 'sexy' on the sign." (Source).
"Lewd" means obscene or indecent. So how is it indecent to be sexy? Heaps of women would take it as a compliment to be told that they are sexy. Are there no sexy women in Tennessee? Or is it just that you're not allowed to mention it? Its officials sure make Tennessee sound like an uptight place.
Update: Contraception Information Still Banned in Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Pretty prehistoric in my view
Press excerpt:
""A censored version of the Oak Ridge High School newspaper will be printed, schools superintendent Tom Bailey said Tuesday. Administrators at Oak Ridge High School went into teachers' classrooms, desks and mailboxes a week ago to retrieve all 1,800 copies of the student-produced newspaper. An article about birth control and another on student tattoos and body piercings were cited by administrators as the reason for the seizures. Bailey told The Oak Ridger newspaper on Tuesday the edition will be reprinted without the birth control story and with an edited tattoo story....The seizure of the newspapers had sparked debate inside and outside the school. Monday night's school board meeting drew a large crowded that included students who wore tape with the word 'censored' across their mouths and shirts with protest messages that read 'Ignorance isn't bliss.'"
