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TONGUE TIED ARCHIVE
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September 17, 2005Book-Burning Getting Underway in Britain Again
They're not actually burning them but they might as well. Note this news report about British government plans (excerpts):
"Mr Clarke has published full details of proposed new anti-terror laws against indirect incitement and "glorification" of terrorism and preparing attacks.... Now they have published the draft legislation for those three new offences... But the proposals also include a separate offence of "glorification" of terrorism. Mr Clarke wants new powers to ban organisations which glorify terrorism and to prosecute "extremist" bookshops which sell terrorist propaganda or handbooks".So soon the police will be prosecuting people for selling political books in Britain. I presume the Communist Manifesto will be banned. (Now what makes me think that it will not be?).
And who defines "extremist"? You can bet the the British government will deem a lot of Right-leaning groups and people as extremist and as "inciting to violence". Their recent illegal attack on the British National Party tells us that. "Terrorist propaganda" could be almost anything -- including the Koran. Will we have Koran burnings? I think not. All very disturbing. And all very futile. There is far worse on the net than there is in bookshops, anyway. I guess internet censorship comes next. Samizdata has more on the story.
Figure This One
In universities and colleges, speech seems to be getting "correcter" by the day. It's no longer good enough to refer to shorties as "height challenged" or fatties as "width challenged" (or whatever) so we now have one term that seems to confer correct speech generally. The real buzz term now is "differently abled". Here is the Fort Valley State University announcing their correctness:
"The Differently Abled Services Center (DASC) is administratively a part of the Department of Student Affairs. The mission of the Differently Abled Services Center is to increase retention for students with learning disorders by ensuring equal treatment, opportunity, and access for persons with impairments and/or disorders. The center provides support services which assist students with learning disorders in the attainment of their academic as well as personal potential".First problem: Aren't we ALL "differently abled"? Don't we all have a different set of abilities? I am hopeless at catching balls. Does that make ME differently abled? If ever I am out Fort Valley way I am going to enjoy all those "services" they offer, I guess.
But here's the kicker: The page I got the above quote from was headed in large letters "Building the Fence". Isn't building fences what they are supposed NOT to be doing? Go figure.
Update
How come fatties are getting such a bum rap these days? They are not "differently abled" or whatever. They are "obese". Just another target of Leftist "tolerance", I guess (as distinct from real tolerance)
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Correct Wine Names
French wine producers have for years been mounting lawsuits and otherwise attacking foreign wine producers who use French names for their products -- such as "Champagne". It hasn't done them much good. Australian vintners make some very good Champagne-type wines so, even though they are not allowed to call it Champagne they just put it in a Champagne-type bottle and people keep buying it. But the EU has just agreed to allow existing California producers of "Champagne" not only to continue to do so but actually to export the stuff to the EU. How come?
It seems that even the language police respond to muscle. The EU exports a lot more wine to the USA than the USA does to Europe. So any more attempts to ban the American product could have led to an American ban on the French product. And the French would be the big losers in that. So the French basically gave in. All they got was an agreement that new brands of American Champagne (etc) would not be allowed. I have highlighted the key sentence in the news excerpt below:
"California vintners applauded a deal with the European Union that was expected to smooth passage of New World wines to Europe.... Under the agreement, the European Union agreed to ease shipments by accepting U.S. winemaking practices, such as adding malic acid to correct deficient acidity, common in warm growing regions such as California. The EU will also recognize U.S. wine place names, or appellations, such as the Napa Valley designation. Meanwhile, the U.S. agreed not to allow any new brands to use semi-generic names that derive from European regions including Champagne and the Oporto region of Portugal... In a compromise, the agreement grandfathers in existing brands, something that some European producers weren't happy about.... According to the Institute, an export association representing more than 800 California wineries and associated businesses, the United States exported $736 million worth of wine in 2004, with nearly $500 million of that going to the European Community. European wine producers exported $2.3 billion worth of wine to the United States.... "Both governments have made an agreement that there's not going to be a trade war and trade actions on either side," he said, "and this is good for both sides."Comments? Email John Ray
Yet Another Thought on the Pledge
Maybe I am being mean about this but what about: "One nation under Allah"?
I'll bet that would get a big tick of approval from the courts -- as being "tolerant", "multicultural" etc. etc.
Seriously, though, the pledge doesn't specify what your concept of God has to be. Some women have been known to describe some men as having a certain part of their anatomy as their only God. And isn't the almighty dollar suppoosed to be a well-known God? I can certainly imagine Scrooge McDuck saying the pledge with dollar signs flashing up in his eyes! So what you mean when you say "under God" might not even be religious. In legalese I think there is a missing "burden of proof" there.
(By the way, the name "Allah" is pinched from (OK: "cognate with", for the pundits) "Eloah", the Hebrew word for God. So, if you go by the name, "Allah" is the same being as the one that Christians and Jews worship)
Glorifying Islamic Terrorists OK?
In the weird world view of the Left, mentioning God or Christmas can be "offensive" but glorifying muderous terrorists is just fine. Here is the latest example (excerpts):"Barrister Julian Burnside, QC, yesterday urged Australia's performing arts centres to fight censorship after revelations that Melbourne City Council had banned an artwork featuring Islamic terrorist groups. A council member of the Victorian College of the Arts, as well as Musica Viva and the Chunky Move dance company, Mr Burnside raised the case of a VCA graduate, Azlan McLennan, whose work "Canberra's 18" is a portrait series of leaders of proscribed terrorist groups - including the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - overlaid with text of official US explanations of their origins..... The same artist last year had a work critical of Israel removed from public exhibition after a barrage of complaints.... Mr Burnside said that, with dissent rarely aired in the media and opposition political parties "missing in action", arts venues were crucial gatekeepers of public forums for community groups. "Be receptive," he told them.Comments? Email John Ray
School's Back II
It's been less than a month since students returned to universities around the country, and already the student press wars have started.
At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, reports the Herald-Sun, a student pundit was fired after she penned a column in the Daily Tar Heel saying Arabs should be racially profiled in the name of airport security. In a fit of hyperbole, junior Jillian Bandes wrote that Arabs should be "be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport."
The editors insist she was fired because she deceived three people whom she had interviewed in connection with the piece, taking their comments out of context. The column and the paper's editors were denounced on campus as racists for publishing the piece.
And the Gainesville Sun says administrators at the University of Florida have denounced an editorial cartoon in the student newspaper, the Alligator, for "reinforcing negative stereotypes of individuals in the community."
The cartoon pictured black rapper Kanye West, who said President Bush doesn't like black people at a fund-raiser for Hurricane Katrina victims, holding a playing card labeled "The Race Card" next to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The bubble over Rice's head contains the words: "Nigga, Please!"
Updates
A Florida teacher who was forced out of her job for writing to her congressman and complaining that an influx of Latino students who dont speak English was dragging down the educational standards of her district now says she will sue her former bosses for hounding her out of a job. Officials say they still haven't seen the letter that caused all the fuss, and congressional offices in the district said they never received it. No one seems to know how it fell into the hands of a local Spanish-language newspaper, says the Orlando Sentinel.
A Scottish newspaper editor accused of inciting racial hatred for publishing an article critical of plans to build a massive refugee camp in the area has had the charges against him dropped, according to the Scotsman. Alan Buchan, publisher and editor of the North East Weekly, was arrested following publication of an editorial headlined "Perverts and Refugees."
More on the Pledge
OK, I'm not a GOP mouthpiece (I'm not even an American) but I thought the following statement issued by the U.S. House Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) was pretty apt."Today's ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance is a disgrace to all Americans who recite these words as an oath to our great nation and the principles of freedom upon which it was founded."The United States Supreme Court begins its sessions with the words 'God save the United States and this honorable court' and the Ten Commandments are displayed in the Court's solemn chamber. Each day, my colleagues in the House and I begin our legislative work with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. And every person in America - including the federal judge who issued today's misguided decision - is paid with and spends currency on which the phrase 'In God We Trust' is prominently displayed.
"As Chairman of the Education Committee, I am concerned about the implications of this decision for the nation's schools. As a proud American citizen, I am concerned about what this decision says about our nation as a whole."
Note that there is a good coverage of the issue from a legal point of view here
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"Giants" incorrect?
On Monday night, the San Francisco Giants professional baseball team wore uniforms bearing the name "Gigantes". Funnily enough I doubt that some Latin American soccer team will be changing the name on their uniforms from "Gatos" to "Cats" any time soon.
Being a tolerant Anglo type myself I don't see any great harm in the name change if that is what the San Francisco team really wants to do but I think it is pretty sad if it means Anglo people are becoming ashamed or embarrassed about their own heritage. A brief media excerpt below:
"The party didn't end at the gates. Tambores de Colombia, a band that performed outside, performed behind home plate before the game. The Giants team got into the act, too, by wearing jerseys that replace the word "Giants" across the chest with the name "Gigantes."Apparently the team does have at least some Latino players and the name-change is apparently not intended to be permanent so maybe it is just courtesy and not political correctness. But in San Francisco, one always expects the latter, of course.
Comments? Email John Ray
Party-Poopers
A mayor and town council in rural Colorado have been forced to apologize for trying to shut down a pagan-organized Halloween festival to benefit a children's hospital, according to the Rocky Mountain News.
Mayor Tamra Herrera of Ramah, Colo. apologized to members of the Secret Garden Coven for trying to put a stop to their Fall Festival at the American Legion hall.
Pols from the town wanted to ban the event, which will include children's games, crafts, an Italian dinner and a midnight ritual.
Pledge of Allegiance Now Forbidden
This matter was recently tested in the Supreme Court and the case thrown out. But that has not stopped a California judge. News excerpt:
"A federal judge in California Wednesday ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional. The case was brought by two families represented by Michael Newdow, an atheist whose case before the U.S. Supreme Court was thrown out because it was brought on his daughter's behalf and he did not have custody of her. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton said the words "under God" violate the right of school children to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." According to the Associated Press, Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of Newdow in 2002.I've looked up my copy of the U.S. Constitution as amended but there must be something wrong with it. Nowhere do I find where it says that Americans are to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God". But I guess I'm not from California. No doubt the ruling will now go to the Supreme Court.
Comments? Email John Ray
Both Free Speech and Academic Freedom Under Legal threat
Voltaire once said: "I disagree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it". There are not many Voltaires around these days. An Australian university professor has recently come under fire for opposing the intake of refugees from Sudan into Australia. He made his comments initially in a newspaper but he has elaborated his views in a sufficiently sound way for them to be accepted for publication in an Australian academic law journal. Read on (excerpt):
"A lawyer for Australia's Sudanese community has threatened a Victorian university with legal action if it publishes an article by a controversial Sydney-based law professor. Called `Rethinking the White Australia Policy?, the 6,800-word article was written by Associate Professor Andrew Fraser, who's been banned from teaching at Sydney's Macquarie University after making racist remarks. The Canadian-born academic wrote a letter to his local suburban newspaper in July, claiming Australia was becoming a Third World colony by allowing non-white immigration.... Lawyer George Newhouse today warned Deakin University to scrap plans to publish Prof Fraser's contentious views in its next law journal. ``I am shocked that a university would even want to publish something along these lines,'' he said. ``I put the university on notice that if they repeat the racial vilification, a claim for compensation may be made against the university and the editors that publish or republish this poison.'' Mr Newhouse said he had already commenced proceedings on behalf of the Sudanese Darfurian community in the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission."The university that publishes the journal does not seem to be caving in to the threat so far but the whole thing is a good example of how only those things that accord with the official "line" can safely be said today. Stalin would approve.
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Does This Beat the Band or What?
Australia has a conservative government and its Minister for Multicultural Affairs is one John Cobb. Note the report below of some recent remarks by the good Minister (excerpt):
"The debate about Muslim headscarves did a 180-degree turn in Canberra yesterday, with Multicultural Affairs Minister John Cobb suggesting that all women should adopt a headscarf as a fashion item. In response to questions at the National Press Club, Mr Cobb said women in headscarves looked "fantastic", and he could see the item becoming a new trend. He was responding to questions about his rumoured attack on fellow federal Coalition MP Sophie Panopoulos for her outspoken criticism of Muslim women wearing headscarves in Australia.
The report does not seem to be online anywhere yet but it appeared in the Thursday, September 15, 2005 issue of the Brisbane Courier Mail (p. 7). Talk about pandering to Muslims! Since many Australians were massacred by Muslim fanatics in Bali not long after the 9/11 attacks on America, I think Mr Cobb's remarks really are "insensitive" -- but perhaps the minister was simply what journalists politely call "tired and emotional"Comments? Email John Ray
Just a Bit of Fun
A lot of readers emailed me to join in the fun of figuring out what the British police might mean by their description of someone as having "dual heritage". One reader wrote in to say they could have been talking about him since he was part American Indian and part Scot. Another reader has just dug up a picture of a guy in combined Indian and Scottish dress. I don't know whether it's the same guy but it is fun anyway. See here
(You can find my original post of Sept. 7th about halfway down here)
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01:09 AM 
What Part of Public ...
A public forum on the Minuteman Project will go ahead in San Jose, Calif. after all, reports the Mercury News, over the objections of Latino activists who call members of the group racist hate-mongers.
The activists successfully shut down the event earlier by telling managers of the taxpayer-funded Mexican Heritage Plaza where it was to be held that there would be violence if the founder of the Minuteman Project, Chris Simcox, were allowed to speak.
Outraged immigrant advocates said it was disrespectful to have a "hate group" in their plaza on September 16 -- Mexican Independence Day. One said it was like scheduling a public forum on racism with the Ku Klux Klan on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.
The event's organizers said it will go ahead at the plaza on another date and probably without Simcox. He said losing Simcox showed ``that certain opinions are not allowed in certain public venues.''
New Uses for the Race Card
A black elected official who demanded at the last minute to ride in a peach festival parade in Delaware is now calling her placement at the back of the parade racist, according to The News Journal.
Members of the Middleton Historical Society say they bent over backward to accommodate Diane Clark Streett, the Register of Wills, after she signed up late and didn't have her own car to ride in.
But Streett was not happy. In a letter to the society, she professed to be "extremely disappointed" at being placed at the end of the parade.
"I was not only segregated from the other elected officials but I was placed behind a dance school, tumblers and miniature ponies," she wrote. "I should have been positioned with other [Caucasian, male] county elected officers."
Organizers said Streett was near two of the biggest crowd favorites -- Little Miss Peach and the Middletown High School Marching Band -- and in the same spot that Republican state Rep. Richard C. Cathcart, R-Middletown was given last year.
But ... But ...
The Independent and other civil rights activists in the UK are hopping map over orders issued to the British Transport Police which said suspects in the recent terror attacks were "Asian, West Indian and east African origin."
Officers patrolling subways and trains were cautioned not to "use stereotypical images of terrorists when deciding whether or not to use their powers of stop and search" but also informed, "It should be noted, however, that recent suspects have included individuals of Asian, West Indian and east African origin, some of whom have British nationality."
Activists were said to be furious upon hearing of the order, and demanded an investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality.
"This order is in real danger of breaching the Race Relations Act. You should stop and search a person who meets the description of a terror suspect, not look for needles in a haystack. We are really concerned by this. We will ask the chief constable for an explanation of this guidance," said Shami Chakrabati, head of the Liberty rights group.
School's Back!
To celebrate the confluence of National Coming Out Week and Disability Awareness Month, student fees at Ohio State University in Columbus are being spent on events to make people aware of the unique lifestyle of gay people with disabilities.
The events, led by the Los Angeles-based Queers on Wheels organization, are sponsored by GradQueers with help from the OSU GLBT student services, the ADA Coordinator's Office, the Women's Studies department, the English Department and the College of the Humanities.
The Queers on Wheels Disability Sensitivity Training involves lectures on using proper people-centered language, etiquette dos and don'ts and a general discussion about disability and the GLBTQ community.
We also received an email this week that is circulating at Lawrence University in inviting people to a conference this weekend on Discrimination and Prejudice in the 21st Century at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. No fewer than 30 social scientists promise to rivet audiences with discussions of The Pernicious Effects of "Benevolent Sexism" and The Interactive Nature of Patriarchy and Arbitrary-set Hierarchy: The Dynamics of Sexism and Racism from An Evolutionary and Social Dominance Perspective.
Book early to avoid disappointment!
Book Burning Again Soon?
Britain's Leftist government seems to be doing a modern version of book-burning. The anti-immigration and anti-Muslim British National Party is too extreme for me but surely an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim voice has a right to be heard. It's having big trouble being heard in Britain. Note the following news report:
"The entire print run of this month's edition of the British National Party newspaper was seized by police yesterday. Sixty thousand copies of The Voice of Freedom were confiscated at Dover. Police said: "They have been seized so we can see if any criminal offences have been committed." The papers were being carried by lorry from a printworks in Slovakia. The BNP later decided to publish the edition on its website. The 16-page issue leads with the headline "What about showing some solidarity with the British people?", under the words "Britain gets bombed but it's Islam that gets the sympathy" Spokesman Dr Phill Edwards said it was "a serious attack by the state on freedom of speech"."
The BNP website also has had something strange happen to it. Whenever I try to log on it crashes my browser. And where is the legality in seizing something that MIGHT be illegal? Don't you have to have reasonable grounds for thinking a crime has been committed before you take police action? The British State does seem to be showing some worrying authoritarian tendencies.
UpdateThe British police realized that they didn't have a legal leg to stand on and backed off eventually. News excerpt from the BNP website.
"At about 1800hrs today (12th) two BNP officials received telephone calls from Kent Police who admitted they made a mistake and that the print run of 60,000 copies of our monthly newspaper can be uplifted at the earliest opportunity from the HM Customs compound at Dover docks.... The news came as a response to a legal letter delivered by a barrister, acting on behalf of the BNP that we would press for "serious and maximum damages" against Kent Constabulary for the loss of earnings from our newspaper and a further expectation of taking the Force to the European Court of Human Rights.It is a great relief to me personally that the threat of a Fascist Britain has receded.
02:45 PM
Wrong Signals
The Times of London says British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under pressure to halt the country's annual commemoration of the Nazi Holocaust because it alienates young Muslims who might then blow themselves up on subway trains.
Advisors appointed by Blair after the bombings this summer are suggesting that Britain substitute its annual Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day with a Genocide Day that that would also recognize the mass murder of Muslims and people of other faiths. The day, established in 2001, is marked each year on January 27.
"The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims," a member of one of the advisory panels reportedly wrote. "It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one people are to be remembered more than others. It's a grievance that extremists are able to exploit."
Hog-Wild
A church in the UK was forced to cancel a planned hog roast after an animal rights group complained that its members were offended by the event, according to the Cambridge Evening News.
THe event planned at St Matthew's Church was cancelled after the activists called and said they were shocked by an ad for the event that featured a cartoon pig being roasted over a fire.
"We decided it would be simpler to cancel it and serve cream teas instead" rather than argue with the militant vegetarians, the organizer of the event said.
I Don't Believe it! Suntans are now Incorrect
This is one bit of PC that would NOT go down well in CaliforniaAnother near-triumph of the European bureaucracy: They tried to ban exposure to the sun. Fortunately it has been voted down (for now) in the European parliament. Why the nonsense? Because exposure to the sun can sometimes give you skin cancer, of course! And all nice European do-gooders must do their best to prevent that, mustn't they? Excerpt:
"MEPs have voted against a measure that would have made employers responsible for workers' exposure to sunlight. Critics said the clause would oblige bosses to make builders wear shirts and tell barmaids to cover their cleavage. But supporters said it would help protect people who work outside from the danger of skin cancer. The EU law on radiation at work will now leave it to each member state to decide whether employers should protect staff from the sun. However, EU member states may yet attempt to overturn the parliament's decision".Note that dermatology professor Sam Shuster says that suntans are actually beneficial.
Comments? Email John Ray
12:09 AM
White Crooks must Love Race-blindness!
I have mentioned a couple of times now how various police departments try to avoid mentioning the race of a wanted criminal -- with the British police describing a criminal somewhat enigmatically as being "of dual heritage". The following email from a reader in response to those posts got me thinking:"Exactly. The same thing occurs here in Houston, TX. The news commentator can give a great description of the getaway car and even the license plate numbers and even the gender of the perp and what color clothes he was wearing, but RARELY do they say what he looked like. But then, most of the crime here really is perpetrated by non-whites so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to listen between the lines".So what happens if the criminal is in fact white? He could get off Scot-free because nobody would suspect him. Everybody would be looking for a black! The authorities could of course mention it on those occasions when the criminal happens to be white but that would undermine the whole point of the exercise -- which is presumably to avoid drawing attention to the fact that most wanted criminals are black! "Oh what a tangled web we weave ....."
By the way, it occurs to me that I myself am of "dual heritage". I have only a little Scottish ancestry but that Scottish blood is powerful stuff and there were many allusions to things Scottish when I was growing up. And I was baptised into the Presbyterian Church and sent to Presbyterian Sunday School. And I do wear the kilt on special occasions. See here
