Cross not Even Safe in a Chapel

And the new Chancellor is not one to overturn that:

"Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is the new chancellor of the College of William & Mary, which has taken the unusual step of removing a cross from its chapel in an effort to ensure the area is seen as a "non-denominational area."

"In order to make the Wren Chapel less of a faith-specific space, and to make it more welcoming to students, faculty, staff and visitors of all faiths, the cross has been removed from the altar area," administrator Melissa Engimann announced in an email to the staff of the Williamsburg, Va., institution.

Source

Are feathers 'hostile and abusive' to Indians?

NCAA bans them in college logo, while students plan protest:

"The William & Mary College Young Americans for Freedom chapter will be distributing 25,000 feathers during the homecoming football game tomorrow in protest of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's ruling that two feathers appearing in the athletic logo are "hostile and abusive" to American Indians.

Source

Help Request

If there are any readers here who are willing to fire off an email in support of someone being badly treated by government, have a look here or here.

No Separation of Church and State in Australia

As well as being one of the world's most conservative countries, Australia is also one of the world's most secular countries so the announcement below is more about expanding Christian awareness in Australian life than anything else:

"Chaplains will be posted in schools across Australia under a federal Government plan to provide students with greater spiritual guidance. Prime Minister John Howard will today unveil details of the $90 million national chaplaincy program, which also aims to give support to students during times of grief. The initiative, which was immediately criticised for discriminating in favour of Christians, was approved by Cabinet earlier this month.

Source

Australia has no first amendment to be perversely interpreted by its High Court so the only opposition to the above move will be political, not judicial. Given the still considerable Catholic connections of the Australian Labor Party, it is only minor parties such as the Greens who seem likely to kick up much of a fuss about the policy.

ACLU Finds Racism in Crack Cocaine Law

Blacks are big users of crack cocaine and blacks often get locked up for dealing it. And because black people get locked up a lot for breaking the law concerned, then the law must be racist? Right? The ACLU certainly thinks so.

The same sort of deliberately blind Leftists who once could not see that the old Soviet Union was a brutal and impoverishing tyranny are now determined not to see that blacks DO commit a lot more crime than whites so they SHOULD be locked up more. STACLU has the details.

Underlying the ACLU stance seems to be a complete disrespect for blacks. Blacks are treated as poor things who cannot help breaking the law rather than as responsible adults who know what choices they are making. It is the ACLU that is racist.

"Captain Underpants" Incorrect



You can see him in kids' books but you cannot dress like him, apparently:

"Three 17-year-old girls were told to leave Long Beach High School when they showed up on the school's Superhero Day dressed as the subject of the bestselling children's books....

The girls, Chelsea Horowitz, Ashley Imhof and Eliana Levin, wore beige leotards and nude stockings under white briefs and red capes. They were completely covered.

Principal Nicholas Restivo said he knows they weren't naked, but it appeared that way, so he sent them home. He didn't like the way they looked.

Source

The girls obviously have a good sense of humor but a sense of humor is increasingly discouraged by our minders these days.

"Jelly Belly" Incorrect

From Florida we read:

"The city's police chief abruptly resigned after employees complained about his tough fitness talk in an e-mail entitled "Are you a Jelly Belly?"

"If you are unfit, do yourself and everyone else a favor. See a professional about a proper diet and a fitness training program," Goward wrote in the e-mail. "We didn't hire you unfit and we don't want you working unfit. Don't mean to offend, this is just straight talk. I owe it to you."

Source

How wimpy can a police force get? Political correctness is making whiners out of everyone.

No Advertising for the "Dixie Chicks"?

Pop band "Dixie Chicks" became famous in 2003 for making disparaging remarks about GWB in London. They have now made a film about their subsequent experience and are trying to advertise that film.

Many TV networks have approved the ad for airing but two have refused it. The ad repeats the disparaging remarks about GWB and one network gave that as the reason for rejecting the ad. Representatives of the "Chicks" have said that the rejection was a breach of the free speech rights of the "Chicks" and have blamed the rejection on a "climate of fear".

They are probably right about the "climate of fear" but fear of what? Fear of falling foul of McCain/Feingold's political advertising restrictions before an election, I would think.

As private companies, the TV networks are not of course bound by the First Amendment. Details here.

"Sundance" an Indian Name

Conservative American Indian David Yeagley, is incensed that Robert Redford and George Soros are using the name "Sundance" for their film institute, which produces and distributes largely anti-American films. He says that the sundance is a significant American Indian ceremony and its name should not be used for something that has no Indian connections. See here.

It seems to me that if you cannot use Indian names for sporting teams then you should not be able to use such a name for a company either. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When will we hear from the ACLU about this?

A Libertarian Archbishop?

There is not much that I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury about (though he did support the Iraq intervention) and I regularly mock the Church of England but I agree with the following words of His Grace:

"So the ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen - no crosses around necks, no sidelocks, turbans or veils - is a politically dangerous one. It assumes that what comes first in society is the central political "licensing authority", which has all the resource it needs to create a workable public morality.

Source

As a libertarian, I think that there should be complete freedom of religion for both Muslims and Christians, unlike the absurd situation in the USA and UK at the moment where there seems to be more freedom for Muslims than for Christians. It is only the advocacy and practice of violence that should be penalized.

And it seems that the chief prelate of the Church of England has similar views. He clearly thinks that the wearing of Muslim veils and Christian crosses should both be allowed. Both have of course recently been penalized in England.

Deport the Mufti?



A Muslim leader is in hot water in Australia. The Mufti of Australia has said that "immodestly" dressed women invite rape. He said women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men and called them "meat". Pretty standard Muslim stuff, of course, but Australians seem to be less tolerant of Muslim nonsense than most:

"A leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Dim al-Hilali, should be sacked and deported for comments which essentially excused young Muslim men who committed rape, federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said today.

Source

I am the last person to defend a barbaric religion but it seems to me that the sheik is entitled to express his views without punishment for doing so. I myself don't have the Mufti's hangups and greatly enjoy seeing skimpily-dressed young women about the place but, if I had a daughter who came into much contact with Muslims, I think the Mufti's comments would make instructive reading for her.

Blogger.com under attack

We read:

"Racist blogs targeting minority groups in Australia are springing up on the web, but Google's Blogger, the service some are hosted on, refuses to take them offline, says an anti racism lobby group.

"Blogger is absolutely insensitive to complaints about racist and neo-Nazi content," said Brian Stokes, co-founder of FightDemBack!, a group that monitors the activities of racists, fascists and other such offenders operating in Australia and New Zealand.

Source

I think the article above was free publicity for the "hate speech" sites concerned.

Injun Time?

We would be quickly told by the holy ones of the Left that it was a racial slur implying that Indians cannot handle time well if a conservative had used the term "injun time" to excuse being late.

Democratic U.S. House candidate Steve Kagen apologized Monday for commenting that he was late for a meeting on an Indian reservation because "we're on Injun time."

Think his opponent would get the same kind of pass he is getting? Will the MSM give this the same incessant coverage as Senator Allen's "macaca" usage? Don't hold your breath. Details at STACLU.

Youth is Offensive in Britain

We read:

"A television advert for shower gel which featured a young-looking model has been banned after the industry watchdog ruled it "offensive". A naked woman sitting under a lemon tree is featured in the PZ Cussons advert for Original Source shower gel. Some 29 people complained because the model appeared to be under 16 and was depicted in a sexually provocative way.

Source

Faked "Hate Speech" Incident?

There were "hate speech" incidents recently at the nominally Jesuit Boston College. Posters about the white race were plastered up in a couple of places by someone unknown and untraceable:

"But yet another occurence of "hateful speech" comes in the wake of the incident. Fliers were found on the main door of the CLFX lobby and connector lounge, Medeiros Hall, and Shaw House around midnight last night which read: "Join the White Alliance - 'Forge a Superior World.'" The fliers advertised a meeting tomorrow in Devlin Hall "to debate the merit of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day."

Source

It sounded to me like another example of "racist" fakery from the Left themselves so I made no comment on it at the time.

I note now however that the political activists on the campus are having an absolute orgasm of self-righteousness over it all so I am getting an ever stronger impression that it was the Left themselves who organized the "racist" stunt in a very successful attempt to push themselves into the limelight -- the limelight being their Holy Grail, of course.

Threat to Free Speech on California Ballot

Proposition 89 will be voted on soon. It provides some public funding for election campaigns and places severe restrictions on election spending by businesses. It does not however restrict unions from spending. Get it? Unions can plug their agenda but business cannot do the same. And guess which side of politics the unions will be supporting? One-sided election campaigns, here we come! And, despite the First Amendment, it might even survive Supreme Court challenge. McCain-Feingold did.

Discussion here and here

"Naughty" Wrong

From the Unhinged Kingdom:

"Parents should not call their youngsters 'naughty' because it damages their self-confidence, a childcare expert controversially claimed.

Annette Mountford, chief executive of the parenting organisation, Family Links, said that children's self-esteem is run down by such branding, even if they are behaving badly.

Source

To post relevant comments, click the squiggle to the left of where it says "COMMENTS". Open commenting here. My old posts on this blog can be found here or here. Email John Ray.

Terms of Endearment Forbidden in Scotland

In much of Britain and quite often in Australia, it is customary for women to address others and be addressed by others as "love" or some other form of endearment, even if the parties are hardly known to one another. For instance, if I order a sandwich in a sandwich shop, the lady making the sandwich will often ask me "do you want pepper and salt with that, love?"

I guess it is in one sense old-fashioned and silly but I personally think it makes life pleasanter for everyone. Though some of the terms used in the North of England are a bit amusing: "duck", "hen" etc. In much of the American South "Hun" and "Sugar" are used similarly, of course.

There have been attempts to limit such speech in England (See my post of August 17) and the poison has now spread to Scotland. The Glasgow City Council has instructed its employees as follows:

"Don't assume it is acceptable to address women by endearments such as 'dear', 'pet' and 'love' when you would not address men in such a way," the guide instructs. "Don't refer to women as 'girls', for example, 'the girls in the office'."

It adds: "The term 'ladies' should only be used in situations where the parallel term 'gentlemen' is used."

Source

And there is much more idiocy of the same kind. Why it "oppresses" women to call them "Love" defies my imagination. Maybe it is felt to oppress lesbians and that leads to the objections from feminists, many of whom seem to be of the lesbian persuasion.

Strange Self-defeating Censorship In Belgium

With the demise of the Soviet Union, Belgium now appears to be the most Leftist country in Europe, which makes it a great enemy of free speech. Brussels Journal will tell you all about that from time to time. Belgium even shut down a major political party for "hate speech" a couple of years ago -- showing the usual Leftist respect for democracy. But the latest episode there appears to be wacky even by Belgian standards:

"Microsoft and Google have agreed to remove content managed by Copiepresse of Belgium from their indexes, with Google further being requested to pay nearly $43 million in fines.

Instead of battling with Copiepresse on its home turf in Belgium's Court of First Instance, Microsoft chose to comply with the firm's requests to remove German and French language articles managed by Copiepresse from its websites.

Source

You don't want people to be able to find you via a Google search??? That's equivalent to being invisible these days. Lots of companies pay big money to boost their Google rankings but not in Belgium it seems. I guess it is just some sort of feverish anti-Americanism.

Defending Marriage is Harassment?

We read:

"A Virginia man claims he was fired from his job because a message on the window of his pickup truck supported a proposed state constitutional amendment on marriage.

Luis Padilla, who worked in the human resources office at Cargill, the international provider of food and agricultural products and services, wrote on his vehicle's rear window, "Please, vote for marriage on Nov. 7."

Source