A transgender person in Massachusetts is accusing a state trooper there of discrimination for repeatedly referring to her as "buddy" and "guy" during a traffic stop, according to the Boston Herald.
Clairese Renee Morgan filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination demanding that troopers undergo mandatory sensitivity indoctrination on transgender issues.
Morgan was stopped for traveling between 95 and 100 mph on the interstate. She was arrested for disturbing the peace after she flipped off the trooper and marched into the highway in an effort to flag down someone to witness the abuse heaped on her.
Racism, Seattle-Style
The Seattle School district was forced to remove a policy statement on institutional racism after bloggers and Libertarian activists pointed out that an individualist outlook and a preference for long-term planning don't necessarily make someone a racist, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
An equity and race relations section of the district's website was written in order to get faculty and staff to move beyond "unsuccessful concepts such as melting pot or colorblind mentality," according to the author, Caprice Hollins.
Examples of racism, the site stated, "include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers."
The Cato's Institute's Andrew Coulson, one of the guide's critics, said such language was ideologically charged.
"It was left of center by definition, criticizing individualism as racism and advocating a collective ideology," he said. "You can't get much more red versus blue than that; it's incredibly polarizing. That everyone who thinks in terms of individualism is racist?"
Border 'Profiling'
A California civil rights attorney has accused the Border Patrol of racial profiling for arresting some 600 illegal immigrants during desert sweeps near Barstow, according to the Associated Press.
Luis Carrillo says agents only pulled over people with brown skin in the five-day operation. "They gave people with blue eyes and light skin a free pass," he said.
The Patrol said in a statement that authorities were targeting a human smuggling route for immigrants who had crossed into Arizona and Texas from Mexico.
MoToons Part XXVI
The man who originally published the dreaded Cartoons of Blasphemy, Flemming Rose of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, writes in an op-ed piece in Der Spiegel that political correctness in Europe is creating a ticking time bomb for the continent.
"Europe must shed the straitjacket of political correctness, which makes it impossible to criticize minorities for anything -- including violations of laws, traditional mores and values that are central to the European experience," Rose says. "Europe's left is deceiving itself about immigration, integration and Islamic radicalism today the same way we young hippies deceived ourselves about Marxism and communism 30 years ago.
"It's time for the Old Continent to face facts and make some profound changes in its outlook on immigration, integration and the coming Muslim demographic surge. After decades of appeasement and political correctness, combined with growing fear of a radical minority prepared to commit serious violence, Europe's moment of truth is here," he says.
Immigrants, Rose writes, should be treated just like anyone else in their host country.
"That's what I felt I was doing in publishing the 12 cartoons of Muhammad last year. Those images in no way exceeded the bounds of taste, satire and humor to which I would subject any other Dane, whether the queen, the head of the church or the prime minister. By treating a Muslim figure the same way I would a Christian or Jewish icon, I was sending an important message: You are not strangers, you are here to stay, and we accept you as an integrated part of our life. And we will satirize you, too."
It's A Movie!
Members of a community on Michigan's Upper Peninsula are angry that a high school French class took a field trip to see 'The Da Vinci Code', according to the Mining Journal. Not because it was a waste of time, though, but because they say it violates the separation of church and state.
Students from Marquette Senior High School's foreign language department took the trip so students could "view the movie with the setting of Paris, France, to hear the dialect of the movie and to be aware of the setting of the movie," Superintendent Jon Hartwig said. All the students who went had written permission from the parents.
But Chris Kostelansky, a pastor with Faith In Christ Fellowship, called the field trip unconstitutional.
"It was very insensitive of any teacher in a community such as ours with 50 percent of the population being Catholic and 25 percent being Protestant to take students to a movie that's so anti-Christian," Kostelansky said.
For more doses of politically correct nuttiness, head on over to the Tongue Tied daily edition.
Mailbag:
Frank J. in Michigan writes:
Wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense for the Liberty Elementary School in Colleyville, Texas to just print the annual with the nickel as it was minted, with the "In God We Trust" intact, and furnish blank stickers to those that might be offended so they could cover it up? After all, it would be correctly depicting the coin and it would let the vast majority of the people who are not offended by these words prevail rather than the small minority who might be offended.
Dan in Edison, NJ writes:
Can we just give San Francisco away? If they hate the military so much, then the president should declare open season on San Francisco to our enemies on national television in prime time. Let's see how it feels when there's no protection. Is that Constitutional? If it isn't, should it matter when it comes to a city that doesn't respect the Constitution anyway?
Hey, China, yeah, uh... listen. So we've got this city and we kinda don't want it anymore. Could you, like, take it from us or something? We offered it to Iran already but they spit in our face and started laughing. They do that all the time so we aren't sure if that was a rejection. Whadya think? Come on,... pretty please!
Gary N. writes:
Once the left wing lugnuts on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is successful in ridding the schools of ROTC, what becomes of the 1,600-plus students who now participate? Are they to be unjustly deprived of their opportunity to become officers in the United States Armed Forces, which could provide them with many opportunities to obtain educational and professional advancement?
If I am correct, no one is forced to participate in ROTC! Well done Board of Supervisors, you have now managed to deprive a small minority of young people their right to freedom of selection to satisfy your misguided ideas of equality. Remember, the small minority of homosexuals serving in the military are also doing so voluntarily.
Edward B. writes:
Just as in universities where recruiters are banned from college campuses, any school that will not allow JROTC programs should not receive federal funds.
Rod N. in Arlington, Tex. writes:
I guess the Michigan social studies consultant and the Detroit News don't know their political geography. If they did, they'd know that the word "America" is in the official title of only one country on earth --- The United States of America. However, "United States" appears in at least two other countries' official names --- Mexico and Brazil. So if we can't refer to ourselves as "America", and presumably can't use "United States" either, because other countries have that as part of their names, then what are we supposed to call our nation? "Of?"
Jobeth P. writes:
The consultant is correct. As a member of the U.S. military I currently reside in Europe (Spain) where my daughter attends a local school. In her fifth grade school books, in the classroom, and in the community, the term "American" is used to refer to the entire continent, just like we use the term "European." When asked where she is from, my daughter always replies, "The United States".
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