sKul DaZe

mark Steyn snarking away with a vengeance this week. He gives a spanking to Australian Santa policy under the new Rudd Junta, The ACLU’s selective outrage, and points out why Arabs who are more like the Sudanese than they are like the smart ones that leave aren’t quite ready for prime-time when it comes to things like tolerance, stoning rape victims, restraining oneself from threats to decapitate middle aged school-teachers, etal:

"Santas Warned 'Ho Ho Ho' Offensive To Women."
Really. As the story continued: "Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say 'ha ha ha' instead, the Daily Telegraph reported. One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use 'ho ho ho' because it could frighten children and was too close to 'ho', a U.S. slang term for prostitute."
If I were a female resident of Sydney, I think I'd be more offended by the assumption that Australian women and U.S. prostitutes are that easily confused. As the old gangsta-rap vaudeville routine used to go: "Who was that ho I saw you with last night?" "That was no ho, that was my bitch."

Which depends on the kind of girls you know in Aus, I suppose. The ones I’ve known have not generally pulled the “perpetually offended Mamasita” racket, but may have to from now on under the Imperialist warmongerers of a Labour government.

For example, when I said the right not to be offended is now the most "sacred" right in the world, I certainly didn't mean to offend persons of a nontheistic persuasion. In Hanover, N.H., home to Dartmouth College, an atheist and an agnostic known only as "Jan and Pat Doe" (which is which is hard to say) are suing because their three schoolchildren are forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, OK, they're not forced to say it. The pledge is voluntary. You're allowed to sit down, or, more discreetly, stand silently, which is what the taciturn Yankee menfolk who think it's uncool to sing do during the hymns at my local church. But that's not enough for "the Does." Because the pledge mentions God, their children are forced, as it were, not to say it. And, as "Mr. and Mrs. Doe" put it in their complaint, having to opt out of participation in a voluntary act exposes their children to potential "peer pressure" from the other students.

Which I find puzzling, since I only though that kind of jingoistic indoctrination only happened in perpetually well-intended Canada. Back in my own Grammar school days in Ontario under the oppressive Trudeau Regime, I remember one day when in assembly we had to sing Oh Canada!, I found myself wondering if I should have to do this every week if I’m not Canadian.

I happened to be standing next to my teacher. She asked me why I stopped singing. I asked if it was wrong to sing it if I wasn’t actually Canadian.

She hit me on the back of the head, right above the neck. As I am a male of the species, I though nothing of it other than that I probably had it coming to me. My only other thought that afternoon was that my head hurt, and wondered why they didn’t stop smacking kids around like they had in the US. Whatever.

Let us now cross from the New Hampshire school system to the Sudanese school system. Or as The Associated Press headline put it:

"Thousands In Sudan Call For British Teddy Bear Teacher's Execution."

Last week, Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher working in Khartoum, one of the crumbiest basket-case dumps on the planet – whoops, I mean one of the most lively and vibrant strands in the rich tapestry of our multicultural world – anyway, Mrs. Gibbons was sentenced last week to 15 days in jail because she was guilty of, er, allowing a teddy bear to be named "Mohammed." She wasn't so foolish as to name the teddy Mohammed herself. But, in an ill-advised Sudanese foray into democracy, she'd let her grade-school students vote on what name they wanted to give the classroom teddy, and being good Muslims they voted for their favorite name: Mohammed.

Actually, the little snot-nosed kid who got to name the was behaving in the generous manner typical to the native males by naming the toy after himself. Since only a thoughtful western adult, (any thoughtful western adult,) can be wrong for this “outrage”, I suggest that Jan and Pat Doe be required to either foster-parent this child, or undergo mandatory instruction from him.

...It’s just a thought...