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A Christmas-themed event to raise money at a public elementary school in Warwick, N.Y., has been altered to accommodate a parent's complaints that the program would illegally spotlight a "religious" figure - Santa Claus. "Breakfast With Santa" has since been changed to "Winter Wonderland Breakfast," and -- in an effort to be inclusive of all beliefs -- the bearded one will now be joined at the Dec. 9 event by Frosty the Snowman. Organizers made the changes after one parent charged that she and others in the community were offended that the Parent Teacher Association at the Sanfordville Elementary School...

Now council bans the use of 'political correctness' at workBy CHRIS BROOKE Last updated at 10:41am on 1st November 2006  Cllr Robert Light: Kirklees council leader blamed his political opponents and said the booklet was no longer being used by council staff A council has warned staff against using the phrase 'political correctness' at work because it might offend people. A booklet outlining 'equality' policy to council workers claims using the term at work can be damaging and even linked it to the Ku Klux Klan. See also... Council worker paid £91,000 to fix the lights  The bizarre publication...

DETROIT -- Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series. -snip- Later, Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get "en fuego" -- hot in Spanish -- because he was currently "frio" -- or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up. Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" -- butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" -- and added, "I still can't find my wallet." "I don't understand him, and...

Twenty years after the King County Council renamed the county for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the council voted today to change the county logo from a crown to a likeness of the slain civil rights leader. More than 200 supporters of the ordinance responded to the roll-call vote by jumping to their feet, cheering, beating Native American drums and singing, "We Shall Overcome." "Symbols are very important. This is going to be a powerful one for us here in this county," Councilman Larry Gossett, D-Seattle, prime sponsor of the ordinance, declared after the vote. Gossett said a...

CHICAGO -- The Illinois State Board of Education has reinstated a suburban Chicago school district today -- one day after the board used its harshest available sanction against it. The board voted yesterday to cut off funding for Elmwood Park District 401 over the district's decision to deny enrollment to a student based on immigration status. But the board today voted to reverse that after the district's board adopted a resolution that said it would no longer deny enrollment for students based on their immigration status. The ISBE says it will continue to monitor the district to make sure it...

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has moved to end pointless and costly investigations into commentators who voice politically incorrect opinions on radio and television. Sir Ian launched a review of how his force responds to complaints about allegedly homophobic and racist statements broadcast on radio and television Under current rules police are duty bound to investigate any such complaints from viewers and listeners but officers are understood to be exasperated that they have to look into all of them as potential "hate" crimes. Inquiries can tie up resources and cost thousands of pounds before establishing that people are only...

The legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, known as fatwas, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980s. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to debate over who can legitimately issue them. As part of a government drive to eliminate frivolous fatwas, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan recently published one such edict setting out new rules for football. We publish an edited translation below. In the name of God the merciful and benevolent: 1. International terminology that heretics use, such as "foul," "penalty", "corner," "goal", "out" and others, should be abandoned and not...

One year ago today, DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek had a discussion with some Muslim students... ....and was suspended because his ideas didn't match the PC groupthink found on almost all college campuses today. On September 15, 2004, Klocek, an adjunct professor at Chicago's DePaul University for 14 years, was walking through a campus cafeteria where a student activities fair was taking place. He noticed a couple of display tables staffed by United Muslims Moving Ahead (UMMA) and the DePaul Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) More on Students for Justice in Palestine here, courtesy of Frontpage Magazine's Discover...

European intellectuals have long complained of excessive moralism in American foreign policy, politics and attitudes toward sex--the lingering effect, as they see it, of our Puritan heritage. But if they want to spot the real Puritans among us, they should read our sports pages. Last week, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced that it would ban the use of Native American team names and mascots in all NCAA-sponsored postseason tournaments. If a team turns up wearing uniforms with words like "Indians," "Braves" or similar nicknames the association deems "hostile and abusive," that team will be shown the locker-room door. Surely...

The U.S.-Canadian military commands responsible for protecting North America from terrorists have changed the names of key readiness exercises to more politically correct words that do not offend American Indians. U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs have struck the word "warrior" from one major exercise and replaced it with "phantom," according to a July internal message from command headquarters. The message went to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Joint Chiefs and other senior leaders. A copy was obtained by The Washington Times. A NORAD spokesman, Air Force...

LONDON (AFP) - A bold plan by Irish rocker-turned-activist Bob Geldof for multi-city concerts to combat poverty in Africa ran into flak when it became clear how few black artists are involved. With the arguable exception of Mariah Carey, none of the headliners for the centrepiece Live8: The Long Walk to Justice concert at Hyde Park in London on July 2 are black, let alone African. It's a bit better elsewhere, with Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour and British soulman Craig David on the bill in Paris, former Fugee Lauryn Hill in Berlin, and rapper 50 Cent and the legendary Stevie...

Team's in-house training video includes lesbian porn, racial slurs, barbs at Newsom. It was meant to be funny -- but no one is laughing now in the San Francisco 49ers' front office over an in-house training film that featured off- color racial jokes, lesbian porn, a spoof of gay marriage and a trio of buxom, topless blondes frolicking with team public relations director Kirk Reynolds. The 15-minute video, some of which was filmed in the City Hall office of Mayor Gavin Newsom -- who comes in for a few unsubtle swipes -- was intended as a primer on how players...

Adhering to a policy instituted 10 years ago, but not always followed, the UI athletics department recently canceled a baseball game with Bradley University of Peoria, Ill., because of the school's mascot. The game was originally scheduled to be played today, but the athletics department canceled the nonconference game in February, recognizing that Bradley's nickname - the Braves - falls under the university's policy to not schedule nonconference games with teams that have American Indian mascots. Steve Roe, a UI associate director of Sports Information, said the university's Board in Control of Athletics implemen-ted the policy in April 1994 in...

Someone better tell these guys! As the snow blanketing the region turned to slush, police were considering arresting a sledding scofflaw on suspicion of reckless endangerment, and school officials were on the lookout for illicit snowball tossers. It brings up an interesting idea: snow criminalization. In the first case, a 26-year-old Bellevue man was sledding down a hill Tuesday evening and accidentally went under a sport-utility vehicle, Bellevue police Officer Michael Chiu said. The SUV ran over his leg, and he was taken to the hospital with a possible broken bone. Police are still investigating and will forward their...

A group of Skokie 1st graders got an unexpected lesson in cultural sensitivity Friday when their principal wouldn't let them dress as American Indians for their annual Thanksgiving celebration. After a parent complained that the costumes the children had made might be offensive, the principal told the kids to leave their construction-paper headdresses on the classroom shelves. Those who had opted to be pilgrims fared no better. Their paper black hats and bonnets also were banned, and for the first time in more than two decades, the 1st graders at Madison School commemorated the events of October 1621 in their...

The Beatles' 'Abbey Road' Album Airbrushed To Be Politically CorrectThe Beatles' 1969 Abbey Road album cover has been airbrushed by politically correct poster companies in the United States to remove a cigarette held in Paul McCartney's hand, BBC reports. The original album cover shows the four Beatles crossing the famed road--McCartney is barefoot, third in line, and holding a cigarette. The airbrushing was done without the permission of either McCartney or Apple Records, which owns the rights to the image. An Apple spokesman told BBC, "We have never agreed to anything like this. It seems these poster companies got...

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s also worth four weeks suspension for student Joshua Hanley. The 12-year-old Australian middle school student was caught with a magazine photo of a Bowie knife at his school in Alice Springs and he has been suspended as part of the school district’s strict Zero Tolerance policy concerning weapons and the threat of violence in the classroom. “Has the whole world gone bonkers?” fumed Joshua’s mother, Marian Hanley. “My son brought a picture of a knife from Blades and Babes magazine to show his friends. Not a real knife, mind you,...

Judge rejects bid on '[censored*]' sign March 20 2002 A bid by an Aboriginal activist to remove the word "[censored*]" from a football ground grandstand was yesterday thrown out by the nation's highest court. High Court Justice Mary Gaudron said "[censored*]" on the sign was no more offensive than the word "[censored*]" on a cement mixer. "Let us assume for a moment that I'm '[censored*]' - and it's not an unreasonable assumption - and I'm offended by a sign that says "[censored*]'s Porkies", she told a Brisbane sitting of the court. Justice Gaudron rejected Canberra constitutional barrister Ernst Willheim's submission...