For Democrats who just aren't sure...

On being correct, I

Public school zero-tolerance policies are sometimes taken to extremes. This isn't in dispute. It's simply hilarious to watch. Political correctness is the emperor's new clothing.

So if a fifth-grade boy at Cornerstone at Pedregal School in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, wishes to glorify the military at his school's promotion ceremony, and every student is granted the opportunity to decorate a mortarboard cap with personal expression of his goals and dreams, what on earth is wrong with decorating his cap with U. S. military symbols and plastic army men? Apparently, a lot:

On Thursday, before the ceremony, one boy was told he couldn't participate unless he agreed to clip off the tips of the plastic guns carried by the minuscule GIs on his cap. Ten others complied with the order before the event.

Leonard, a first-year principal, didn't respond to several requests for comment, deferring to district administrators, who said the toys with miniature rifles and grenades violated a zero-tolerance weapons policy.

Leonard "directed students not place images of weapons on student-created mortarboards to be used in the promotion ceremony," according to a district statement. "The district fully supports her decision to comply with school rules and practices. In addition, practically all fifth-grade parents understood and accepted this decision and, in some cases, modified the student mortarboards, sans the weapon images."

In enforcing the decision, the district cited its Safe Schools policy and the federal Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, a federal law designed to remove firearms from schools.

The policy, however, is a little vague:

A copy of the district's Safe Schools policy obtained by the Daily Breeze includes no mention of toy army men. Students found to be "possessing, selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm" are expelled for one year, the policy states.

Weapons are also mentioned in the board's "weapons and dangerous instruments" policy that allows only authorized law enforcement or security personnel to possess "weapons, imitation firearms or dangerous instruments of any kind" on school grounds.

You will note in the picture above that the young fellow complied with the school policy by cutting off the hands of his toy soldiers...but then bandaged them with gauze and fake blood. Good for him!

A tribute to Salman Rushdie

The disgusting religious persecution of author Sir Salman Rushdie continues:

A government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie’s recent knighthood justified suicide bombing.

The question of blasphemy in The Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment.

Mehdi Kuchakzadeh, a Tehran MP, declared: “Rushdie died the moment the late Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] issued the fatwa.”

Forouz Rajaefar, the Organisation to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World's secretary general, said: “The British and the supporters of the anti-Islam Salman Rushdie could rest assured that the writer’s nightmare will not end until the moment of his death and we will bestow kisses on the hands of whomsoever is able to execute this apostate.”

Ijaz-ul-Haq, Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister, told the assembly in Islamabad that the award of the knighthood excused suicide bombing. “If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified,” he said. "We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims."

Somebody get me a tissue. I am unaccountably broken up by the spectre of 1.5 billion Muslims with their g-strings in a Gordian over this.

Long live Western Civilization!

Recent commentary: favorite quote

What's your favorite quote?

(published 11-Jun-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Oh, man! That's like asking for my favorite word! How about a quick potpourri? Robert Heinlein: "Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks!" P. J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys." Harry Browne: "Government breaks your leg, hands you a crutch, and tells you you're better off." Hard to beat Mark Twain: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." Can't leave out Ben Franklin: "A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats." Thomas Babington Macaulay: "Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim."