I've heard that in England that they're very politically correct. In
schools for instance "Bah, Bah, Black Sheep" nursery rhythem was change
to "Bah, Bah, Rainbow sheep" so that none of the black children would
feel left out. In school they don't teach the history of the Crusades
because it could stir up anti-muslim sentiment, the same with
colonization period of parts of African, India, Asia. The Holocaust is
not taught either because of the fear of muslim anger of those who deny
it ever happened. Gaps of history about the British Empire are left out
in order to not offend anyone.
It seems that Brits want to avoid conflict before it happens and it
could make them appear weak. In light of the salior hostage situation,
with some of the saliors "confessing" and appearing in "good spirits" on
the cammera it doesn't help British image as a strong nation.

waving to one of my favorite cuties!!!! hey shugar!
how in gods name can bah bah black sheep the nursery rhyme be
politically incorrect???

To be honest, the whole world is becoming to PC, not just the Brits.
Sure they are changing nursery rhymes, but in America we actually manage
to segragate groups trying NOT to offend. Talk about backwards thinking!

It's a phenomenon called the euphamism treadmill. Look at the term
"Special". You know what it means, and in fact you can now call someone
"special" and they could reasonably take it as an insult to their
intelligence. However, "special" is used to replace "learning impaired",
which was in turn used to replace the term, "mentally handicapped",
which actually came about from the term "mentally retarded".

Whew. To sum up, if we are insulting someone, it is no worse to call
them "retarded" than it is to call them "special".(In some circles, it
is even worse because it is considered a backhanded compliment.)All we
have actually done is "spin our wheels" and create even more ways to
hurt others, and seperate other human beings who quite frankly just
think and learn differently, albeit slower, than the rest of us.

Yeah, Iran sure came out a winner on that score.
I guess when the going gets tough, England backs down.

i have one of those "special" children. right now he is NOT behaving so
anyone want a free youngin?! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Interestingly enough, I was talking with someone on Craig's list about
the best methods for giving a person away...we concluded that you should
always include a bike within the offer.

The following statement is in the opening lines of my website
"...........This site is neither politically correct or idiot proof, if
that offends you please limit your visit to the time it has taken you to
read this far............"

If you have to rewrite history or omit pages from the history book to
avoid offending someone it is going too far. Every group be it ethnic,
religious, or nationality has incidents in their past that they would
like to forget but as the Rubiyat says "the moving finger writes and
having writ moves on, nor all your piety nor all your with can lure it
back to remove but half a line, nor all your tears wash away a word of
it."

If we continue to edit the history books to remove anything that may be
offensive to someone we will have learned nothing from history and as it
has been said, those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

I think it's sad when we confuse prudence for cowardice. They were out
numbered and had no chance of survival if they fought back. I highly
doubt that the fact a handful of British soldiers refused to fight makes
the entirety of the Royal military seem weak.

It's also easy to criticize situations of which one has not been a part.
Who knows what these people had to endure and under such situations our
primary instinct is to survive, no amount of training can change that.

As far British history curriculums, I'd love to see where you drew such
conclusions. For if they did such a thing, they'd have no history
classes at all. One group has been and, sadly, always will be offended
at particular points of history. Believe it or not, our own school
system omits vital information frequently.

Well said, on both accounts. You will have to pardon me if my current
rhetoric is both haphazard and incongruent with my "usual" posting, but
I just came back from a party.

Regarding the omitting and translation of history, it is inevitable that
the victors in history are inevitably the writers. Omisssion,
transcription, and even interpretation are relative to the "transcribers
of truth". We can't be sure of anything, even though truth occasionally
leaks out. For example, Honest Abe is a sobriquet for Abraham Lincoln;
not because he was honest, but because it was a synical diatribe against
his character. Of course, this "marketing speak" has become doctrine
because of popularity of belief; not because of historical fact.

Like wise Absynthe,the Charge of the Light Brigade is THE CLASSIC
example of British nobility and stoicism within battle. They are in
fact, part of our history, if not the authors/ancestors. In this day and
age, source material should be a requirement, if not the basic
ingredient of any statement, so Kudos to you for requesting verification
of this...shall we say vacation from tradition, of their usual modus
operandi.

Of course, we as a global society have been departing fom our norm of
nobility and justice. Regardless of that current "example" of Britanic
moral charachte, you cannot use a few individuals as an example of the
character of an entire nation. That would be like taking KKK members as
an example of American ethnic standards.

Hmmm...I guess I shouldn't continue any longer, even I don't want to
re-read what I wrote, lol!

hey fitnessfanatic;
avoid conlict? If you want something current "The Faulklands". Just
befcause they don't imediatley jump in and kick ass doesn't mean they
don't want to.
As far as those soldiers; you nor I will know the real reason they
did what they did. Until you are there right beside them in a war
instead of a gym don't throw stones from the side lines

Update on the sailors time in Iran:

"The British sailors and marines held captive for nearly two weeks in
Iran were blindfolded, bound and faced constant psychological pressure,
a Royal Navy lieutenant said Friday.

“All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and
presented with two options. If we admitted that we’d strayed, we’d be on
a plane to (Britain) pretty soon,” Carman said. “If we didn’t, we faced
up to seven years in prison.”

‘They rammed our boats’
Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air said the crew of 15, which was out on a
routine operation on March 23, was confronted by members of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard.

“They rammed our boats, and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs, and
weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us,” Air said. “We
realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one
we could not have won, with consequences that would have major strategic
impacts. We made a conscious decision not to engage the Iranians....”

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday that the
Britons would be released—a breakthrough in a crisis that had raised oil
prices and escalated fears of military conflict in the volatile region.
The move suggested Iran’s hard-line leadership had decided it had shown
its strength but did not want to push the standoff too far.

But Iran did not get the main thing it sought—a public apology for
entering Iranian waters. Britain insists it never offered a deal,
instead relying on quiet and sometimes silent diplomacy.

Countries ranging from Syria to Colombia pressed Iran for the release of
the crew, whose capture began at the start of Iranian new year
celebrations.

“By the time the senior Iranian leaders were getting back from their
holiday, they were finding that their phone was ringing off the hook and
they were finding that an awful lot of countries—including some quarters
they weren’t expecting—were ringing them and saying they were in the
wrong place and they should be releasing the people quickly,” the
official said, on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of
the situation."


Hmm... it looks like the hostage was bad left Iran with a worse image
and as a public relations move released the Brits.

Looks like the Brits didn't fall in to Iran's trap to apologize. But if
only the sailors hung in there and stayed silent then Iran would have
looked bad in the eyes of their own people.

Ok, Im going to ignore your inane ignorance due to the fact that you
have done no research, and know absolutely nothing about the UK or its
history.

Just so you know, Im British, and I am a history buff ...


What was the object of the exercise in Iran over the sailors ..

[small hint] to get them back

Did it get achieved?

{small hint] yes!

How did we do it? It was down to diplomacy.

The stories you have heard about P.C. in the UK (because there is
actually more than one country in the UK apart from England btw) is
complete bollox!!!

Belushi, I'm going to ignore your uncalled for rudeness due to the fact
that you are British and might (very understandably) take personal
offense where none was intended.

I'm strongly of the opinion that well-executed diplomacy is a superior
method for conflict resolution - far better than intimidation/posturing
and the use of violence - so: three cheers for the Brits!

Separately from my opinion about the moral superiority of diplomacy -
there remains a valid question: Does it make a nation LOOK weak?
To people who don't share my values? Its an important question,
especially considering how obsessed the Bush administration is with
'appearing strong' through posturing, threats, and actually invading
other countries.

Back to the PC issue:

>> there is actually more than one country in the UK apart from England

So are the PC stories "bollox" in all of the UK, or are some of them
true of England? I believe Fitnessfanatic is an intelligent and
educated person, but we all make mistakes. What's really going on in
Englad when it comes to PC-ness?

Here's a news story about the avoidance of sensitive history lessons by
schools in the UK:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1600686.ece

"Schools drop Holocaust lessons to avoid offence

Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and
the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause
offence to children from certain races or religions, a report claims.

A lack of factual knowledge among some teachers, particularly in primary
schools, is also leading to “shallow” lessons on emotive and difficult
subjects, according to the study by the Historical Association.

The report, produced with funding from the Department for Education,
said that where teachers and staff avoided emotive and controversial
history, their motives were generally well intentioned.

“Staff may wish to avoid causing offence or appearing insensitive to
individuals or groups in their classes. In particular settings, teachers
of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged
versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their
community or in a place of worship,” it concluded.

However, it was concerned that this could lead to divisions within
school, and that it might also put pupils off history."

The reason Im questioning the validity of the OP thread is that the
whole concept of changing a 500 year old nursery rhyme is frankly
ridiculous.

If you were going to follow this ludicrous line of reasoning, you would
end up with the famous actor Jack "Absence-of-colour", or the song by
the Rolling Stones, Paint it "a darker shade of grey"

Also why would the peoples of Islam worry about 13th century Crusades
where they kicked christian butt?

Why would Muslims get annoyed at the Holocaust?
It was the Jews that got slaughtered

So, the OP may be an intelligent poster, but his knowledge of history is
sadly lacking.

------


To the PC issue.

It is not just in the UK we have PC, I read somewhere that in the US its
also rearing its ugly head.

The words "niggardly" and "niggard" are both derived from the Old Norse
verb nigla, meaning "to fuss about small matters". (The English word
"niggle" retains the original Norse meaning.)

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. Williams,
the black mayor of Washington, D.C., United States, used the word in
reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues
(identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who incorrectly interpreted it
as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25
Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.

In late January or early February 2002, a white fourth-grade teacher in
Wilmington, North Carolina was formally reprimanded for teaching the
word[7] and told to attend sensitivity training.[8]

The teacher, Stephanie Bell, said she used "niggardly" "during a
discussion about literary characters. But parent Akwana Walker, who is
black, protested the use of the word, saying it offended her because it
sounds similar to a racial slur", the Wilmington Star-News reported.


War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography,” American writer and
critic Ambrose Bierce once said.

Unfortunately, the National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006
Geographic Literacy Study, released in May, found otherwise. Six in 10
Americans ages 18 to 24 couldn’t find Iraq on a map, three years after
the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Oh Belushi your rant was lol!

Thats the beauty of an education ... you can make a rant humorous ...

Belushi, You are absolutely correct about PC issues in other countries,
including the USA.

However, Fitness' knowledge of history has nothing to do with the
reasonableness of other people's PC efforts. I hope you aren't
attempting a logical progression when you go from:

>>Why would Muslims get annoyed at the Holocaust? It was the Jews that got slaughtered

to

>> So, the OP may be an intelligent poster, but his knowledge of history is sadly lacking.

The fact is, there are currents in the PC stream which have nothing to
do with historical accuracy - as your post on "Niggardly" illustrates.
I believe you, Fitness, myself, and many others can agree on this point.

I have difficulty respecting the intelligence/integrity of a person who
so casually throws around the phrase "so-and-so knowledge of
such-and-such is sadly lacking".

This PCness has for some time been out of control. I dont really have
anything intelligent to help with the betterment of the group, just more
of the same preaching to the choir.

but it does seem to be that when we rewrite history to fit our attitudes
of the day then we lose within ourselves, where we've been, what we've
managed to accomplish, what we need to avoid in the future, etc. you get
the point.


Who will we be tommorrow I wonder?

It might be nice if we could truly validate or invalidate some of the
things Fitness 'has heard'.