THE DAILY BLADE: Negating The N-Word
State Rep. John Mizuno (D-HI) “felt compelled” to introduce a symbolic resolution banning the N-word after he heard talk radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger say it on air to “send a message that the word is hateful and offensive, The Associated Press reports.
Not only such a ban is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds, but it is likely to have a disparate impact on minorities since - with the notable exception of Schlessinger (who used the word to make this very point, ironically) - black comendians and rappers are far likelier to use the N-word in public than are whites for reasons well known to Michael Richards, so the resolution is, ironically, racist as well.
In an interview with CNN's Larry King, Schlessinger announced that she will not renew the contract for her show when it expires at the end of the year, so that she can "regain my First Amendment rights":
I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry or some special-interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. …
When I started in radio if you said something somebody didn’t agree with or didn’t like they would argue with you. Now they try to silence you. They try to wipe out your ability to earn a living or to have your job. … My First Amendment rights have been usurped by angry, hateful groups who don’t want to debate. They want to eliminate.
Schlessinger reassured her fans, “I'm not retiring. I'm not quitting. I feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.”
Editorial Note: After pointing out that ethnic and gay comics often make fun of their own kind King asked Schlessinger: “It’s OK, isn’t it? But it’s not OK when the ‘non-N person’ uses it.” Since we all know what the “N” in the euphemism “N word” is, King’s reference to a “non-N” is racist, isn’t it? Just sayin’ …
Fatwa Fatigue
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has issued a royal decree forbidding anyone other than Islamic scholars he has appointed from handing down fatwas after some bizarre rulings by scholars vying for audiences on satellite TV and the Internet, reports The Washington Post:
"We have noticed some excesses that we cannot tolerate, and it is our legal duty to stand up to these with strength and resolve to preserve religion," the Saudi ruler said in his order, which was addressed to the kingdom's grand mufti, the most senior official pronouncing on religious matters. …
[T]he Saudi public was startled by a fatwa advocating that women breast-feed unrelated men to establish "maternal relations" and thus get around the Islamic prohibition on the mixing of the sexes. A few months earlier, another scholar had urged the killing of anyone who facilitated the mixing of men and women in workplaces and universities.
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