I'm slow at picking up the news, so I only just learned that Dan Savage - if you know who he is, my condolences - was taken to task by a trans-gendered person for using the word "tranny" during a speech about hate speech. The offended person apparently "feels safer" with the word "it," and as far as I can make out, using the word "tranny" offended it.

Today I discover that a Moslem cleric denounced the making of snowmen because it is against the law to make images of people, because that encourages a lustful fog of erotic thoughts and pornographic thinking.

Every one of these people is mad as a hatter. Of the three, I guess I prefer the company of the cleric, for at least he is consistent. You know enough about him not to build snowmen where he can see them unless you want to piss him off. Wether or not you may build a snow fish is uncertain. However, around the other two, you can't build anything because it might offend someone, and you can't call it anything because those words have been used for centuries to oppress people.