PC gets carried away

Friday is my day to do errands. Sabbath-observant Jews don't have Saturday to run errands -- it's a day of prayer and reflection. Those who observe Sabbath commandments don't work, ride in a car, use the telephone or write, among other things.

Tonight, they also don't get to watch fireworks. If the fireworks were postponed to Saturday night, then everyone would get to watch them. But I digress.

Because Friday is an errand day, I usually spend a lot of time in the car, going from one store to the other.

I was listening to National Public Radio. Some politically correct person -- happened to be a woman -- was interviewing former Attorney General Janet Reno. Reno helped organize and produce a set of CDs on American music called "Song of America". It's a recorded history of the U.S. in song and it's due out in Septemeber.

The music comprises folks songs and American songs, many with modern treatment. Paul Simon's son does "Yankee Doodle." It includes folk songs like "Sweet Betsy from Pike", such tunes as "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen Paris" and everything in between.

So, this politically correct interviewer asked Reno about the conversation the producers held on whether to include "Dixie." This is the marching song of the South in the Civil War. In the record's treatment, it sounds sad.

Reno made the proper short shrift of the question, saying that "Dixie" belongs in any history of the U.S. because it's a part of our history.

I wonder if this same questioner would ask the pope if he thought Latin was a proper language for prayer because Rome was one of the most brutal empires in human history.

Or maybe she should ask the Gruccis of Long Island, the famous fireworks artists, if they might be in the wrong business because fireworks were invented in China, which has been a repressive regime.

That question is dumb, just as the question about "Dixie" is dumb. Every nation has skeletons in its closet.

Slavery was a stain on American history, but it is as much a part of it as the Revolution or the industrialization.

Let's keep the dumb questions to a minimum, PC friends at National Public Radio.

Have a great weekend and those in the tribe, a good Shabbos.

Until next time...