From The Land Of Obama...

From the Chicago Sun Times yesterday:

First Jell-O, now Santa

OAK LAWN School district considers banning traditions seen as offensive to Muslims

September 28, 2007

BY ANGELA CAPUTO Daily Southtown

So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa's gift shop.

The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students.

Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122's five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said.

Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was struck from the menu caused such a stir that officials have agreed to bring it back. Gelatin is often made with tissue or bones of pigs or other animals.

That controversy now appears to have been been dwarfed by the holiday debate, which became so acrimonious Wednesday that police were called to Columbus Manor School to intervene in a shouting match among parents.

"It's difficult when you change the school's culture," said Columbus Manor Principal Sandy Robertson.

Elizabeth Zahdan, a mother of three District 122 students, says she took her concerns to the school board this month, not because she wanted to do away with the traditions, but rather to make them more inclusive. "I only wanted them modified to represent everyone," she said.

Nixing them isn't the response she was looking for. "Now the kids are not being educated about other people," she said.

For the complete article click here.

Just what makes so many of us bend over backwards to please (or appease) the Muslims in our communities? Is it our good nature? There may be some of that. Or is it simply FEAR?

All over the world Muslims have non-Muslims dancing on strings because of their fear of the violent overreaction of Muslims. We saw the horrible violence in the revenge-killing of Van Gogh and in the reaction to the display of political cartoons portraying Mohammad in rather unflattering ways. We also saw it in the crazy response to offhand comments made by Pope Benedict, which were taken out of context, in the form of nuns being set afire.

The fear response in the West to Muslim violence has been for many countries to withdraw troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan and to appease Muslims minorities in Western countries at nearly every turn. You can read more examples of the latter in Fallaci's The Force Of Reason and in Mark Steyn's America Alone. Really, it's as if a bully moved into the neighborhood---NO,...it's as if some kind of MAFIA moved its base of operations into our neighborhoods, extorting shopkeepers to sell Muslim products and taking "offensive" Christian products off the shelf. And now they're telling us which holidays we can celebrate.

What's next, I wonder? Knocking crosses off of church steeples because they offend Muslims? Or the requirement that every American city broadcast the Muslim "call to prayer" over loud speakers five times a day, and that we all stop what we're doing while the prayers commence? Don't get me wrong, though. I'm all for Freedom of Religion! As far as I'm concerned they can practice their religion whenever they want and however they wish....within reason--the same reason that limits my religion. But don't deny my right to eat jello, or deny my rights to corrupt and commercialize my religion by celebrating Santa Claus (the latter being as close as Christianity is allowed in public schools).

The Pew Research Center did a poll recently of Muslims in America and found that American Muslims have mostly mainstream views, and that only a minority would ever approve of suicide bombing for any reason. It is these mainstream Muslims that deserve at least partial credit for there being no major terrorist attack in the US since 9-11. Many have supplied much needed intelligence by reporting on their more extreme neighbors to American authorities.

However Pew also found that younger Muslims are far more devout and radical than their more reasonable parents. One can infer that the older ones have actually lived in suppressive societies and lost their taste for Shari'a, while the younger ones were born here and enticed by the mystique, though the report doesn't actually say this.

I don't believe we'll ever have to send the Muslims back home. We simply need to grow a backbone and treat Muslims the same as we treat ourselves, or at least treat Christians with as much reverence as Muslims are treated. That would be nice.