State Senator Eleanor Sobel

March 7, 2009

Senator Eleanor Sobel
224 Senate Office Building
404 South Avenue Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1100

RE: Words that “offend” and what shall we do with them?

Senator Sobel,

“A South Florida lawmaker wants the word ‘shylock’ struck
from Florida statutes. Senator Eleanor Sobel, D- Hollywood,
said…”the word is discriminatory and offensive to Jewish people”.

If the word “Shylock” is offensive in Florida statutes how much more offensive is it in Florida libraries and school text books? Shall we go through the libraries with Magic Markers or should we just burn them in the parking lot?

I think parts of the Old Testament are offensive. Abraham’s child abuse towards his son should be struck from the book. What David did to get a leg over on Bathsheba is the stuff of afternoon television. I don’t think children should be exposed to it.

A Nobel Prize winner wrote a book called “The Dreaded N Word of the Narcissus”. Dick Gregory wrote an autobiography called “The Dreaded N Word”. In case you haven’t gotten it the Dreaded N word is the word that White people dare not use.

While I was on trial in Federal Court a copy of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, an official publication of the United States Government, was introduced as documentary evidence. [That the United States Government opposed the introduction of one of its own documents is the subject of a different discussion.] There, in a book paid for by the taxpayers of this nation, were a number of references to places with the names “Nigger Creek” and “Lynch Creek”. The latter was the remedy for the former. What would you do about that?

I think Homer is offensive to one-eyed oversized cannibals who have a weakness for drink. We live in a more sensitive age. Polyphemus should not be mocked for his disabilities.

James Joyce could have named his traveler Luigi Boomerino. He named him Leopold Bloom. Do you find that “offensive”? What legislative remedies do you have for that?

At the bottom of every modern American Liberal is a quasi-Fascist thug. “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” is the title of an interesting book on speech by Nat Hentoff. The last time we talked I mentioned him.



Abraham Lincoln was called a “baboon” by the Democratic Party and the New York Times in 1864. The New York Post was excoriated for tangentially suggesting that Obama was an ape. Are primate references acceptable as long as the target is Caucasian?

Why were comparisons between Hitler and President Bush not found “offensive”?

Are any pork products offered in the Broward County public schools? Wouldn’t Jewish students be “offended” if they were? G-d forbid any Muslim child should stumble on some bacon. Fatwas would be flying.

I have been visited by police [men with badges and guns] three times for things I have written to public officials. There was one common denominator. They were all modern American Liberals.

One of the policemen began his interrogation by telling me I was not in trouble. “What do you mean I’m not in trouble”, I asked him. “You have a badge and a fucking gun. What do you mean I’m not in trouble?”

Isn’t it time for the offstage chorus to begin chanting “Chilling Effect” and “Slippery Slope”?

A quintessential Dead White European Male, and a combat veteran to boot, wrote a long time ago that

“Free Men Speak With Free Tongues”

Good advice then; better advice now.


CC - SRJW