Yellow Ribbons, Sexual Harassment, Harry Potter

By Scott Norvell

A DJ at a public radio station in Ypsilanti, Mich., was fired for expressing on air his negative opinions about National Public Radio news and for supporting the war in Iraq, reports The Detroit News.

WEMU-FM host Terry Hughes, known on the air as "Thayrone," was fired from the Eastern Michigan University station for mixing personal opinion in with his weekly diet of vintage R&B and soul music.

On his show, among other things, Hughes said the station's fund-raiser had been postponed "because [Bush] has the [guts] to get up to do the right thing after 18 attempts to get everybody to help. ..."

He also complained to his listeners about NPR news. "We know if you want a current assessment of what's going on, you're sure not listening to us," he said on last week's show.

"You'll be over at Fox TV where they're not bending the news. ... It ain't happening on NPR."

Humorless in San Francisco

Talk show host Jay Leno is catching flak from transgender activists for a joke he made that they say objectifies and dehumanizes them, reports PlanetOut.com.

Leno noted in his monologue Tuesday night that a transsexual was recently honored as Woman of the Year in California. He said the California Assembly "awarded a man who had a sex change as its Woman of the Year. When 'he' accepted the award, 'he' said there was a part of 'him' that didn't want to accept it ... but that's gone now."

Vanessa Edwards Foster, director of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, said Leno's remarks "took an historic recognition for a transgender community leader and summarily diminished it with insensitive humor.

"In a country where no positive accomplishments of transgender people are ever reported it's curious that belittling humor of these same people is openly welcomed," she said.

Ribbon Ruckus

Retailers in Burlingame, Calif., who put yellow ribbons on lampposts through town to show support for the troops in Iraq are being told that the ribbons are offensive and should be taken down, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The complaints come from Palo Alto, Calif., resident Seth Yatovitz, who says the war is illegal and the troops over there are criminals.

"I find the yellow ribbons on city property offensive to my senses, as they are posted in support of violators of international law. I do support our troops that are not involved in illegal activity," Yatovitz wrote to the Burlingame City Council in an e-mail.

Yatovitz said if they are not removed he will begin a "Boycott Burlingame" campaign and consider a lawsuit.

Flabbergasted city officials have not decided how to respond just yet.

Sexual Harassment 101

School officials in El Paso, Texas, suspended a 12-year-old boy for sticking his tongue out at a female classmate when she declined his invitation to be his girlfriend, reports the El Paso Times.

School officials said the gesture amounted to sexual harassment and are considering placing Sal Santana II, a student at old Magoffin Middle School, in an alternative school.

"The teacher said he stuck his tongue out and moved it back and forth and waved at her like you were patting someone on the back and that that constitutes sexual harassment," said the boy's father, Salvador Santana. "She said the girl was upset and scared."

Marketplace of Ideas

The dean of Texas A&M University's College of Education says Christians on her faculty who object to a policy statement requiring them to "celebrate and promote" all forms of diversity including homosexuality are being pompous and arrogant, reports the Battalion.

The dean, Jane Conoley, instituted a new policy stating that everyone in the department "celebrates and cherishes GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered] people" and grants homosexuals on the faculty "special access to protection and support." She wanted professors in the department to approve a faculty resolution with similar language.

But several Christian professors balked, saying they should not have to "celebrate and promote" a lifestyle they believe is immoral. The dissenters made their objections known in a letter to the dean.

Some faculty on Conoley's side of the debate accused the signatories of the letter of bigotry and urged the dean to fire them. Conoley refused, but called the letter "rather pompous and arrogant."

Annoying Cops

The chief of police of -- where else? -- San Francisco has forbidden cops from wearing American flags when policing anti-war protesters because the colors make anti-war demonstrators uncomfortable, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Acting Police Chief Alex Fagan issued the edict after seeing officers wearing American flag bandannas while watching over anti-war protesters.

Bonnie Weinstein, co-founder of Bay Area United Against War, said flag-wearing cops "might seem like kind of a threat, like they're saying 'You know what side I'm on.'"

"It's inflammatory, and it's obviously meant to annoy people," she added.

Harry Houha

Some church groups near New Haven, Conn., have asked the school board there to ban the Harry Potter novels from reading lists and school libraries because they promote witchcraft and wizardry, reports the New Haven Register.

Antonio Rivera, who claims to represent several "reformed Protestant" churches in the Fair Haven area, called the Potter books "satanical" and said they encourage children to dabble in potions and spells, counter to Christian teachings.

J.K. Rowling's books are not the first to spark controversy in the school system. In 1995, Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo pulled Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the eighth-grade curriculum at West Hills Middle School after African-American parents and students complained it promoted racism.

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