At first glance I read "Crimson Dhimmis" (I have to have my glasses checked).

A idea of blood-colored dhimmis would surely be too much for Islamic sensibilities: najis (unclean) on two counts, on par with 'Crimson Hogs' and 'Crimson Dogs'.

Or how about the 'Champlain Valley High Hand Shakers'?

'Come on Champlain shake their hands,
If you can't do it,
No one can...'

Posted by: JTF at June 14, 2005 4:44 PM

Isn't Batman known as The Caped Crusader? ;-)

Posted by: jimbabwe at June 14, 2005 5:21 PM

Maybe they were just ashamed of the poor boxoffice that the 'crusader' flick "KingDumb of Heaven" did?

We should help them in their selection of a new name, of course.

"The Champlain Pussyfooters" would be my primary entry. (Their team mascot could be a big-pawed, de-clawed kitten, ready to always roll over.)

Or, if that offended someone from PETA, The "Wavin' Whiteflags". (Sort of a square KKK outfit that does nothing but flutter.)

Glad to see our educators have nothing better to think about.

('Wouldn't want them to teach about the Crusades, now would we?)

Posted by: BigSleep at June 14, 2005 6:19 PM

One stupid movie and the PC brains of 'educators' are 'Kentucky fried ..."

OT, but check this out:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1118700615668&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

Posted by: Terminator at June 14, 2005 6:48 PM

Who said you should go through life without being offended? If you are an immigrant, and we offend you....there is the door. There are planes leaving all day long for islamic paradises.(is that the plural of paradise?)

Posted by: Carolyn2 at June 14, 2005 6:54 PM

I am sick to death of our western societies cowtowing to muslims.This must stop If the muslims don't like our culture, they can f***ing well leave!

Posted by: Ummagumma at June 14, 2005 6:56 PM

Before any other Crusaders in the Western world jump on board this ridiculous juggernaut a few home truths need to be stated.

1) Neither Sir Walter Scott, with The Talisman, wherein he depicted an entirely noble (and fictititous Saladin), nor Sir Ridley Scott, who in "The Crusades" has done even more violence to the truth, what with his noble Saracens, and beastly Christians, and that absurd interfaith Benetton-ad group of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, the very model, presumably, of what are wonderful new world could look like, if only we could remove those hotheads in Washington who are the mirror-images of Bin Laden and his tiny handful of extremists.

2) The Crusades took place after 400 years of steady Muslim aggression against, and conquest of, entirely inoffensive Christians and Jews in their own lands, who did not attack Muslims, who did not, for the most part, even know that Muslims existed. All of Mesopotamia and Syria, Syria, Judea, Egypt, the rest of North Africa, and Spain had been conquered. There had been mass destruction of Christian sites, and massacres were common (see "Jihad" by Paul Fregosi for some of the more grisly).

3) In the 11th century a series of events, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ordered by the Fatimid Caliph Hakim (in Egypt) in 1009, and continuing right through the century, particularly after the Seljukid Turks took Jerusalem, led to attacks on Christian sites and Christian pilgrims and Christians in the Holy Land, and this in turn, finally triggered what we know as The Crusades.

4) The Crusades, unlike Jihad, were limited in time and space. They were intended to recapture not all of the territories that the Muslims had won, and where they had subjugated Chrristians, but only the Holy Land. They lasted about 200 years.

Once those and other facts, which can be found in the forthcoming book by Robert Spencer are thoroughly understood, and memorized, the rush to jettison the word "Crusades" and polyptotonic variants upon it should end. Let us hope.

And whatever happens, no one should engage in a little nunc pro tunc backdating of "Crusader Rabbit." No, Crusader Rabbit must not be touched.

Posted by: Hugh at June 14, 2005 7:13 PM

How about: The Champlain Valley Union High Muzzies

Posted by: Salami, Salami, Bologna at June 14, 2005 7:23 PM

What's really sickening is, if it weren't for 9/11, we wouldn't be bending over backwards to cater to the whims of hypersensitive Muslims. I guess terrorism works — on some people. Fortunately not on the ones running our country right now.

Posted by: Van Helsing at June 14, 2005 9:33 PM

I think the Vermont Mamluks would be appropriate.
Then one would hear the complaints that infidels were unworthy of using the name of the holy warrioirs.

Posted by: chevalier de st george at June 14, 2005 10:04 PM

Isn't Batman known as The Caped Crusader? ;-)
Posted by: jimbabwe at June 14, 2005 05:21 PM

ROTFL!!!!

Gold Star for you today!!

Wasn't Vermont a blue state???

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN

Posted by: Catherine at June 14, 2005 10:33 PM

There are numerous examples of this kind of P
C nonsense in the UK too. There are continuous attempts to remove the cross but the normal folk who haven't been afflicted by the dysfunctionality of their liberal masters are fighting back. Here are a couple of the more absurd examples - the hot cross bun is a traditional cake eaten at Easter in England. There were attempts to remove the cross from the bun for fear of "offending" Muslims but it failed. In England we have now reclaimed St George's Day (our Patron Saint) and people are celebrating it everywhere, including flying the flag of the red cross on a white background. PCers have tried to ban this but the resistance is too much for them.

Posted by: londongirl at June 15, 2005 4:03 AM

Hi Londongirl, pleased to meet you.

"In England we have now reclaimed St George's Day (our Patron Saint) and people are celebrating it everywhere, including flying the flag of the red cross on a white background. PCers have tried to ban this but the resistance is too much for them."

Haven't we just! And it was made so much harder for the PC brigade to complain when many of the St Georges flags were being sported by tall, well built and athletic Englishmen, who happened to be black or Sikh.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at June 15, 2005 4:30 AM

King laughs: You are all unbelievable! You are now simply making things up so you can huff about your "Dhimmi" crap. From the short article, it seems that the school is changing the name voluntarily without "Playing the dhimmi" to anyone.

The term Crusade is rich in religious undertone and, quite frankly, has no business in a public school. I am a separation of church and state purist.

Posted by: KingTolerance at June 15, 2005 7:22 AM

Batman: I am so ashamed!!! From now on I will be know as the caped secularist politically correct atheist. Take that you not really evil but just misunderstood culturally different law infringement doers!!!

Posted by: obl r us at June 15, 2005 8:25 AM

How about the Champlain Valley Eunuchs as the new mascot? The mascot can sing the Star Spangled Banner in soprano before sporting events!

I wonder how long until the Arkansas Razorbacks are forced to change their mascot because it is offensive to muslims?

Posted by: lafn at June 15, 2005 3:40 PM

King: "The term Crusade is rich in religious undertone and, quite frankly, has no business in a public school. I am a separation of church and state purist."

I'm a consistency purist, and I think it would be more King-like to say that the Crusades actually weren't about religion, rather they were a series of wars fought in the interests of a political tyranny that used a corrupt and radical interpretation of Christianity for their own ends. Just like the modern terror problem is the result of political circumstances, and nothing to do with Islam itself.

I'm also a proponent of a separate church and state, but Crusaders are no longer part of the church, they are part of history. Even though many here would assert that the Crusades were not unprovoked aggression (including me), I think there are few who would hold them as paragons of Christian virtue. They were certainly products of their time: violent, anti-Semitic, motivated often by greed or superstition rather than by a selfless desire to return conquered Muslim lands to Christianity.

I think this renaming thing is wrong-headed, and likely to cause more problems rather than solve them. As far as we can tell, no Muslims (or Jews, who suffered greatly at the hands of the Crusaders) have requested the change. I find this encouraging. It shows that the local minority community (if there is one) is mature enough to see the name as historical, and don't feel the need to, well, start a crusade to change it. The crusades are part of history. The myth of the noble crusader (and the chivalrous Saladin, for that matter) are part of western culture. Let's be grown up enough to recognize that the team mascot is just an icon based on a myth. It's not supposed to be a statement of a particular historical viewpoint on the Crusades. If we want and expect Muslims in the west to integrate into western culture, we can't yank western culture away each time that it comes into contact with Muslims. If Muslims can play for the Crusaders with the same ease that Christians can play for the Saracens, it would be a sign of progress. Better to encourage minority groups to feel part of the future of the west, than victims of its past. To that end, tolerance has to go both ways. As the king of tolerance, I expected you to agree with that.

Posted by: Viking5 at June 15, 2005 4:10 PM

Just so you know,

A Headline: School Changing Nickname, Mascot After Islamic Protest

One Sentence: "It's a symbol of religious oppression," said Martha Bruce, a 17-year-old senior from Williston. "Millions of people were slaughtered."

Posted by: PRCS at June 16, 2005 12:34 PM

#17 applies here.

Communists never went away, they are alive and well and make up the democratic party. These destroyers of decency are thoroughly integrated into our institutions, education, arts, media, and government. They can’t take over by the use of force, that was never their strategy, but they are doing exactly what they said they would, bringing America down from the inside. Islam is just an opportunistic piggybacking parasitic making their inroads on the backs of the communists/liberal democrats.

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Posted by: Cross at June 16, 2005 5:35 PM