The Top Politically inCorrect Words and Phrases for 2005:

1. Misguided Criminals for Terrorist: The BBC attempts to strip away all emotion by using what it considers neutral descriptions when describing those who carried out the bombings in the London Tubes. The rub: the professed intent of these misguided criminals was to kill, without warning, as many innocents as possible (which is the common definition for the term, terrorist). The phrase was selected by GLM as but one example in line with the published BBC Editorial Guidelines where it is noted that the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than aid to understanding. Suggested alternatives include: bomber, attacker, insurgent and militant, among others. These and similar words are deemed to have no emotional or value judgments. However, the word Terrorist can be used as long as it appears in a quoted attribution.

2. Intrinsic Aptitude (or lack thereof) was a suggestion by Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, on why women might be underrepresented in engineering and science. He was nearly fired for his speculation.

3. Thought Shower or Word Shower substituting for brainstorm so as not to offend those with brain disorders such as epilepsy.

4. Scum or "la racaille" for French citizens of Moslem and North African descent inhabiting the projects ringing French Cities. France's Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, used this most Politically inCorrect (and reprehensible) label to describe the young rioters (and by extension all the inhabitants of the Cites).

5. Out of the Mainstream when used to describe the ideology of any political opponent: At one time slavery was in the mainstream, thinking the sun orbited the earth was in the mainstream, having your blood sucked out by leeches was in the mainstream. What's so great about being in the mainstream?

6. Deferred Success as a euphemism for the word fail. The Professional Association of Teachers in the UK considered a proposal to replace any notion of failure with deferred success in order to bolster students self-esteem.

7. Womyn for Women to distance the word from man. This in spite of the fact that the term man in the original Indo-European is gender neutral (as have been its successors for some 5,000 years).

8. C.E. for A.D.: Is the current year A.D. 2005 or 2005 C.E.? There is a movement to strip A.D. (Latin for "In the Year of the Lord") from the year designation used in the West since the 5th century and replace it with the supposedly more neutral Common Era (though the zero reference year for the beginning of the Common Era remains the year of Christ's birth).

9. "God Rest Ye Merry Persons" for "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen": A Christmas, eh, Holiday, carol with 500 years of history is not enough to sway the Anglican Church at Cardiff Cathedral (Wales) from changing the original lyrics. There are those who suggest going one step further: "Higher Power Rest Ye Merry Persons".

10. Banning the word Mate: the Department of Parliamentary Services in Canberra issued a general warning to its security staff banning the use of the word 'mate' in dealings t with both members of Parliament and the public. What next? banning 'no worries' so as not to offend the worried, or banning 'Down Under' So as not to offend those of us who live in the "Up Over".

The link to the article.

I saw two more movies this week.

Chronicles of Narnia was great! It's fun to see a book you've read come to life on screen. The film pretty much stuck to the plot of the book like the first Harry Potter movie. I loved Aslan. Is he symbolic of JC? Who knows ... if you're JC-inclined, everything will remind you of him. Heck, I saw "Field of Dreams" and I thought the line "If you build it, he will come" was all about JC. The four child actors were great. The British film industy must be having a field day because of all of these movies with Brit child actors.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was very good as well. It was the first Potter movie where I was really engrossed in the plot. All the actors have grown up, except Daniel Radcliffe it seems. Hermoine looks much as older as does Ron and his brothers. And Neville Longbottom has gotten so tall. This film was much darker which is in keeping with the book. Harry and Ron make perfect goofy awkward teenagers; they are both definitely late bloomers.

Happy New Year's Eve! I'm at home watching tv. Boring huh? I didn't know what the weather was going to be like so I didn't make any plans. Just as well, the storm last night was so intense! I kept waking up every two hours from the noise of the rain hitting my windows.

I had lobster for Christmas so I am repeating that incredibly delicious dinner and having lobster again tonight.

I am watching the news about the flooding in the North Bay. Just last January my friend and I were up there and it's weird to see the places we visited now flooded. I should be grateful I have power. Some people in the city are without power tonight.

Here's a good exercise to do for the new year. Name Your Year. My screenwriting teacher Madeline gave us this exercise and she swears it works.; you have to be careful though. Her mother named 2005 to be year of fun and adventure and she ended up moving to Costa Rica. I named 2006 to be "A year of events happening in my life that will make me delightfully happy". It's vague but it should cover everything I want for myself next year.

I sp0ke to M-Square earlier and he was exhausted. He went to work today and there was so much to do. I miss him but it's probably a good thing I didn't drive down there with the rainy weather. Some of the roads I would have driven back home on have been flooded. I'm going to talk to him later if he doesn't fall asleep first. Business has been slow but it picked these last couple of weeks so the boy is making money, which is always a good thing.

I got my car fixed and everything is alright. The airbag light problem is finally fixed and the car has dried out although it does smell a little mildewy. I'm going to have it detailed next next month.

I went to see the famous prison Alcatraz on Thursday and below are some of my fotos.

A sign at the entrance to the Alcatraz prison.

A pretty plant on the island.

A cell block at Alcatraz; it's very small.