Making the Term B.C. Politically Correct

Another Rerun because I'm Lazy..

I wrote this back on April 26, 2005, and I found it because someone googled the topic this evening...so here it is in it's entirety:

My head is spinning around…again.

This time it’s over the the Political Correct Police’s efforts to eliminate the terms B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) from textbooks and other reference books…

“ALBANY, N.Y. -- In certain precincts of a world encouraged to embrace differences, Christ is out.

The terms "B.C." and "A.D." increasingly are shunned by certain scholars. Educators and historians say schools from North America to Australia have been changing the terms "Before Christ," or B.C., to "Before Common Era," or B.C.E., and "anno Domini" (Latin for "in the year of the Lord") to "Common Era." In short, they're referred to as B.C.E. and C.E.”

There are clearly a number of people out there that have way to little to do with their time.

The modern calendar works quite well, in my opinion, and just like the government’s force feeding Americans the metric measurement system in the 1970’s, I think that this effort will be doomed to failure. (Being an engineer, I am quite comfortable with the metric system, by the way.)

But there is more…

“The terms B.C. and A.D. have clear Catholic roots. Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot in Rome, devised them as a way to determine the date for Easter for Pope St. John I. The terms were continued under the Gregorian Calendar, created in 1582 under Pope Gregory XIII.

Although most calendars are based on an epoch or person, B.C. and A.D. have always presented a particular problem for historians: There is no year zero; there's a 33-year gap, reflecting the life of Christ, dividing the epochs. Critics say that's additional reason to replace the Christian-based terms.

"When Jews or Muslims have to put Christ in the middle of our calendar ... that's difficult for us," said Steven M. Brown, dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.

The new terms were introduced by academics in the 1990s in public elementary and high school classrooms.”

So they want to replace “Christian based terms in our calendars” and “academics” have already introduced the terms into public elementary schools and high school classrooms?

What I want to know is…

WHO THE HELL APPROVED THIS BRAINSTORM?

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?

What are they teaching your kids in our government schools? I don’t have any kids myself, but this really pisses me off.

Why don’t we just throw out the calendar all together. Let’s toss out the alarm clock while we’re at it.

Let’s just re-number everything as before Clinton (BC) and after Clinton (AC.)

Or how about using the terms before gay marriage (BGM) and after gay marriage (AGM)?

Let’s have a calendar that completely skips the birthdays of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and eliminates Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. There would just be a blank square on the page with no number and no title—just a big smiley face or a picture of a condom.

I know...lets design a clock that runs backwards and only chimes on Martin Luther Kings’ birthday, Earth Day, and Gay Pride Day?

Let’s eliminate the minimum wage and pay everyone $20 an hour to stay home and smoke dope and watch Public Television.

Ah...Ahhhh..AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (New text added for emphasis)

I’ll see y’all, I’m moving to Costa Rica.