Something Howard posted the other day reminded me of my beef with the ridiculous, not to mention inaccurate, lengths to which political correctness has gone.

**Warning: Rant follows**

For example, we all know that the "proper" term for someone with black skin is African-American. This is patently absurd. Most black people who live in America were born here and have never been within a thousand miles of Africa. On the other hand, Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of John Kerry, is an African-American who happens to be Caucasian. She was born in Mozambique. For another example, take Al Sharpton. His skin is black, but he is a Native American, because he was born in New York.

Another piece of obnoxious illogic is taking person A and calling him a "native" but not calling person B a native just because A's ancestors have been living in the area a lot longer than B's ancestors.

If the illogic wins, I guess I'll have to start calling myself a German-Scotch-Irish-Dutch-English-Native American-American.

A more pernicious practice, in my opinion, is the current habit of going to great lengths to mention a person's skin color when praising any member of a minority for achieving greatness. To some extent, this is unavoidable, especially when talking about civil rights pioneers such as Rosa Parks. However--a typical example that's written by a liberal would say something like, "He was one of the greatest African-American physicians." Skin color has NOTHING to do with whether somebody is a good doctor, but the liberals insist on mentioning it anyway.

And finally, tomorrow is Columbus Day. The PC police ridicule us for observing this holiday. They say that Columbus was a homicidal fanatic, and besides he didn't discover anything anyway. Admittedly, it's true that he technically didn't discover North America--even from Europe, the Vikings got here first, and of course the "natives" got here even sooner. HOWEVER--Columbus deserves the credit because nobody from the other groups bothered to tell anyone else about their find. The "natives" certainly didn't cross the Atlantic--Columbus did.