The first time I ran into political correctness was quite different. I was working with a group of disabled people in a series of online projects. I was also a special ed teacher and leading the way by having my students online back in the 80's before the web had been invented or the Internet had become widely known. A lot of the discussion I was in were with disabled people, especially those who were visually impaired all the way to totally blind. They were toying with how to more respectfully address themselves, and if I used the term "blind person" I was told it was politically incorrect - I must use the wordier "person with blindness", and so forth. In later years, I joined a group that was supposed to be supporting the use of the web for disabled people. It was mostly made up of "people with blindness" and everything had to be said oh, so correctly to them. I was upset because they were developing "guidelines" on how to make web pages and were trying to get rid of all or most of the graphics. Well, the disabled kids I'd worked with were the learning disabled and mildly retarded. Guess what they needed most? The pictures! And the videos, and the animations - all the stuff that the "persons with blindness" didn't want to have to stumble over on the web. The very stuff that sighted people would say about blind users of the Internet (if they can't see, how can they use a computer anyway), were being said about the group I championed (if they are retarded or ld they can't use computers anyway), even tho I had successfully used computer, even before graphics, with these students, and pointed out how much more they could get with the so-called "bells and whistles" which the group wanted totally banned. Well, I spent two years being told regularly that I was "politcally incorrect" for having espoused the needs of the "wrong" group of disabled folks in a committee committed to making the web "assessable" to the "disabled". I finally decided there were more fish to fry, and resigned the committee. Since then, the idea of having "guidelines" for the "disabled" on the web has gone down the politically correct sewer. I hear nothing more about it. Anne Pemberton [log in to unmask] http://www.erols.com/apembert http://www.educationalsynthesis.org