The writer of the email I discussed about Chile and 9/11 is quite upset with me for thinking I know his motives. He says I don't own "the memory of the WTC" and the penis envy line was a new low. We aim for excellence.

But the claim I found most odd was his claim that I think I " know my mind and purposes better than I do". What is the entire debate over speech codes than this, anyway? People use words that offends other groups, even as illustrations. The words we use are always judged by the listener, say the PC police, and those that offend even a small minority should be stricken from, say, hockey sweaters. Well, pal, the overthrow of Allende is not another 9/11, not even "ironically". It's not another Pearl Harbor. It's not another Battle of Little Big Horn, Battle of the Bulge or Waterloo. It's a historical event, and it's sufficiently different that using the date for advertising is at least misleading. To some, conflating WTC with the overthrow of a communist who was leading his country to ruin is more than misleading.