Erasing History...

For more than a century, Negrohead Mountain has towered over the countryside north of Malibu, offering unrivalled views of the Pacific to generations of hikers. But this week, at the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen, the striking landmark's time-honoured name disappeared from local maps.

Oh, well, that'll change everything! Not...

The 2,031ft summit will henceforth be known as Ballard Mountain, a name deemed to be more in keeping with the modern era. The new title honours a blacksmith and former slave called John Ballard, who was among the first men to settle in its foothills in 1880, after fleeing Los Angeles to escape persecution by segregationist police officers.

That's how it works, is it? We change the name of a thing to placate or suck up to some pressure group, and gradually, we change mankind?

Because maybe I'm a little too cynical, but I think I see a whole heap of flaws in that kind of 'thinking'. And I'm not the only one:

After years of blithely ignoring the often unfortunate derivation of many of the nation's place names, America is slowly rebranding its landmarks. And historians fear that the push to replace colourful words or phrases with "acceptable" alternatives is seeing the nation's heritage sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.

Indeed. And for those progressives tempted to wander down the road of this sort of thing over here (and there are some, oh, yes indeed...), just remember the law of unintended consequences:

In San Francisco, the county board of supervisors debated a bizarre-sounding proposal to change the name of the Mount Diablo State Park to Mount Reagan State Park. The move was eventually rejected, but not before a group of right-wing Christian activists had advanced a case to the effect that the park's historic name, which is Spanish for "devil", is profane and highly offensive to religious people.

Heh! You see, when you open that door, there's no shutting it again when your oppoenents think 'Oooh! I'll have some of that..!'

But are there that many names left?

Areas mapped during the gold rush were often given names that reflected the no-nonsense argot of prospectors. Generations of students have giggled at a river in California that enjoys the name Shitbritches Creek. That somewhat lavatorial name has survived, so far. As have a place called Hell in Michigan, an Intercourse in Pennsylvania, and a town called Crappo, in Maryland.

I've a potholder from Intercourse, picked up as a tourist item in a gift shop. I expect a lot of people have similar items from all the other places too.

So, expect a further blow for small shopkeepers trying to stay afloat in the recession. Well done, progressives...