It is apparently quite common for school districts to request that standardized tests not include certain words that students might find offensive. But New York City’s list of some 50 banned test topics is twice as long as national sensitivity lists, and stands out as “a bizarre case of political correctness run wild,“ says Yoav Gonen in the New York Post. 

Here, a look at some of the blacklisted topics, and why they might have been deemed problematic:

1. Birthdays
Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays

2. Dinosaurs
Some students don’t believe in evolution

3. Halloween
Suggests paganism

4. Religious holidays and festivals
Could offend students who don’t celebrate one or more of the holidays

5. TV, celebrities, and video games
To “avoid giving offense or disadvantage any test takers by privileging prior knowledge” like pop culture, Robert Pondiscio at the Core Knowledge Foundation tells the New York Post.

6. Computers in the home
Not all students have computers at home 

“Too averse to risk
To chance the lottery, yet
Steps into traffic.”

“A sudden car door
Cyclist’s story rewritten
Fractured narrative.”

New York City is using poetry to urge motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians to think about safety. City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan unveiled the new Curbside Haiku campaign this week, saying the city is “putting poetry into motion with public art to make New York City’s streets even safer.”

nycdigital:

Mayor Bloomberg receives award for marriage equality advocacy at Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.

journalofajournalist:

Kitchen at Occupy Wall Street (by nealnyc)

(via newsweek)

What’s going on here?

inothernews:

Flatiron. Manhattan.