Is it an insult to be called a Jew?

My friend (Jewish) thinks it might be. She thinks "Jewish" is more proper. I think political correctness has muddled her brain. She also thinks that Barack Obama is going to appoint the right people to office when he becomes president and they will do what he tells them to and everything will be hunky-dory, so there are definitely some synapses that are not firing.

I don't think it is an insult. Hymie is an insult. Kike is an insult. Dirty Jew is an insult. Jew is a description. I am a Jew, and I don't mind being called that.

Do Arabs mind being called Arabs? Do Muslims mind being called Muslims? How about Christians? Would they prefer to be called Christianish? Jewish is an adjective. Jew is a noun. If you don't call a Jew a Jew, what do you call him? A filthy Zionist pig?

Then there's oriental. That's a big no-no. Since oriental refers to a direction on the map, I don't see the problem. Oriental is a good word for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. persons. It excludes people like Indians and Pakistanis. The term Asian describes too many people--all those Chinese, plus India, and Japan, etc.. It covers half the world.

Negro long ago bit the dust, linguistically. Calling someone colored is a worse sin than calling him a serial rapist. I'm surprised the N double A CP doesn't change its name to the N quadruple A P, but I guess they've got a lot of stationery left with the old name.

To change the topic to another linguistic problem: President Bush says that Russia's invasion of Georgia is unacceptable. Iran having their very own nukes is unacceptable. North Korea's possession of nukes must be acceptable, though, because they've got them and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, except look down our noses in disapproval.

I find unacceptable--well, not acceptable. It's not a strong enough word, especially since we are not doing a damn thing about these things except to suck them up. Unacceptable is eating mashed potatoes with your fingers, or not writing your aunt a thank-you letter. Iran, Russia, and North Korea are doing as they please and thumbing their noses at us.

The word for such actions is deplorable.