I arrived late on this thread and didn't post, since most of what I felt was being mirrored by many others. Two recent posts, make me want to add my two cents.
Dear wwh, Thanks very much for that Newman insight. Something that is worthy of a New Year resolution for me for sure!
As for the other, I think that in the main the guys who are offended by this are the ones who were told that they ought to be offended.
Dear FF, That seems like an imperialistic stance. Cant remember who quoted it before, but I think it was Jackie who wrote, 'history is usually recorded by the victors, not by the vanquished'. That statement is very telling. For every person, who feels offended by a particular expression, there is usually valid historical evidence of oppression and or discrimination, most of which is relatively recent and is thus not so easy to forget and move on from. History is not abstract and disembodied; it is made by and of people and so most times, there will also be some direct family record of some such event that serves to further entrench the feeling. Also, even if a lot of things have changed in the last fifty years of the past century, many of the 'reasons', why the problems started in the first place still exist. The mirror of our brave new world still faithfully reflects the colour of one's skin, and cannot change the culture of a people, cannot change the religious sects that one is born into. These very causal factors for much conflict, serve as living memories and insenstive linguistic usage, effortlessly flips open the Pandora. Many wounds relating to race and culture are still raw. In the time frame of history, most of the demands on PC consciousness, are with reference to relatively recent happenings. All it takes, is for us to live and let live, to let cultures and civilisations co-exist and to assimilate as much as we can and not be dismissive of the ones that we dont agree with. Having said that, there is certainly a strong and valid case to be made for the denouncement of eruptions of righteous indignation based on supposed and imagined insult.
Here's to a Great New Year then, and may more kindness, humanity and peace prevail.

Edit: Dear Mr. Eliot, please accept my apologies; returned in a rush to reassure, before I got any foot stamping disapproval for the title, that the only reason it isn't duly registered is because I still haven't figured out how to do the 'circley R' thing.