I always thought that old saying that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich was intended as humor.

But Jeff Goldstein's recent post reminded me that there are people in positions of power in modern America who actually think a ham sandwich is a hate crime. Jeff links this story about a student who

placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating. Muslims consider pork unclean and offensive.

The act reminded students of a man who threw a pig's head into a Lewiston mosque last summer.

The school incident is being treated seriously as "a hate incident," Levesque said. Lewiston police are investigating, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is working with the school to create a response plan.

Jeff points out an obvious fact that no one should ever have to point out (and which I've touched on before) -- that these religious prohibitions prohibit eating certain foods, and not being in near them:

Kosher-keeping Jews who've assimilated into public schools have been subjected to sightings of the unholy alliance of meat and cheese, the arrogant parading (by unclean Goyim) of ham sandwiches--even, in some cases, the presence of breakfast sausages!--for what seems like decades.

While my gut reaction is to hope the student's parents sue the school and end up owning it, I think the school has an opportunity to help the immigrant kids learn something about freedom.

I propose that the school promote peace, tolerance and understanding!

With a sensitivity training p-p-p-program to reminding children of the long history of American t-t-t-tolerance of p-p-p-pigs!

I'm tempted to ask why sensitivity only seems to work in one direction, but at this point it seems to be a rhetorical question.