. Mark E. Shoulson wrote, > I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I find myself thinking that the > swastika, THE Nazi swastika, right-facing, tilted 45°, proper ratio of > stroke-thickness, the whole deal, should be encoded in Unicode. As a > matter of history: it *is* a symbol of profound significance in the > history of the world.
Indeed it is. Perhaps what is needed is a new combining character. Maybe some kind of "COMBINING REPLACEMENT WHITEWASH CHARACTER" could be proposed. It could be applied by the system wherever appropriate, as deemed by user preferences or regional insistence, in order to obliterate any characters or character strings which might offend. One suggestion for a display glyph would be an ostrich with its head buried. It is said that one who ignores history is doomed to repeat it. Or, we might consider that the same characters used to represent holy books or love poetry can also render 'Mein Kampf'. Ultimately, the ability to freely and openly exchange information and ideas may prove to be harmful only to despots and the like. Best regards, James Kass .
