IT'S ALL ABOUT STYLE: The ombudsman of the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" says the newspaper doesn't use the term "illegal alien" to describe illegal aliens because of a change in the paper's style book:

Among other reasons, the newspaper's style committee decided that the term "alien" was no longer descriptive because by the 1990s it had become more synonymous with creatures from outer space than people in this country who were born somewhere else.

Come on. People know the difference between aliens from outer space and aliens who are here illegally. I guarantee that it was changed as a sop to political agitators in the Atlanta area, which has seen a huge influx of immigrants both legal and illegal in the past 15 years. (That was the reason it was changed at a small paper I worked at several years ago. We had been accused of "stigmatizing" these people.)

These "style changes" aren't always motivated by a desire to help the reader. For example, at the last place I worked it was decided that we were to start capitalizing Black and White in references to a person's race. The reason given? Because "Hispanic" and "Indian" were capitalized, and we had to be consistent. (The only places I've seen this style followed is in far-left academic journals.) Many of us thought capitalizing Black and White just served to overemphasize ethnicity. But that's what multiculturalism is all about, isn't it? For more on politically correct style changes, check out The World's Worst Editing Guide from Arts and Letters Daily.