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TONGUE TIED ARCHIVE
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November 26, 2005Products Designed for Men not Allowed
Nor can we say that men are more interested in sport -- even though it is true
The above little lot of prohibitions arose from a feminist group who sound like a bunch of aggressive lesbians to my mind. Worldwide chocolate vendor Nestle invested its advertising dollars in the assumption that there ARE some ways in which men differ from women and that a greater interest in sport is one of those differences. They of course wanted to sell more chocolate and thought that the well-known feminine love of chocolate was "excluding" (horrors!) men. So they advertised one of their products in a way that was likely to appeal to men -- by associating it with sport.
But then the whiners with nothing better to do started up. Little girls are having their clitorises cut out with bits of broken glass throughout much of the Islamic world and the so-called feminists are worrying about how chocolate is advertised! Media excerpt:
"Confectionery giant Nestle is under fire in Britain over chocolate bar adverts suggesting football is "not for girls". The company is promoting a bar called Footie with wrapper slogans including: "It's definitely not for girls", "no passes to lasses" and "no wenches on the benches". Wrappers also contain an image of a woman holding a handbag framed in a no-entry road sign. The Women's Sports Foundation said such advertising undermined attempts to encourage girls to play more sport and improve fitness levels in teenage girls."
Famous Play from the Shakespearean Era Censored
One of the contemporaries of Shakespeare was Christopher ("Kit") Marlowe. He is sometimes in fact held to be the REAL author of Shakespeare's plays. And, like Shakespeare, he understood people pretty well -- which is why some of his plays are still popular and are still performed. A recent production of one of his plays was altered, however. You'll never guess why: To avoid offending Muslims. Press excerpt:
"The burning of the Koran was "smoothed over", he said, so that it became just the destruction of "a load of books" relating to any culture or religion. That made it more powerful, they claimed. Members of the audience also reported that key references to Muhammad had been dropped, particularly in the passage where Tamburlaine says that he is "not worthy to be worshipped". In the original Marlowe writes that Muhammad "remains in hell"....Charles Nicholl, the author of The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, said it was wrong to tamper with Marlowe because he asked "uncomfortable and confrontational questions - particularly aimed at those that held dogmatic, religious views". He added: "Why should Islam be protected from the questioning gaze of Marlowe? Marlowe stands for provocative questions. This is a bit of an insult to him."
If I were a Christian I think I would suspect that Hell is the present dwelling place of Mohammed too. And if Muslims can burn the world's most burnt book -- the Bible -- why cannot a Westerner burn a Koran? I personally think that the unending murderous deeds that are done in the name of Islam and with the apparent approval of much of the Islamic world should cause Islam to be treated with LESS respect, not more. So I think we should be listening to Marlowe, not censoring him. It may be worth noting that previous productions of the play have not seen the need to alter the powerful original story.
I wonder when our oppressors will get around to demanding that all copies of Marlowe's play be removed from public libraries?
As Usual, the Kids are All Right; It's the Faculty That Objects
A group of Florida college softball players who dressed us like their friends on the school's basketball team for Halloween will be forced to undergo diversity indoctrination classes because some of them painted their faces black for the stunt, reports the News-Journal.
Members of the Stetson University softball team wore basketball jerseys, painted their skin black and flashed "gangsta" poses in pictures that ended up on the Internet. Each member of the team was dressing like a specific player on the basketball team.
The basketball players being charicatured were tickled about the stunt and even lent the softball players their jerseys for the pictures. "The players felt that the (softball players') intentions were not offensive," said one of the coaches. "Rather, they were elated that people thought enough of them to try to be like them."
But school officials were aghast, calling the pictures offensive, objectionable and sad. Both squads will be required to meet with the Diversity Committee, watch a documentary that addresses blackface and read the book "White Like Me" by Tim Wise.
Reading, Writing and Tired Hippie Politics
Teachers in Madison, Wisc. had their third-graders composing and mailing letters urging a halt to the war in Iraq as part of a civics lesson until school administrators stepped in to put a stop to it, reports the Wisconsin State Journal.
Julie Fitzpatrick, one of the 10 teachers at Allis Elementary School that dreamed up the project, said the assignment was intended to demonstrate "citizen action," a standard part of the district's social studies curriculum.
"We saw peace as a common good," Fitzpatrick said. "We were just advocating that people keep working toward peace."
But following complaints from some parents, school officials pointed out that even in Madison teachers are discouraged from "exploiting the institutional privileges of their professional positions to promote candidates or parties and activities."
It's Come to This
WBBH-TV says an attorney with a school board in Collier County, Florida felt compelled to write a memo to board members telling them that it was okay for teachers and staff to talk about Thanksgiving and other holidays.
There was actually concern in some circles that the religious roots of the holiday, however tenuous, would make it off-limits for discussion in schools. School officials reminded staffers that Thanksgiving is more a secular holiday than a religious one, even if early celebrations involved saying prayers and giving thanks to a deity.
Firefighters' Lament
Town councillors in Brunswick, Maine rejected complaints about use of the word God and what was described as sexist language in a 1959-era poem on a memorial to fallen firefighters to be erected in town, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Firefighters raised $12,000 for the memorial, which will be erected next spring adjacent to a new fire station in town. They wanted to have the poem "A Fireman's Prayer" inscribed on it.
Some members of the council initially balked, however, suggesting that the last few lines of the poem, which ask God to protect the firefighter's children and wife if he were to die in the line of duty, were sexist and could be seen as an illegal government endorsement of religion.
Bird-Brained
A feminist in New Zealand has her knickers in a knot over a public transport ad campaign in Auckland that features an avian mascot riding a bus in search of some "nice birds," reports the New Zealand Herald.
Sandra Coney complained at a recent meeting of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority that the ad was a sexist relic of another era. "Advertising shouldn't make jokes at the expense of women. I imagine a lot of women use buses," she said.
In the ad, Maxx, a cartoon pukeko, tells radio listeners that he is riding a new express service after hearing "there were some nice birds" in Auckland.
Update
The Ottawa Sun says Canada's Department of Public Works has rescinded a "special order" that no white males be hired following outcry from the general public.
"While the measure proposed last week was short-term and not intended to be a ban on hiring individuals from non-designated groups, it could well lead to this impression," Deputy minister David Marshall said in a new memo. "As such, I am rescinding this measure immediately. Please accept my apologies."
"White Settlement" follow-up
The name of the small Texan town of "White Settlement" was seen by its Mayor and councillors as problematic so they had a vote designed to change the name of the town to "West Settlement". The voters rejected the proposal by a big majority. But some of the inhabitants are so annoyed that the question was even put that they now want to sack the mayor and his cronies over it! Press excerpt:"Eighteen people bent on overthrowing the government of White Settlement met Saturday night in a makeshift war room at Best Western Fort Worth Inn and Suites. Two weeks after voters resoundingly defeated a measure that would have changed the city's name, the group agreed to devote its time and effort to a new election -- one to recall the mayor and one City Council member of this small suburb west of Fort Worth.... Although some business experts supported the name change and the proposal attracted national attention, many residents were outraged at the suggestion that outsiders might consider the city's name racist. The city was named after the historical location of an Anglo settlement amid Indian settlements in the mid-1800s. Residents turned out in record numbers to overwhelmingly reject the proposed name of West Settlement."It's about time people were called to account for false accusations of racism.
Comments? Email John Ray
Hero of the Day
India's NewKerala.com profiles a Pujabi convert to Christianity in the UK's Midlands who is campaigning to step back from political correctness and restore the celebration of Christmas.
For years, Wolverhampton has heralded Christmas by blaring the word "Welcome" in festive, holiday lights over the town.
But councilor Elias Mattu, a Punjabi councillor and Christian convert, campaigned to use the dreaded C-word in the publicly-funded light display once again. Thanks to his efforts, the words 'Happy Christmas' are being used once again.
"Some officials seemed to think that the word Christmas might offend some minorities. But I pointed out that in India we have more than 500 religions and we have no problem getting on with minorities," Mattu said. "I don't know of a single minority in Britain which is offended by the mention of Christmas. "Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus I've spoken to here all join in with it. It is patronising to suggest they're offended. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and by removing the word Christmas from the lights I think it erodes Christian values."
Zero of the Day
San Fran's resident atheist muckracker Michael Newdow has a new target in his campaign to remove all vestiges of the almighty from public view -- the phrase "In God we Trust" on American coins and currency, reports Fox News.
Newdow has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the language violates the rights of atheists.
"I'm a minister of the First Amendmist Church of True Science and I can't raise funds or anything else because all the coins say that we believe in God, and that's completely against our principals," he said.
"In God We Trust" is America's official motto, first appearing on a two-cent coin in 1864. In 1955, Congress mandated that the phrase appear on all paper money.
Swedes Being Silly
The Swedish government is taking aim at online genealogical forums in that country, reports This is Sweden, claiming that the posting of racial or ethnic information about ancestors is a violation of the country's privacy laws and must be stopped.
In a letter to the Swedish Genealogical Societites, The Board of Data Inspection said details about people's ethnicity must be removed from their web site unless all living descendants of that person have given their consent.
"Swedes are a multicultural people and we have had immigrants through the ages," the group's chairman, Ted Rosvall, wrote in response on the society;s website. "There are Jewish, Romany and Sami ancestors but if the DI decision stands then we will only be able to discuss white, arian ancestors on the forum. I call that reverse racism."
(Thanks Israel!)
Mask-less Ball?
Britain's Royal Opera House will no longer tint the skin of caucasian actors playing the roles of dark-skinned character, reports the AP, because to do so is "racially insensitive."
When rehearsing its latest production, "Un Ballo in Maschera" ("A Masked Ball"), the players did so in blackface. But in opening night performance, the makeup was absent.
Royal Opera House spokesman Christopher Millard said" "We had tried various means to see if there was a way in which we could resolve the issue of whether a white actor should be blacked up and decided we should cut it ... It doesn't work. It's racially insensitive."
Heh
Efforts by Amnesty International to campaign against the death penalty at Seattle University have run afoul of the diversity police on campus, according to the Spectator.
Amnesty put up hangman's nooses around campus to mark the beginning of Death Penalty Awareness Week, only to see them taken down by police within minutes.
The intention was to let people know that Washington state still allows hanging as a form of capital punishment, but Time Wilson, the director for student affairs, said the symbol was problemmatic.
"People could be offended by such a powerful symbol," he said.
Racism in Canada
Canada's department of public works has announced that it will stop hiring white people until the spring of 2006 in an effort to address the under-representation of minorities in the workforce, reports the Ottawa Sun.
David Marshall, Deputy Minister of Public Works Canada, put out a memo Friday detailing the department's "special measure." All outside applicants for work, the memo said, must be women, visible minorities, aboriginals or people with disabilities.
But the policy, he somehow concluded, "does not undermine the competition process for hiring personnel. It's still based on merit principle."
PC-Speak Award
The U.S. Global Language Monitor's list of the most politically correct language of the year is out, and the BBC's use of the phrase "misguided criminals" to refer to the July terrorists wins the rasberry of the year.
Among the other examples of PC-speak cited by the group are replacing the term "brainstorming" with "thought shower" in order to avoid offending people with brain disorders and "deferred success" to replace "failure" to avoid making students feel bad about themselves.
Also on the list (most will be familiar to regular readers): "womyn" for women in order to distance the word from men, replacing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" with "God Rest Ye Merry Persons" and Australia's failed attempt to ban use the word "mate" to address members of parliament.
Christmas Procession "Dangerous"
More namby-pamby behavior from Britain:"People taking part in a traditional Christmas procession have been ordered to replace their flaming torches with glow sticks because of health and safety concerns. The procession in Looe, Cornwall, attracts 500 people and has taken place for 20 years without an injury. But the harbour authorities and the council have decided the risk of fire was too great and feared being sued if there were an accident. The council has therefore spent 350 pounds on 500 glow sticks, which will be carried through the town on Dec 15".What the @#$%& is a "Glow stick" anyway? I don't think there is much doubt that taking the fun out of Christmas is the real aim of the excercise.
Blind People Offended by a Picture they cannot See?
Apparently it can happen in Britain:"An insurance firm has been ordered to pull an "insensitive" magazine advert over fears it could offend blind people. Watchdogs upheld a complaint from a reader about the advert - which appeared to show a blind man riding a motorbike - because it "seemed to equate stupidity" with being blind.... The ad for Bristol-based eBike Insurance was headlined "There are none so blind as those who will not e" and text stated "go ebike insurance online - where you're the one in control". The ad also showed a picture of a man wearing a motor cycle helmet, but only the whites of his eyes could be seen and he appeared to have no irises or pupils. A reader objected that the ad was offensive, because it was in bad taste and insensitive to the blind and those with visual impairments.Some do-gooders may have had nothing better to do than raise complaints but the blind could certainly not be offended -- unless one of the "sensitive" people concerned described it to them -- and what truly "sensitive" person would do that?
