Saturday, October 22, 2005

Doll Incorrectness

The busybodies of this world have always hated Barbie dolls but now even the language you use to talk about dolls has come under fire -- using some very far-fetched reasoning (if you can call it reasoning). Apparently you can't "adopt" dolls. As the following excerpt notes:

"A popular toy-marketing campaign, in which girls browse through hospital-style nurseries to choose a lifelike doll to "adopt," has come under fire from prominent adoption advocates who say the program - featured at scores of stores nationwide - conveys a harmful notion that adopted children are salable commodities".

Source


So something that appeals to the natural motherly instinct of little girls is now incorrect. Why am I not surprised? Could it be that all political correctness is primarily aimed at upsetting ordinary people rather than helping anybody?




Can you Refer to a Sports Team without Using its Name?

It seems you can in Kansas City -- particularly if the team concerned is the Washington Redskins. The Kansas City "Chiefs" recently had a win over the "Redskins" but the Kansas City Star referred to the losing side only as "the Washington team". That there are all sorts of teams for all sorts of things in Washington did not bother them apparently. The excerpt below explains the reason behind this insulting behavior.

"In a story about the protest, the paper said, "The Star's policy is not to use Washington's team name because it is a racial slur."

And what about the "Chiefs"? The paper wrote that, "the Chiefs were actually named for former Mayor H. Roe Bartle -- known as The Chief -- who was key in getting the team to come to Kansas City in the 1960s."

Source


A racial slur? I thought "Redskins" conveyed an heroic image! Why else would a sports team have adopted it? I don't think they meant to portray themselves as primitive morons, do you? Or is it a slur to portray someone as heroic these days? I guess it is in certain loony Left circles.

I get pretty red in the face myself at times so maybe the Redskins will have to come up with a story that their original coach got red in the face a lot when he was coaching them and so they are really named after him. It would be no sillier than the present farce.

Update

A reader has emailed me with the following sarcastic comment on the explanation given for the name "The Chiefs":

"So I guess the former Mayor was a participant in the sport of primitive archery since that's the arrowhead that's been on the side of the helmet forever".