Intolerable
By the
time you read this, the author may be out of a job.
You see,
I’m writing this while wearing an Atlanta Braves cap. And
not just any cap. One with the smiling Indian logo.
Now, you
may say, this cap might be in poor taste, but surely that’s
not illegal in the United States.
If it were, we’d need to shut down Ocean City, and probably
just about the entire Atlantic coastline, every summer. But
there are folks out there threatening broadcasters over what
some consider an offensive nickname: the Washington Redskins.
John Banzhaf,
a law professor at George Washington University, sent registered
letters “styled as a legal notice” to four D.C. area television
stations warning them to limit their use of the term Redskins
“or risk a legal challenge to their broadcasting licenses.”
Banzhaf’s
action followed an appellate court ruling that will allow
Native American groups to challenge the Washington football
team’s trademark on “Redskins.” The federal Trademark Trial
and Appeal Board has already ruled that the word Redskins
is racially derogatory and offensive.
Of course,
what’s offensive is in the eye of the beholder. What bothers
Banzhaf and some Native Americans doesn’t bother other people.
If he doesn’t like the name “Redskins,” he doesn’t have to
buy their “offensive” merchandise. He doesn’t have to attend
their games or watch them on TV. And he’s always free to root
for the Cowboys.
But that’s
what’s frightening. This potential legal action isn’t aimed
at the people Banzhaf claims are offending him. Rather, he’s
challenging others, warning them that if they even dare to
speak a word he finds offensive, he’ll attempt to put them
out of business. And he’s not subtle about his threat. “Broadcast
stations whose licenses are challenged often face a major
and very expensive legal battle,” he notes in a news release.
It’s all
part of the new political correctness. In the U.S.
today, intolerance is the new tolerance. When someone speaks
of the importance of tolerance he doesn’t mean, “I respect
your right to say or do something, even if I disagree.” What
he means is “If I’m offended by what you say or do, I’ll take
legal action to stop you.” And, in the Redskins case, anyone
who even speaks your name.
Rich Tucker
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/richtucker/rt20050730.shtml
--
Summer:
Raunchy Remake Season
The easiest
way to get a "green light" for a movie in Hollywood
these days is to steal someone else's old idea. That old idea,
however, must be updated. With Hollywood there's just one
formula: cinematic remakes of vintage TV shows or old movies
are almost always made sleazier —- more sexual, more violent, more obscene and
more cynical — than the original.
According
to Hollywood's calculations, today's young audiences will
be disappointed if there isn't an over-the-top raunchy moment
every two minutes or so. This is the mandate to be "modern,"
to avoid the stench of appearing —
watch Hollywood squirm here —
wholesome.
The latest
controversy concerns the forthcoming movie remake of "The
Dukes of Hazzard." Actor Ben Jones, who played "Cooter"
in the original TV show, and was last famous for serving three
terms in Congress as a Democrat from Georgia, has drawn a
crowd of media by urging parents not to let their children
see the new "Dukes" movie.
In a letter
to fans on his website, Jones says he has not seen the
film, but has read the script and talked to people on the
set. He stresses: "Frankly, I think the whole project
shows an arrogant disrespect for our show, for our cast, for
America's families,
and for the sensibilities of the heartland of our country."
Brent
Bozell
Parents Television Council
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20050729.shtml
--
‘Til Whatever
"In some weddings, ' 'til death do us part' is going the way of 'to honor
and obey' — that is, out the window.
"Vows like 'For as long as we continue to love each other,' 'For as long
as our love shall last' and 'Until our time together is over'
are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow
— a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe
for failure.
"'We're hearing that a lot — "as long as our love shall last,"
I personally think it's quite a statement on today's times
— people know the odds of divorce,' said New Jersey wedding
expert Sharon Naylor, author of 'Your Special Wedding Vows,'
who adds that the rephrasing is also part of a more general
trend toward personalizing vows."
Jennifer D’Angelo
www.foxnews.com
--
PC Faith
"It's not that political correctness has gone away; it's that it has become
such a fixture of university life that one hardly notices
it any longer. People have grown acclimated to it. It seems
normal to them that certain opinions are not allowed to be
expressed, and that if they are, the offender is shunned from
respectable society until he has shown adequate contrition.
When some poor soul is so unfortunate as to transgress the
boundaries of allowable opinion, the ceremony of expiation
he inevitably undergoes — consisting of apologies, followed by various forms of 'outreach' to the offended
groups — is so eerily similar from one person to the next it's as if they're all reading
from the same liturgical book.
"It's not a coincidence that religious language — contrition, expiation, liturgical
— seems necessary in order to describe this phenomenon. ...
"I don't want to go to a foolish extreme and say that a decent education
in at least some disciplines is completely impossible in the
present environment, bad though it is. I learned a lot in
college and graduate school and had the opportunity to study
with some truly extraordinary scholars.
"Still, the fact remains that an educated person in our day has to be in
large measure an autodidact."
Historian Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20050726-110120-1470r.htm
