Political Correctness Soars To New Heights

For those of you who have been incommunicado (i.e living in a cave, stranded on a desert aisle, or just coming out of a coma) for the last month or so you may have missed the "scandal" resulting from a headline run by ESPN for a story regarding The New York Knicks and their superstar Jeremy Lin (an American-Asian).

Here's the story in a nutshell. ESPN editor Anthony Federico wrote an article featuring the headline

"Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin's 9 turnovers cost Knicks..."

The headline, which ran on the mobile version of ESPN's website, was yanked after 35 minutes, and ESPN  fired Federico immediately thereafter. The sports news giant also doled out a 30-day suspension to anchor Max Bretos, who had used the same racially insensitive phrase. Federico apologized on the air for his "honest mistake," saying he wasn't trying to be "cute or punny," and had used the same phrase "at least 100 times"  previously in headlines, and simply didn't notice that "chink" is a racial slur for Chinese people. In fact a review of past ESPN shows the phrase being used over 3000 times by different individuals in different circumstances! Lin accepted the apology.

Was it a honest mistake or intentional? Who knows, either way it is over with Federico now out of a job and Lin having received an apology.  Unfortunately, that does not end the issue for some who feel the need to address it by determining what the "politically correct" guidelines are when airing or publishing any media regarding individuals of Asian descent. Remember, most of us are simply too stupid or possibly just too ignorant to know how to conduct ourselves in public, so thankfully  the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) has drawn up guidelines for the media to follow. Here you go, straight from the AAJA.....
(by the way, the comments in RED are mine, )

Our Government, So right one day, so wrong the next

If you are like me last week was one for celebration. The Conservative government finally made good on their promise to scrap the Long Gun Registry by the passing of Bill C-19, and to say this was long overdue would be an understatement. This legislation when first enacted by the previous Liberal government was promised to make the streets safer and be self-funding, unfortunately like so many promises made by those in power this was a hollow one. Not only were the safety benefits of the program questioned by everyone ( including many in law enforcement) but in short order the program ran up a cost to the Canadian  government of over $1 Billion.... Surprise

Well fortunately after 'only" a billion or so of taxpayer money wasted this program is close to being history. Public Safety Minister Toews stated
“It criminalizes hard-working and law-abiding citizens such as farmers and sport shooters, and it has been a billion-dollar boondoggle left to us by the previous Liberal government.”
(You have that right Vic, good for you)

According to Bill C-19, all data pertaining to non-restricted firearms will be deleted as a measure to protect individual privacy. Unfortunately, once the bill is finally passed into law, Quebec has indicated it will immediately seek an injunction from the courts to halt the destruction of the registry data. Gotta luv Quebec...

Congratulations to Mr Harper and his party for doing the right thing, now hopefully the Liberals in the Senate don't hold up the passing of the bill.

Now, lets look at another effort on the part of the Harper government, one that is not so "right".

You can lead a horse to water, but that doesn't get you a foundation built...

As some of you may recall, in December of 2010 I posted an article about the housing situation on the Attawapiskat First Nation reserve in Ontario and the ongoing political and public outrage calling for the government to fix the problem. My solution was simple, or at least I thought so. Unfortunately, as usual the Canadian government decided against listening to my sage council on the issue and took their own course of action. A course of action that I suspect had far more to do with public relations than actually providing a long term solution to the issue.

The governments solution at the time was the announcement that they would commit to sending 22 modular homes up to the reserve as quickly as they could be built and road conditions would allow. The band committed itself to the responsibility of preparing the lots so that when the homes arrived they could be dropped in place and residents could move in as quickly as possible. A joint effort that would ensure that results were achieved as quickly as possible.

Well the good news as of this week is that the homes building is progressing at a rapid pace, with a good portion of them completed and ready for transport. The bad news is .......

My, how times have certainly changed

This would be hilarious, if only it wasn't factual, when I came upon this I just had to pass it on, I wish I could give credit to someone but I don't know who authored it. If you do, just let me know and I will thank the individual.

By the way, take it as the humor it is intended to be, if you think about it too much you will break into tears.