I try not to get too wound up about political correctness. As a general rule, it’s best to make fun of the that crowd, which is why I have shared PC versions of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper.
Every so often, though, I come across a story that is so absurd that it demands attention. Some bureaucrats in Utah, for instance, have decided that it would be inappropriate to use cougars as a school mascot. I’m not joking. Here’s an excerpt.
One Utah school district believes a cougar mascot would be insensitive to women. The Canyons School District overrode the students top choice of a cougar mascot for their high school that is to be completed in 2013. Would-be Corner Canyon High School students chose the Cougars as their mascot — a name principal Mary Bailey said carries an ugly connotation that is disrespectful to women.
My first though was to wonder whether these morons will now assert that Brigham Young University has to change the name of its football team. After all, the BYU Cougars could send the wrong message about inter-generational relationships.
My second thought was to wonder why “cougar” is a disrespectful term. I don’t pretend to know what women think, regardless of their age, but I’m guessing that women in the relevant age ranges would be at least somewhat flattered that young guys find them sexually appealing.
I suppose this is a rather benign form of political correctness, sort of on the same level as the Senate Subcommittee that investigated whether it was insensitive to give Osama bin Laden the code name Geronimo, or the Canadian soccer league that decided that teams with too many goals would lose games.
If we’re going to get upset about PC nonsense, it should be because of actions that actually cause damage to others, such as the school in Florida that suspended a little kid for two years because of a toy gun, or the San Francisco politician who pushed a ban on toys in Happy Meals.
