Stardate 20020516.1903

(On Screen): A sure sign that a political movement has outlived its usefulness is when it begins to concentrate on trivial things. And a sure sign that a group of legislators have forgotten their jobs is when they listen.

The State of California appears to be long overdue for a housecleaning in its State Assembly. In the midst of problems like the meltdown of our power system, they are concentrating on much more important issues, like establishing a state commission whose job would be to identify and ban names for school sports teams which might be offensive to some people. They'll begin with all names which are any reference to Native Americans, and then add other names as they are brought up.

The idea is that no sports team should have any name which might conceivably be offensive to anyone, or which might imply some sort of racial stereotype, or might condone things which others don't like. The commission will have a budget of a million dollars per year. After all, it's not like the State of California has anything else to spend its money on, is it?

Of course, we should change the name of the Green Bay Packers, because it refers to meat packing (once a big business in that part of Wisconsin). PETA doesn't like it; consumption of meat is offensive.

Considering that "cowboy" has recently been used by the Europeans as an epithet applied to our President, I suspect that Dallas should now change the name of its football team.

Buffalo's team is named the "Bills"; what of all the men out there named "Bill"? Doesn't that demean them? Besides which, it's a reference to Buffalo Bill, notorious butcher of American Bison in the 19th century. Clearly he's a war criminal (attempting to cause genocide among the Natives of the plains by eliminating their food supply) and we can't memorialize that. Gotta change it.

Detroit's Lions have got to be renamed. Lions were, after all, a favorite way of executing Christians in the Roman Arena; seeing Detroit's team lionized every Sunday in the fall must bring back terrible memories to some Christians, somewhere. Gotta change it.

I, as an atheist, find the Anaheim Angels offensive. Who are they to try to impose their religion on me? I say there's no such thing as an angel; every time they play it's a slap in the face of my religion. And while we're at it, what's with the New Orleans Saints? Gotta change it.

I, as an American, don't understand why it is that Kansas City has a team called the Royals. Don't they know that we fought a revolution to free ourselves from European monarchy? By damn, they're slapping every American in the face every time they play. Gotta change it.

Hey, do the people of Massachusetts think they have a monopoly on patriotism? Who the hell are they to name their football team the "Patriots"? We're patriots here in California, too. Gotta change it.

And let's not even think about what good Southerners think of the New York Yankees; brings back images of the Civil War, doesn't it? Gotta change it.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could all take a deep breath and try to put things in perspective. Maybe, just maybe, we have to go through life accepting small slights in the name of freedom and diversity. Maybe, just maybe, we all ought to be a little less sensitive about stuff like this. A bit more laughter, a bit less righteous indignation. A bit more benefit-of-the-doubt, a bit less cult-of-the-victim. A bit more tolerance, a bit less political correctness.

Isn't that a strange concept? Let's start now.