judging, as it relates to 'fair and balanced'

My friends are arguing.  Well, one is, the other is just stating his opinion.  But that’s ok, we’re friends.

Sparked by an email today from our friend in the Midwest (where we are all from), the diatribe ensues with information reported on Fox News that Elliot Borsten of the Office for Civil Rights wrote a memo suggesting that ‘citizen’ and brown-bag’  no longer be used by employees of OCR. 

“You guyz don’t live in a vacuum, c’mon.  Seattle is banning these words.  I heard it on Fox News.”

Here’s part of the dialog from KOMO News:

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'" Bronstein wrote.

The Office of Civil Rights says Seattle serves all residents, whether they're United States citizens or not.

And while city leaders publicize "brown bag" lunch meetings as a way to designate a bring-your-own lunchtime event, the term has a sordid history.

"It used to be a way people could judge skin color," Bronstein said in a phone interview.

Does the public find it offensive? Most people agree it's not.

But the City of Seattle isn't alone. State lawmakers have voted to remove gender specific words in official records.

Freshman are now "first-years," journeymen are "journey-level," and penmanship is simply "handwriting."

To offend or not to offend, turns out to be a very sensitive question.

I was going to join in on ‘the argument’, but since I’m having a bout with diarrhea (excuse me!  Insensitive word)  A bout with gastronomical distress today, I decided to write this and piss off a wider swath of people. 

In fact, I don’t plan on making an argument at all.  One of the things I have learned is to not have an argument, or even civilized (oops, offending word) discussion with those who solely rely on Fox News for their information.  It is a useless endeavor.  You see, Fox News even has it RIGHT UP THAR ON THEIR LOGO that they are ‘Fair and Balanced’.  I don’t see other news agencies doing that.  If you in fact were fair and balanced, why would you have to proclaim it so?  Unless you have a high number of cretin followers who need this reassurance.

My own family listens to Fox News in Salina, Kansas.  It is the gospel and to go against is heresy.  (That means committing a very bad thing, for my Kansas readers)

So, the argument is terminated now by a future period of mutual hate, after which we will all be friends again.

It leads me to remember the years of brouhaha over calling it “Holidays” in lieu of “Christmas”, which is what it is.   More and more people are coming back to using “Christmas”, and I think that’s nice.

I believe that “citizen” and “brown bag” will follow a similar fate, and those who think these things up will all have gone on to be Congressmen, Congress people

Happy Hanukkah!

It’s always something…