A 14-year-old Canadian girl who said her sense of team spirit was diminished when she was forced to start using a separate locker room from her boy teammates has successfully challenged the rule, reports CTV.
The Human Rights Commission of News Brunswick ruled that Brigette LeBlanc's rights were violated when she was forced to use a separate changing room. The ruling means that coed hockey team players can't be segregated, but includes the caveat that boys must wear shorts at all times and girls must wear shorts and T-shirts.
While she didn't mind at first, LeBlanc said she later came to realize that she missed the camaraderie of the locker room and also important coaching tips.
What About the Animals?
The Associated Press reports that a Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal to give pets human names because it might make kids feel bad.
Federal congressman Reinaldo Santos de Silva proposed the law after psychologists suggested that children may get depressed when they learn they share their first name with someone's pet.
If the law is passed, pet stores and veterinary clinics would be required to display a sign noting the prohibition of human first names for pets. Brazilians who break the law would be subject to fines or community service.
Saints Alive
A Church of England school in London has been told that a new school it is helping to build and manage cannot carry the name of a Christian saint because it might offend people of other faiths, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The scrap is over the name of a high school to be built in Islington. Local officials want to absorb the existing St. Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School into a new City Academy, but don’t want to keep the name of the old school on the new one.
The church, which is contributing two million pounds toward the new facilities, would rather keep the existing name, which has stood since 1710.
Mission Creep
A Canadian woman who claimed that her boss’s use of the term "kemosabe" in reference to her and others was racist has had her case thrown out by an appeals court, reports the Canwest News Service.
The employee of the second-hand sports store in Nova Scotia said use of the term, from the television series "The Lone Ranger," created a hostile work environment.
The employee had complained to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, which spent hours watching reruns of the show before figuring out that the term used by the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto, meant "trusty friend."
The commission did, however, determine that the show treated other American Indians in a demeaning fashion.
But Seriously ...
Editors at the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, who’ve clearly run out of election-related story ideas, seized upon the candidates’ use of animals in campaign advertisements and found people to say those ads are demeaning to the animals portrayed.
Bush’s use of wolves to depict terrorists and Kerry’s use of an ostrich as a metaphor for Bush has turned off one group of voters, the paper said: animal experts. Use of such animals is "totally inappropriate," said the director of one St. Paul zoo.
Jackie Fallon, wolf keeper at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, was actually said to be pounding her fist on her desk the first time she saw the wolf ad.
Wolves, she said, are good critters and should not be associated with terrorists.
"Just when you think you're making headway, wolves are being associated with terrorists. That really got me angry," Fallon said. "It just goes back to Little Red Riding Hood and folklore, that you should be so afraid of wolves that you need to shoot them."
For more doses of politically correct nuttiness, head on over to the TongueTied daily edition.
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