Lobster Lovers, Axed Advertising

Lovers of live lobsters -- as opposed to boiled ones -- in Massachusetts are angry about a barroom arcade game in which patrons win a live lobster. They say it demeans the crustacean in question, reports the Lowell Sun.

The game in question, dubbed the Lobster Zone, features a 50-gallon tank with flashy lighting and sound effects. For $2, customers get a shot at plucking one of the critters out of the tank with a metal claw.

Rose McGarry, who saw one of the machines at J.J. Boomers, called the game cruel. "The things go crazy when they hear the music," she said. "They're realizing they are going to meet their doom."

Bad Company

The University of Iowa cancelled a non-conference baseball game with Bradley University (search) in Peoria, Ill., because the latter uses a mascot that Iowa administrators consider racist, reports the Daily Iowan.

The UI athletics department cancelled the game because Bradley's nickname is the Braves. The university has a policy not to schedule games with teams that have American Indian mascots.

Bradley got rid of its mascot in 1989 but retains the Braves nickname. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is the only other school that won't schedule games against the school.

Demeaning Mannequin

City officials in Greenfield, Wis., want a female mannequin removed from an alderman's office because some female workers consider her offensive and demeaning to women, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The mannequin in Thomas Pietrowski's office -- dubbed Madeline and liberated from a Kmart some 20 years ago -- is dressed in a gray T-shirt and tattered jeans. She has brown hair and no hands.

Greenfield Mayor Timothy Seider initially demanded that Pietrowski remove the mannequin, but relented when the alderman claimed she constitutes free speech and threatened to sue.

Chill Wind

The Albuquerque Tribune reports that Hispanic activists in New Mexico successfully forced a beer company to halt a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign playing on the sexuality of Latinas because they were deemed racist and sexist.

The ads, on seven billboards around the city, depicted a bottle of Tecate beer in the process of reclining on its side, with the words, "Finally, A Cold Latina."

Students from a nearby high school, along with the Chicano Studies Department and El Centro de la Raza student group at the University of New Mexico (search), demanded that Labatt's take down the ads, which it promptly did.

"It's offensive in a lot of different ways," said Lauren Hermosillo, a 17-year-old junior at the charter school. "It's just targeting the Hispanic community. And it says women aren't anything but a beer, that you can put price tags on them."

Evil Campaigns of Our Time II

The CEO of a chain of Minneapolis fusion restaurants is being called a racist hate monger for an "edgy" advertising campaign that features such slogans as "Mommy, Mr. Whiskers didn't come home last night" and "Crouching patron, Hidden toilet," reports the Manitou Messenger.

The student paper at St. Olaf College (search) says a speech by Phil Roberts, CEO of the parent company of the Chino Latino chain of restaurants, prompted new complaints by human rights activists on campus and elsewhere about the chain's advertising.

The activists have accused the ad campaigns, especially one featuring the slogan, "Happy Hour -- Cheaper than a Bangkok Brothel" of helping "create an atmosphere where racial abuse is not only tolerated, but encouraged."

Pilgrim Pride

The BBC reports that a statue showing St. James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders at a Spanish cathedral will be removed in order to avoid offending Muslim visitors.

Officials in Santiago de Compostela will move the statue to the museum and replace it with one depicting the calmer image of St. James "the Pilgrim," by the same 18th century artist.

Chief among the reasons for moving the statue is to avoid upsetting the "sensitivities of other ethnic groups."

For a daily dose of politically correct shenanigans, head over to the Tongue Tied Web site.

Mailbag (the hatemail edition):

Andrew S. writes:

I have to laugh when I read articles like yours on Foxnews.com. I mean, I realize that playing the victim is fashionable in modern right-wing circles these days, but you guys are almost becoming caricatures of yourselves.

I know it is my own stupidity for reading Foxnews.com -- being a good liberal and all. But I like to find out about others views and challenge my own views, which is why I come here. You don't even make it a fair fight though.

Either you are too lazy to come up with decent examples of political correctness, or you are just so reactionary and emotional that you cannot do any better.

Tom C. writes:

Regardless of whether the Toronto radio host was politically correct, his statements were just flat-out wrong. Westerners should not be regarded as more respectful of life because they do not engage in suicide bombings. Western societies do not raise suicide bombers because they have the luxury of either being able to distance themselves from the violent acts they commit or to hire others to do their dirty work.

Stephanie L. writes:

You've gone out of your way to talk about the ACLU not supporting the anti-gay people and supporting the pro-gay rights person. However, you fail to mention one crucial detail. The ACLU will willingly support both of these groups when it comes to free speech but they have to be asked. Did it ever occur to you that the ACLU wasn't asked to intervene on behalf of the anti-gay people?

Thomas B. writes:

Wearing a shirt expressing a student's "opposition" to homosexuality, as if you could be opposed to one's sexual orientation, is not free speech. It is hate speech. You need to understand the difference, sir.

Andrew G. writes:

I guess that the ACLU is more concerned with promoting understanding than hate, who'd have thought?

Jim L. writes:

You are an unbelievable moron. I just hope most folks out there are smart enough to know that not all of us white males are dirtbags like you.

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