One of my duties as editor of The Carolina Conservative is to scour the Internet each day looking for news stories and material for the "Daily Required Reading" section of my Website. Most of the material I use is political in nature, but every so often I come up with a good sports story and this one is no exception.

The story in question comes from Ms. Kathleen Rutledge who is "editoress" (which is PC for 'editor') of the Lincoln, Nebraska JournalStar. Ms. Rutledge writes "Readers of the sports pages may notice a change in the newspaper’s style beginning today. We have stopped using the nickname 'Redskins' to refer to the professional football team in the nation’s capital. When we’re reporting on that team, we’ll call it 'Washington.'"

Well, how noble AND sanctimonious of Ms. Rutledge to inform the good people and sports fans of Nebraska as to what should or should not be offensive to them. To quote Ms. Rutledge further, "We will no longer use the word 'Skins' because it is a racial slur.'"

When I read this, I fired off a quick email to Ms. Rutledge asking her exactly what WOULD be a suitable, non-offensive name for the team. We can’t call them the "Washington Reds" because that would surely offend the Communists living in Washington as well as Hollywood. What would Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and George Clooney think?

A fleeting idea that comes to mind is to just call the team by the name of their home city such as the "Washington team" or the "Tampa team" but wait, Washington (the city) is named after George Washington who was some old, dead, white guy that owned slaves as recently as 200 years ago so that would be a politically incorrect faux pas to some oversensitive individuals in this diverse society we call the U.S. of A. Now that the word "Washington" is nixed along with the word "Redskins," just what would Ms. Rutledge call the Washington Redskins?

I tried to explain all of this in my short email to Ms. Rutledge using words that are non-sexist, non-racial, and non-ethnic. Lacking the correct PC terminology, I just typed in "You Idiot" and let it go at that. (Note to self: avoid Lincoln, Nebraska on my next road trip. I like to visit cities that have some semblance of humor and common sense.)

To show what the politically-correct world will be like when a future Super Bowl XXXX arrives, all of the 32 teams in the NFL will be assigned numbers instead of names such as Team #1 thru Team #32 respectively. This way, no one of any race, creed or color, gender, sexual orientation, etc could possibly be offended. I can see it now, when you walk into Super Bowl XXXX, you will have to pass venders selling Team #30 jerseys or big foam hats and fingers that says "Go Team #12." The Official Super Bowl Program will read "Welcome to Super Bowl XXXX...Team #30 versus Team #12. Exciting stuff, numerically speaking that is. Somehow I can’t vision an 8 year-old boy wanting to grow up to be a quarterback for team #2.

The World Anthem at Super Bowl XXXX will be sung in a universal language by a chorus of diverse males, females, gays, lesbians, transsexuals and God only knows who else dressed in natural fiber clothing symbolizing the "environment." The concessionaires will be selling soy dogs and non-alcoholic beer. The halftime show will last five hours so as to include every nation on earth for fear of being non-inclusive. No Shania Twain here guys...too sexist.

In Shania’s place will be a trio of gray-haired hippies on Social Security trying to harmonize to the lyrics of "Where have all the flowers gone?" I know I will be looking forward to all of this fun, won’t you? Also, there will be no point spread via Las Vegas as this would tend to give one of the teams an unfair numerical advantage which is against the PC creed. In a perfect PC world, no one wins or loses because we are all considered equal as Comrade Stalin once proclaimed.

Oh, how I long for the days when winners were the good guys that won and losers were the guys that lost. I yearn for times when real teams with real team players battled it out on a real grass and mud field. Last but not least, I recall the times when sportsmanship and love of the game never took a back seat to outside interests, political or otherwise because after all, it’s just a game, or it used to be. Happy Trails.