Greeson: We're in a place where 'unisex' is offensive

Jay Greeson
Jay Greeson
photo Jay Greeson

It's not bad enough that the faux protests engineered by a hunger-striking grad student with millionaire parents last year at Missouri caused the university to lose roughly a quarter of students in its current freshman class.

Nope. Right when you think Missouri, which has overhauled its leadership after last fall's debacle, is going to try to be, you know, responsible, here comes the next round of political correctness that has turned college campuses into a mix of learning spaces and safe spaces.

According to the "Missourian," the school has now decided to change the word "unisex" outside about 200 single-stall restrooms on campus to "toilet."

Well, score points for simplicity, because as mom always told us, the direct approach is normally the best approach.

But are we to a place where the word "unisex' - which likely should cover everyone, right? - is now deemed offensive?

This is nuts.

What about Port-o-Johns? Are they offensive?

Do we need to call them Port-o-Janes? Nope, that won't work either.

Where's the closest safe space?

Say what?

We may have to introduce this as a regular part of our Saturday morning conversation.

But we have to offer a "Say what?" to the decision makers in the Bradley County school system who decided that the punishment for a bus driver who allegedly used inappropriate language at students on his bus would be a suspension and additional "bus management" training.

OK, the suspension is likely a fine start, because who knows what is determined as inappropriate language nowadays. It may have been one of George Carlin's seven magic words, or he could have said "unisex" in reference to a bathroom.

But the "Say what?" portion of this ordeal is that the bus driver has to take additional bus management training.

Shouldn't every bus driver - people who are responsible for delivering our children to and from school - be required to take all of the bus management training out there?

Never doubt the power of a woman

As we speed toward hurricane season, there was an interesting story this week on CNN that showed female-named hurricanes are more deadly than male-named storms.

"Feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to a lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness," a team of researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Interesting, right?

Of course in today's world with Cameron, Jordan, Peyton, Bailey, Riley, Skyler and all the rest, it will soon be impossible to know which sex our hurricanes are.

Somewhere the Missouri leadership smiles.

Saturday's stars

We'll go with two today.

First, my father celebrates his 75th birthday today. He coached almost every team I played on before playing school ball and taught me more than I ever knew.

The other who deserves a tip of the visor this morning is FSU standout football player Travis Rudolph. Rudolph and several of his FSU teammates visited a Tallahassee, Fla.-area middle school Tuesday and made quite the difference.

Unannounced and on his own, Rudolph plopped down and ate lunch with a boy who was sitting by himself during the visit. That boy, Bo Paske, has autism and frequently eats by himself.

In the days since, Bo has become a celebrity - appearing on Fox, CBS and in a number of news stories around the country.

He even told one of the outlets, "It was kinda like me sitting on a rainbow Me sitting with Travis and all my friends."

Here's a thankful nod for the lessons from great dads, for those of us lucky to realize them, and another reminder of the powerful impact of random acts of kindness.

Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343. His "Right to the Point" column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays on A2.

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