Athletics Canada has announced plans to pursue eliminating the term ‘midget’ as an age category classification when it comes to domestic sports. Midget is, widely, used by hockey, football, baseball, and lacrosse. So, it would mean a remarkable switch in how age groups are termed. A good friend of mine informed me swimming did this a few years ago and decided to use ‘colors’ to identify ages. Well, that didn’t go so well either, as you can imagine. So, the solution is to identify based on age. This is, actually, how it’s done in girls softball. It’s, simply, referred to as U14 (for Under-14), for example. I just don’t understand why we can’t figure out, as a society, that words can have separate meanings depending on context and why do we have to be offended every single chance we get. When I call a Midget AAA player a Midget AAA player, I’m not using it as a derogatory term. Here’s my take on the term midget: when I hear the word used to refer to people who are of that height, I don’t like it. I think it is insulting and offensive.
But, I don’t relate sports categories to actual people who are of a particular height. What I did find interesting, and a little on the offensive side, is that the actual organization that represents these folks is called Dwarf Athletic Association Of Canada.
When I hear the word dwarf, it’s more offensive to me than midget. As a kid, I saw ‘midget wrestling’, and those guys were tough, athletic, and impressive. As a kid, I associated dwarf with Snow White. A joke. Not to be taken seriously. And, yet society has accepted dwarf as a more appropriate word than midget but I won’t use either word when talking about people. People are people and they shouldn’t be put into tribes based on size, skin color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or anything else. I know it sounds insensitive, but we have to stop bowing to all of these special interest groups. There is nothing offensive intended about age categories in sports. Whether that’s because you use the word ‘midget’ or ‘black’. If you look hard enough, you can find offense in almost anything. I’d argue, if you have to search for it, then it’s not offensive at all and you need to get a life. That’s not to say ‘midget’ is something you need to search for, but nobody is getting made fun of here. I’m sorry it’s insensitive, but we have to stop this political correct nonsense because it is just that... nonsense.
Here’s something I find far more offensive than sports age categories: the fact we needed a week long hearing to decide if Kenneth John Bowman (I think from Saskatoon or nearby that city) should be deemed a long term offender. If you don’t know who Kenneth John Bowman is, well let me share with you and I think you can decide by the end of this paragraph if he’s a long term offender or not. We shouldn’t need a week long hearing of wasted tax dollars. Bowman, over the course of two years, abused an eight year-old boy by injecting him with meth, anally raping him, taking pictures of it, and then offering the boy to other predators. Dr. Todd Tomita (the name is important here because if you run into this guy, go somewhere else for a medical opinion) argues Bowman is treatable with ‘risk reduction’ methods that haven’t been explored. Good, Dr. Tomita can put his own kids with Bowman once he feels Bowman is cured. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t need a week long hearing and then retire to a room to consider evidence and then make a decision on whether Bowman is a long term dangerous offender. I’ve already made up my mind.
Financial analyst Jamie Golombek has an article in the Leader-Post encouraging Canadians to use all of the $6000 yearly limit on Tax Free Savings Accounts. Well, that’s all fine and dandy and I’m sure there isn’t a Canadian alive that wouldn’t like to take advantage of this. But, here’s a couple of hurdles: middle class Canadians are taxed to the point where many are forced to dip into their savings to make their day to day ends meet and then there are other federal government measures in place that prevent economic growth so you can’t even make more money to account for paying more taxes and still have some left over for savings. Golombek doesn’t seem to address that in his article that I can see. So, it’s a wonderful piece to fill a newspaper, but it’s a bit empty bit of reality.
$600-million of our tax dollars will be spent by the federal government on propping up Canadian media, and not just the CBC. The money will go towards private companies who make a ton of cash, pay their employees next to nothing, and cut every corner imaginable just to make a buck.
Now, government is giving them money too. Remember that when the election campaign is in full swing. You can bet it’ll be pro-Trudeau because a Conservative government would make that $600-million go to something else and it would be one of their first decisions, I’m sure.
Nice person mentions: Christine Fitzgerald, Dale Hardy, Karin Nabe, Mat Hehr, and Dick Onslow.
