Political Correctness

I'd like to thank my sister-in-law, Betty, for the following information. It was too good not to share.

There is an annual contest at Texas A&M University, she tells me, calling for the most appropriate new definition of a contemporary term. 2009's winning term was Political Correctness, which was defined as follows:

"Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

The first time I butted heads with political correctness, my oldest son was somewhere around the third grade. He's 36 now, so it's been around awhile. We got a letter from his teacher regarding library privileges. I had the family in stitches by reading it aloud at the table, word for word. I wish I had saved it. It was hysterical. I'll paraphrase.

"If your son/daughter fails to bring his/her library book back to school during the day that he/she has library period, resulting in his/her library book being overdue, he/she will no longer be allowed to check out library books when his/her class makes their weekly trip to the the library. He/she will still accompany his/her class to the library, but must read ..."

You get the point. Suddenly the male pronoun, which all of my life we had been taught was for either male or unknown gender was suddenly not good enough. Then we no longer had a mailman. Or a chairman. Suddenly men were afraid to hold open a door for me. Well, if you see me coming, go ahead and hold the door. I don't particularly want to be equal. I'm not as strong physically. I have other talents. We don't need to be the same. I don't plan to be politically correct. I'd rather be appreciated for who I am and what I think. I won't pretend for you. Please don't pretend for me.