Could an overweight woman with a facial deformityr and wearing a boiler suit win the Miss America competition?

Under the new politically correct rules it seems she could.  It won't happen, of course, but the recently proclaimed irrelevance of appearances should make it possible.  The real rules however will be covert and nobody will admit what they are.  The rejection of appearances as important is pure hypocrisy designed to placate feminist madwomen.

The fact of the matter is that both men and women like looking at attractive female bodies and if that is taken away the competition will die from lack of interest and some other competition will arise to replace it.  To the extent that the new rules are enforced the current management have simply destroyed their brand and their livelihood

Report of a TV discussion of the matter below

Karl Stefanovic has defended bikini-clad beauty pageants, after Miss America announced it was scrapping the swimsuit competition.

During a Today show segment on Wednesday, the 43-year-old said it was up to the female contestants whether they want to wear bikinis onstage. 'If a woman chooses to be in a bikini pageant, isn't that her choice?' he said.

Karl's female panellists, including his sister-in-law Sylvia Jeffreys, seemed to take a slightly different approach.

While she agreed it was 'absolutely' a woman's choice, Sylvia claimed that dropping the bikini competition was 'a step in the right direction'. She added: 'But, if they are not being judged on appearance, the entire concept of a beauty pageant should be thrown out altogether.'

Co-host Georgia Gardner also said: 'I find them outdated. However, there are plenty of people who love them and see them as a mark of success.'

Earlier this week, Gretchen Carlson, the new head of Miss America's board of directors, revealed that the competition will no longer judge women based on their physical appearance. 'We are no longer a pageant,' Gretchen told Good Morning America on Tuesday. 'We are a competition.'

The decision came months after internal emails revealed former CEO Sam Haskell and board members frequently demeaned the physical appearance, intellect, and personal lives of former pageant winners, including Gretchen.

Gretchen, 51, was named chairwoman of the Miss America Organization just days after Sam Haskell resigned in January. Now, she hopes to usher in a new era for Miss America, revealing that the bikini and evening gown rounds will be cut from the competition.

Instead, contestants will be asked to wear any attire that makes them feel confident, expresses their personal style, and shows how they will advance the role of Miss America.

'We've heard from a lot of young woman who say, "We'd love to be a part of your program but we don't want to be out there in high heels and a swimsuit"', Gretchen said. 'So guess what, you don't have to do that anymore.

'Who doesn't want to be empowered, learn leadership skills, and pay for college and be able to show the world who you are as a person from inside of your soul? 'That's what we're judging them on now... We want more women to know they are welcome in this organisation.'

The swimsuit competition will be replaced with an interactive session with the judges, in which the women will be asked to demonstrate their 'passion, intelligence, and overall understanding of the job of Miss America'.

'It's going to be what comes out of their mouths we're interested in when they talk about their social impact initiatives,' Gretchen said.

SOURCE






Starbucks Quietly Walks Back "Homeless Shelter" Bathroom Policy

Starbucks has quietly walked back their "all inclusive" bathroom policy, perhaps after realizing that their employees and customers alike weren't responding well to the prospect of vagrants using their stores as a homeless shelter.

As part of their new "Third Place Policy" which the company shuttered 8,000 stores to pound into employees heads on Tuesday, Starbucks says "We want our stores to be the third place, a warm and welcoming environment where customers can gather and connect. Any customer is welcome to use Starbucks spaces, including our restrooms, cafes and patios, regardless of whether they make a purchase."

Ok - so far so good for homeless people looking to catch some free air conditioning this summer or simply drop that massive cabbage dump that's been brewing.

But wait - what's this? Starbucks' new Third Place Policy also reads:

When using a Starbucks space, we respectfully request that customers behave in a manner that maintains a warm and welcoming environment by:

Using spaces as intended

Being considerate of others

Communicating with respect

Acting responsibly

Uh oh, this isn't looking good for those looking to take a sink-bath while breathing in freshly brewed coffee...

On occasion, the circumstances of a customer’s disruptive behavior may make it necessary to prohibit that customer from returning to our stores.

Excuse us?

In these situations, Starbucks partners should follow “Requesting A Customer Restriction” procedure for U.S. company-operated stores.

Starbucks Executive Vice President Rossann Williams gave an example of how an employee should approach a "disruptive" customer using foul language:

“You are in our store every day, and we love that this is your third place, but from one human to another human, the language that you are using is making other customers uncomfortable. So either you have to change your behavior, and stay and be a part of our third place, or I’m going to have to ask you to leave, and you can come back at a later time, when you feel like you can be a part of our third place. And in fact if you want to go have a seat, I’ll bring you over a cup of water, just to make sure that it’s a great rest of your day."

Not so inclusive now, are we Starbucks? Sure, the marginally diverse group of well dressed customers pictured below might be able to enjoy using the facilities at Starbucks, but what about the differently housed? What constitutes a "disruption?"

The new 68-page employee guidebook and over a dozen videos shown during the Tuesday training session included racial bias training, with much of the coffee seller's new ethos focused on teaching employees to be "color brave" - reminding everyone that institutional racism permeates society.

“Here’s my belief: Growing up, there was a term called ‘color blind,’ which described a learning behavior of pretending not to notice race — that doesn’t even make sense,” said CEO Kevin Johnson. “So today we are starting a new journey, talking about race directly — what my friend and Starbucks board member Mellody Hobson calls being ‘color brave.’”

The training also focuses on prejudices in public spaces, complete with a documentary which focuses on the history of prejudice. Employees were given little notebooks to record their "private thoughts," and were instructed to keep a diary about how they feel about such things as "what makes me, me? And you, you?" and "In your life, where do you feel a sense of belonging?"

All this because one manager at a Philadelphia Starbucks called the cops on two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, who were waiting for a friend without having ordered anything.

SOURCE






Google Steers Clear of War Tech. Here's Where They're Wrong

The original slogan of Google was “Don’t be evil.” When Google changed its corporate name to Alphabet in 2015, it changed the slogan to “Do the right thing.”

If it were to be true to its values, Google should have changed its slogan from “Don’t be evil” to “Don’t fight evil.”

Here is The New York Times report from this past Friday:

Google, hoping to head off a rebellion by employees upset that the technology they were working on could be used for lethal purposes, will not renew a contract with the Pentagon for artificial intelligence work …

Google’s work with the Defense Department on the Maven program, which uses artificial intelligence to interpret video images and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes, roiled the internet giant’s workforce. Many of the company’s top A.I. researchers, in particular, worried that the contract was the first step toward using the nascent technology in advanced weapons. …

About 4,000 Google employees signed a petition demanding ‘a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.’

CBS News reported that the petition also said, “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war.”

In other words, to the heads of Google and thousands of its elite employees, it is immoral to aid in the defense of their country, and all war is immoral.

Google and these 4,000 employees embody two terrible traits: moral idiocy and ingratitude.

Moral idiocy is the ability to be brilliant in any area of life except the single most important area of life, morality. With regard to morality, such people are fools.

The United States has been the greatest force for liberty and goodness in world history. It has been so by modeling a free society and through the power of the idea of freedom, and even more so by force—brute physical force.

Through force of arms, America and its allies defeated Germany in World War I and World War II. Through force of arms, America imposed democracy and liberty on West Germany and led to the dissolution of East Germany. Through force of arms, the Holocaust—the genocide of Europe’s Jews and millions of others in Nazi concentration and death camps—ended.

If Google existed then, would its employees have demanded Google “not be in the business of war”?

Through force of arms, America was able to impose democracy and liberty on Japan. Through force of arms, America liberated Asian countries from the Nazi-like Japanese imperialists.

Through force of arms, America enabled the majority of Koreans to live free rather than under the most totalitarian regime in modern history, North Korea.

Through force of arms, Israel has survived 70 years of Arab, and now Iranian, attempts to annihilate it. Arms ended the Holocaust in Europe, and arms prevent a second Holocaust of Jews in the Middle East.

Only a moral idiot does not understand the moral necessity of weapons of war being in the hands of decent countries.

Which brings us to the second trait of Google and its employees: ingratitude.

Google and its employees live better than almost any human beings in the world. They do so because they live in the freest and most opportunity-giving country in the world, the United States of America.

That Google and its employees refuse to work on the military defense of their country is an expression of ingratitude (not to mention absence of patriotism) that is simply breathtaking.

How did we produce such foolish and ungrateful people?

They are the products of left-wing education and the left-wing media, and of living in the left-wing cocoon of Northern California and its tech industry.

Google should be true to its convictions and change just one word of its original slogan from “Don’t be evil” to “Don’t fight evil.”

SOURCE






Pro-Life Organization Alleges That Planned Parenthood Covers Up Child Sex Abuse

Live Action notes in its report that Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million a year from taxpayers and is the country’s largest recipient of federal Title X family planning funds. Title X is a federal grant program for preventive and family planning health services. (Photo: Tracy Barbutes/ZUMA Press/Newscom)
A national pro-life and human rights organization alleges in a newly released report that Planned Parenthood covers up for child sex abuse.

“Despite Planned Parenthood’s public rhetoric as well as laws requiring it to report suspected abuse, its failure to report has been deliberate and widespread,” Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, the organization that released the report, said Wednesday in a statement.

Time and again, rather than reporting abuse to authorities, Planned Parenthood has repeatedly looked the other way and performed abortions on victims as young as 12 years old. These girls deserved advocacy but instead Planned Parenthood staff ignored their abuse and returned them to the waiting arms of their abusers.

The report, “Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sexual Abuse” was released Wednesday and alleges that Planned Parenthood has been caught on multiple occasions providing abortions to victims of sexual abuse who are as young as 12 and 13 years old, failing to report suspected sexual abuse to authorities, and sending victims back to their abusers.

The report names multiple minors who were allegedly forced by abusers to get an abortion because they had become pregnant after rape and sexual abuse but says that the abortion giant looked the other way in these cases.

Live Action notes in its report that Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million a year from taxpayers and is the country’s largest recipient of federal Title X family planning funds. Title X is a federal grant program for preventive and family planning health services.

“This report only represents a sampling of the cases that have occurred at Planned Parenthood over the years,” Live Action noted in its report, adding:

Moreover, these are cases that have only come to the attention of authorities because a parent, a friend, or a victim herself came forward. Because many cases of sexual abuse are never reported, no one knows how many victims are actually still suffering at the hands of their abusers.

The Daily Signal requested comment from Planned Parenthood, but the organization did not respond by publication deadline.

Rose said she hopes the report will gain attention from those who have supported the “Time’s Up” and “Me Too” movements, which have sought to call out perpetrators of sexual abuse.

“Live Action is releasing this report as the Time’s Up movement is exposing both sexual abusers and those who help them cover up their crimes—the people who knew about the abuse but stayed silent,” Rose said. “While Planned Parenthood has attached itself to the Time’s Up movement, the movement should be calling out Planned Parenthood for decades of enabling sexual abusers.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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