×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

Looking back at the week in news

By Staff | Oct 31, 2015

Player support of cause not fine with league’s authorities

October, while coming to a close today, is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease, presented by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, is supported by the National Football League, which has its players wear pink accents to their uniforms to support the cause.

But in an unexpected twist this week, it seems the league feels decided that wearing pink is literally the only way its players are allowed to show their support of breast cancer awareness.

A campaign that may have started with good intentions ended on a sour note when Pittsburgh Steelers player DeAngelo Williams was fined $5,757 for having the message "We will find a cure" and an image of a breast cancer ribbon imprinted in his eyeblack. Two weeks ago another member of the Steelers, Cameron Heyward, was fined twice in a similar situation.

Since when has it been a bad idea to go the extra mile in raising awareness of the effort to find a cure for a horrible disease? The league has a bit of egg on its face here, but they’re probably used to that by now.

October is a good month
to adopt a new best friend

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but what you may not know is that it is also Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month.

Obviously every month is just as good as the next to adopt a shelter pet, but this is the month the ASPCA, American Humane Society and others have teamed up to promote adding a fun, loving and snuggly best friend to your life. If you’ve been thinking about getting a dog, or any other pet, you should think about adopting.

More than 2.7 million perfectly adoptable dogs and cats are euthanized every year while they wait for a loving, safe home, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

So there’s the obvious reason – saving an animal’s life – but there are other reasons to adopt, too, not the least of which is that bringing a pet into your life can improve your physical and mental health.

Maybe you don’t want to invest in a gym membership, or perhaps you have one but can’t get up the motivation to go? Getting a dog will force you to get outside, get some fresh air and get you some daily exercise. Pets are also shown to be psychologically and emotionally beneficial – did we mention they’re great listeners and will snuggle up to watch a movie pretty much anytime of day?

George Clooney and his wife even partook in this awareness month and adopted a 4-year-old basset hound from the local humane society. If George Clooney is doing it, it must be the hip thing to do.

So feel free to go out on the last day of Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month and find yourself a Bernese Mountain Dog, a retriever, a hound, or a good ol’ fashioned mutt to take home and love forever.

Thinking about costumes and their implications

‘Does it involve the use of blackface?"

"Is there a swastika anywhere on your costume?"

It’s a sad reflection of the world we live in when we have to rely on a CollegeHumor flow chart to tell us whether our Halloween costumes are offensive.

Consider the 2013 lambasting of dancer and actress Julianne Hough, who donned blackface to portray "Orange is the New Black" character "Crazy Eyes."

Or the international outcry in 2005 when Prince Harry, then third in line to the British throne, wore a swastika armband as part of a Nazi costume.

Celebrity miscues and "sexy (insert race here)" costumes have, sadly, become more than a yearly occurrence.

Start typing "Is your Halloween … " into Google, and two of the first results that pop up are, "Is your Halloween costume racist?" and "Is your Halloween costume offensive?"

In the wake of ongoing tensions in the Middle East, Walmart this week discontinued an Israeli soldier costume made for children – complete with fake gun. Last month, it stopped selling a kids’ "Little Amigo" costume including sombrero, poncho and mustache.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that the retailer’s trust and safety compliance team combs through 40,000 costumes that are sold on its website. Among the outfits caught before they hit Walmart.com: a Caitlyn Jenner parody, a decapitated Cecil the Lion and Donald Trump-Megyn Kelly dispute. But inevitably, some will slip through the cracks.

Sure, it’s easy to go overboard with political correctness – just think of UNH’s "Bias-Free Language Guide" that suggested swapping "senior citizen" with "people of advanced age." But racism is still racism.

We hope people give at least a little thought to the ramifications of their costumes.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *