Play Meter

THE LAST WORD watch your mouth I Christopher Caire Features Editor PLAY METER put down the newspaper in disgust and asked myself, "To what lengths will the Thought Police go to ensure an America free of potentially offensive speech?" Actually, that's the Grated version of the question; in its uncensored form it was laced with expletives. The item: St. John's University in New York has caved in to pressures from Native American (formerly Indian) groups and will drop the basketball team's nickname, the Redmen . Patently offensive , of course. The horribly insensitive Atlanta Braves and Florida State Seminoles have yet to address their wayward nicknames-nor, for that matter, have they refrained from doing the "Tomahawk Chop" to express euphoria. Tsk, tsk. A college student who couldn't study because a bunch of loud females (adjective needed ?l were raising hell shouted, "Shut up, you water buffaloes! " What was their response? The only logical one , of course: they hauled him before a disciplinary tribunal at the university, which gave him a verbal spanking and threatened to expel him. A backlash by the community was all that saved the cruel lout. Even the Los Angeles Times , which I recently praised on this page, has gotten into the act. Its new style guidelines are filled with words and phrases that are strictly taboo. For example , you can 't call a p erson who's incapable of hearing "deaf' any longer if you write for that newspaper. They're now "hearing impaired." Nevermind that advoca188 cy groups for the deaf want to be known as such. Their wishes have fallen on ...never mind. Protests aside, if the Los Angeles Times says reform, reform we will. Henceforth, when faced with a situation that calls for negative words, Play Meter will present it in the most positive of lights. If, after a major trade show, Frank Seninsky recommends that you buy 10 games and nine of them tum out to be 30-day wonders, don't write us a letter calling Frank a "knucklehead" or a "dumb-dumb." We'll have to edit it and refer to the Crank as "temporarily dementia-fille d, brought on by the stress of so weighty a responsibility." While we're at it, "30-day wonder" will have to be expunged from the lexicon, as it reflects badly on the manufacturer and its game designers . How about "cash box challenged"? From now on, when AAMA sends us a press release about a raid that netted 100 counterfeit boards and the copiers' arrests, we'll have to rewrite it. Those who committed the offense were instead "morally deprived persons who borrowed from the work of others, possibly because they weren't given their rightful opportunity to succeed in the '80s due to Reagan and his backward domestic policies." And if, in 1994, dollar coin legislation again stays bottled up in committee , we won't editorialize about spineless, do-nothing politicians. Rather, they will be described as "selfless, Lincoln-like statesmen who strive to do what's best for America during the most trying of times." Wouldn't want to "dis" our valiant leaders. Th ere you have it , Play Meter's pledge to be more sensitive and caring, offered by the balding features editor. Or should I say "hair deficient"? 0 FEBRUARY 1994