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Thursday, September 22, 2005
 "As you will learn if you read this page often enough, political correctness is coin of the realm at Stanford. Even those who openly chafe against the practice … are usually, in the end, only feeding the beast. For that matter, the use of the phrase 'political correctness' in this column feels too correct. I prefer the grandfather-friendly phrase 'pussy-footing around.'"There’s too much metaphor and cliche in this paragraph from the Stanford Daily, but never mind. The writer is trying to complain about a group of Japanese tourists on campus who barged into the seminar he was taking and one after another stood at the door taking flash pictures of the students and the professor. [S]eated with her back to the camera, [the professor] notices the faces of a few students have turned towards the door. She turns to see what they are looking at just as the camera’s flash goes off. She blinks to erase the spots from her vision before turning back to the discussion. The first photographer disappears, but another soon takes his place. And another. Most of us are too stunned to think to close the door until they have gone. Everyone advises the student against complaining, because the tourists are Japanese. He seems to have decided to complain anyway. |