by Lindsey, Politiporn Religion Correspondent.
So Dunkin Donuts has been persuaded to pull an online ad featuring popular Food Network star Rachael Ray after several conservative bloggers (spearheaded by Michelle Malkin) complained that Rachael Ray’s scarf looks like a traditional Mid-Eastern garment.
This would be completely inconsequential if it didn’t smack just a little of the same fear-mongering practices that caused Americans of time past to see communists under every teacup. Are we truly that afraid? That pitiful? Does the thought of someone being Muslim, or of their Muslimhood being accepted by advertisers, scare us so badly that we must now rage not only against the belief but against even the mere shade of a possible appearance of the belief? Note that when we, as a country, decide that Islam as a religion and Middle-Eastern garb as a fashion choice that we are raging against a wide-ranging portion of humanity that probably doesn’t appreciate our fervent aggression.
Shame on you, Dunkin Donuts. Shame on you for giving in to pressures from the unreasonable. Shame on you for allowing the Michelle Malkins of the world their unreasonable fear and hatred. Shame on you for turning a simply paisley scarf into a symbol of intolerance and idiocy. Shame on you for allowing Rachael Ray, an irritatingly perky all American peach cobbler and mac’n'cheese girl to be persecuted for something as ridiculous as a bad choice in accessories.
Is this America? Is this still the melting pot of the world, the place where the world’s weary and hungry can come for their piece of the 30 minute meal? Is it? Then why make it okay for people to throw a tantrum over a fashion choice and actually get their way? Like with a toddler, when they bead up their eyes and shake their fists you must reply calmly that they are being unreasonable and their panic will not be tolerated. In this one instance I will preach intolerance- intolerance to fear and fear-mongering, intolerance to the appeasement of those who would persecute others based off of no more than a pattern of black and white and mottled trim.
This is AMERICA.
Let’s not forget that.
This was just Republican/Conservative retribution for the Cindy McCain RecipeGate scandal.
*lol* How DARE the food network not like having their work plagiarized!
This one was just too ridiculous for words.
LOL
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“same fear-mongering practices that caused Americans of time past to see communists under every teacup”
Or traitors under every flag pin-less lapel.
Ok Linsey, a few points that you convienantly left out…
1. The scarf is actually covering a “I heart Mullah Omar” tattoo on her neck.
2. Her skin could only be described as terrorist tan.
3. She is Italian which rhymes with Al-Qaeda
4. The black and white scarf could also imply support for interracial marriage
5. She is pointing at Allah
Yeh, I’m okay on the Muslim, terrorist under every whatever thing. Probably be right sooner or later and I will live to say “told you so”.
I do hate what happened to the kindergartner though and think the teacher needs to find other forms of employment. Seriously, who in their right mind lets a bunch of kids vote on another kid’s status? Just stupid.
Keep cracking on Cindy McCain but let me aske each one of you. How many children from a third world country have you (personally) brought home? Paid all of their medical bills? And adopted?
Recipies and financial statements for the life of two babies? Really now? I thought you were the party of compassion? When it suites you I guess.
Heck the daughter the McCains adopted has darker skin that Obama can’t they get a few points for that?
M54: The recipe thing is just funny, okay? I don’t think it detracts at all from Cindy McCain’s dedication to relief work, or what an amazingly compassionate woman she must have been to change her life plans at the drop of a hat when handed that baby. Perhaps we should mention more often what a good thing she did in doing that.
And, because I feel almost as if I MUST defend myself, while my financial situation (and two young babies at home) bar me from adopting a child right now, I plan to in the future. Probably an American foster child, though, as they are so often overlooked. But these two hands DID dig the foundation for an orphanage in Guatemala out of hard clay earth. So I get a few points, right?
Lindsey: Foster Care has a bad rep’ because of bad people. I am sure any child you care for will be better off. I know you think it may be eons down the road before you are able to seriously consider it but go ahead and check on what classes you will need.
I’ve never been to Guatemala but I hear it’s beautiful.
Generaally speaking, I believe if more people did things like Cindy McCain did with those 2 babies the world would be a much, much better place.
@54 – True the Democratic party is supposed to be the party of compassion, and I’m sure democrats love that the McCains adopted the little girl from Bangladesh. It’s commendable.
However, the GOP is led by the Reagan mantra of “Trust BUT verify”, correct? So that would seemingly make them the party of accountability. So where is the accountability in Cindy McCain’s refusal to release her tax statement? Where’s the accountability when she plagarized verbatim recipes from websites? Didn’t FOX make a lot of hay out of Obama’s “borrowing” from a colleague’s speech?
You are absolutely correct about those recipies. No excuse…. except I think it’s some kind of gender thing when it comes to cooking (seriously).
Cindy McCain is not running for president and Senator McCain had to sign a “pre-nup” when they married so I’m not sure if that means anything.
I can’t remember did Mrs. Heinz-Kerry release her tax records?
Finally, if you will check your facts on the “third world babies”, you will find that Cindy McCain actually took TWO babies home. They adopted one and another couple who (I think) is on McCain’s staff had been trying to adopt unsuccessfully adopted the other. Both babies needed expensive health care treatment and the McCains staffer never saw a single bill or paid a penny for any of their child’s treatment.
You could be correct though, maybe she is hiding something by not releasing her financials.
I noticed that you are comparing a presidential candidate’s wife to an actual presidential candidate. Do you think it wise to compare Michelle Obama to Senator John McCain? I mean Mrs. Obama has only been happy about her country just recently and all.
However, having said all that other stuff, it’s kind of like I’ve told my kids through the years.
“You can do good all week at school and at home but if you mess up that one time… regardless of how fare it is or not it just erases all the good days you had that wee.”
What I’m saying is I would like Cindy McCain to explain the recipe thing.
Plagerizing is just a fancy word for “stealing”. Stealing is stealing. Period.
Am I the only one who finds such pablum of witch hunting utterly despicable and humanely irrational? After reading the first paragraph, I went into one of those states of shock where you’ll turn around and a stream of fiery lava showers your senses as if someone, unexpectedly informed you, your mother has just passed away…
I am seriously considering moving to Japan…
I just bought a scarf like that one. I’m heading to Dunkin Donuts now and will keep wearing it.
Well, speaking for everyone…. yes, yes you are the only one who finds such pablum of whtch hunting utterly despicable and humanely irrational.
Keep in mind that Japan also has it’s draw-backs too. Floor space is a bit hard to come by for one, and you MUST have clean socks where ever you go!
Elion: The truth is that Michelle Malkin was the one witch hunting. Allow me to be clear:
A keffiyeh is generally worn-
- by a man
- wrapped in a particular manner.
Rachael Ray is a woman, and she is wearing her scarf draped.
Michelle Malkin’s stance on the “mainstreaming” of the keffiyeh would still hold water, if not for the fact that-
- a keffiyeh is made out of stiff cotton
- a keffiyeh is broad and rectangular
Rachael Ray’s scarf is narrow and obviously made out of silk or a silk-poly blend. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about fabric can tell this. I can intellectually understand Michelle Malkin’s argument about the mainstreaming of the keffiyeh, and in fact I agreed with her point about Ricky Martin’s foolish wearing of one that was branded with radical sayings. But is Rachael Ray’s scarf another example of such “dumb celebrity?”
NO.
If there were Israeli people complaining about Rachael Ray’s scarf and the fashionableness of militant Palestinian Separatism, I might have felt differently. But in this case it’s conservative bloggers, and I see shades of McCarthyism.
And the word you were looking for was “pabulum”. Pablum is an infant’s cereal.
I’m just not a fan of that scarf, period.
I think the real issue isn’t even the scarf, but the fact that Rachael Ray’s career has been brought to the level of endorsing DUNKIN DONUTS in the American market.
Real celebrities do that endorsement work in foreign markets. This only reaffirms me belief that Rachael Ray is oddly intriguing, yet always annoying….like her scarf.
Lindsey (on June 4, 2008 at 8:33 am),
Maybe I should have been more explicit as to whom I was directing my discontent to. I am cognizant of the fact this hate monger, Malkin, was the pestilent agent behind the orchestrated McCarthyism witch hunt. As you have adequately put it:
“Does the thought of someone being Muslim, or of their Muslimhood being accepted by advertisers, scare us so badly that we must now rage not only against the belief but against even the mere shade of a possible appearance of the belief? Note that when we, as a country, decide that Islam as a religion and Middle-Eastern garb as a fashion choice that we are raging against a wide-ranging portion of humanity that probably doesn’t appreciate our fervent aggression.”
But I do not understand why you are trying to school me on how Keffiyeh convenes a fashion of its own — that’s entirely irrelevant. What baffles me is that we are even discussing the subtleties of various patterns when the question should be on, “WHY THE FUCK Keffiyeh IS BEING DEPICTED AS A NEFARIOUS ENSEMBLE OF ‘TERRORISM’ IN THE FIRST PLACE?”
Keffiyeh is a traditional “headdress” worn by the “Arab” men to protect their head from sun exposure. It comes in divers manifolds which sometimes can be plain white, in other cases with some sort of mesh pattern distinguished by the geographical and tribal tokens. Oh heck, the British used to wear them as a testimony to their practicality. I remember back in college, a Jordanian classmate had a checkered red-white.
The point I am trying to make is that keffiyeh is merely a clothing accessory just like thawb, a long garment mostly worn by the men in the Gulf region. You cannot possibly associate certain group’s action to the region’s traditional attire and insidiously label them, as Malkin likes to call them, “hate couture” (for fuck sake). The same analogy can be applied to any culturally significant attire, for instance, we do not label anyone who wears “trench coat” as a deranged shooter just because Columbine High School gunmen had them on — they don’t have “monopoly” over the garment. Another example, Osama wears a turban which is a style engraved in many societies stretching from African all the way to south Asia, however, we don’t fraternize “all” the Indians, Arabs, or North African under a brand of “terrorism,” do we?
As I have iterated this case before, keffiyeh is a cultural phenomenon, an accessory in this case, and cannot be furnished to a particular group existing under the umbrella of broader refining spectrum. Moreover, even keffiyeh with certain pattern that has become known as an illustration of solidarity with Palestinians is merely an icon for their “struggle” and has no relation with deeds of a few men. The smearing attacks are simply an attempt to persuade the impressionable minds of credulous Americans because it is somehow more “marketable” in the age of MSM.
And you entirely lost credibility when you said, “I can intellectually understand Michelle Malkin’s argument about the mainstreaming of the keffiyeh…” “Intellectually!!” Do I have to remind you that she is an unprincipled propaganda mouthpiece whose opinion is merely a loose collection of intellectual conceits? You are giving this paid political prostitute way too much credit where it is not due. And for these goons remotely manage to devise a wide-spread commotion over this is beyond me.
P.S. pablum “lowercase” is the same as pabulum:
pab·lum /ˈpæbləm/
1. Trademark. a brand of soft, bland cereal for infants.
–noun
2. (__lowercase__) trite, naive, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap. <– Intended semantic
pab·u·lum /ˈpæbyələm/
–noun
1. something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriment.
2. material for intellectual nourishment.
3. __pablum__.
xpressyrsf,
For someone who is low on cognitive sufficiency, you must have not realized that Rachael is by no means an “internationally” renowned celebrity. A foreign advertisement market is usually reserved for actors and actresses with broader set of viewers. You don’t expect an Indian cricket star to sport in a bubble gum ad here in the US, do you?