Again, I recommend the NYT “Media Matters” blog. There were some specifics there.

Then there’s the cosmic question of whether it’s more demeaning to be a member of Mini-KISS or KISS.

Even more sadly, there’s a rival band called “Tiny KISS”. I remember there was a story…either on This American Life or The Daily Show, I forget…a few years ago on the rather nasty feud between the two bands.

And just like that, the entire discussion we’ve had just gets shot to hell. Any dreams we might’ve had about greater awareness and tolerance of people with dwarfism gets blown away by Gene Simmons informing us that there’s a “Little Kiss” of cherry in Dr. Pepper during the frickin’ Superbowl. (sigh) :-(

And while we’re on the subject, was I imagining the rather high levels of misogyny in a lot of Superbowl ads this year? The Dodge Charger ad comes immediately to mind, but there were a few others, too.

Update | 7:49 p.m. For the second time in the second quarter, there were two spots in a row with common content.

The last time, it was spots for CareerBuilder.com and Dockers that both had men without pants. This time, it was spots for Dr Pepper Cherry soda and a new series on the truTV cable channel, “N.F.L. Full Contact,” that both had mini-men.

For Dr Pepper Cherry, the wee men were dressed as members of Kiss. For the TV series, there was a miniature version of the football star Troy Polamalu.

Kudos to CBS if this is all on purpose.

There aren’t exactly hate speech laws per se, however, hate speech CAN be prosecuted if it occurs in the workplace and it’s part of a broader pattern of discrimination or creating a “hostile work environment.” I don’t like that concept, as life is a pretty hostile work environment, why should people expect the office to be much different? And upon doing more research it appears that the courts sort-of agree with me; it’s a pretty strict standard that complaintants have to reach to successfully sue under those discrimination claims. Moreover, I have yet to find a case where the government was the plaintiff in these cases.

And in relationship to this discussion, it’s essentially meaningless. If the Herald employed a person with dwarfism and Howie Carr screamed “midget” at them every time he said said person, and did so while slapping them and grabbing his crotch…said person could probably successfully sue under workplace discrimination laws and the “hate speech” would be part of the larger case. If Carr wrote about the incidents in great detail in his column, that’d be just more fuel for the fire. But Howie can write that Bulger is the “Corrupt Midget” and Bulger obviously can’t sue him for workplace discrimination. Libel, maybe. (maybe?) But not discrimination.

Now, in my defense, I work at a college and have worked at, on, or consulted for colleges for almost my entire professional career…and there’s been both numerous and increasing examples of “speech codes” which are essentially templates for hate-speech laws. It is true that speech codes rarely hold up if you manage to drag one before the courts, but it’s getting to that point that is the trick. There are many, many cases of college speech codes, some of which are positively Nazi-esque (oops, Godwin’s Law! :-) that have done a fine job of exacting a “chilling effect” on free speech at their campus…but haven’t been enforced in such a way that can get them tested in front of a court. (Of course, I’m talking about codes at public universities, which are considered agents of the government. Private universities, unfortunately, can pretty much do what they want.)

I think basically what I did here was see the frequent and numerous speech code issues within my industry and erroneously equate that to a greater prevalence of “hate speech” laws than what really exists. So yeah, I screwed up on my facts and generally made an idiot of myself.

Although pondering this more: one wonders what would happen if a hate-speech law was passed, challenged, and made it before the current Supreme Court, eh?

Upon further reflection, though, I stand by my assertion that targeting words for banning is a stupid idea. I don’t like censoring words in any form, no matter how “hurtful” someone finds them to be. Like I said, one man’s homophobic slur is another man’s cigarette…context is everything and the law is rarely good at interpreting context. And hey, if the Herald wants to pander to insensitive boobs, I say that just makes ‘em easier to spot in public when they’re standing there reading a copy.