Brands and trademarks are always evolving in order to appeal to the trends and tastes of the time. Aunt Jemima gets slimmed down and loses her kerchief. The "fried" in Kentucky Fried Chicken disappears altogether as the company rebrands its restaurants KFC. Native American mascots like baseball's Chief Noc-A-Homa have been gradually retired for years. The University of Illinois tried to stave off the inevitable by treating its mascot, 'Chief Illiniwek' with more dignity in recent years. But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, "When you've got hot dog vendors selling snacks called 'chief dogs,' it kind of undermines the idea that the Chief is an 'honored symbol.'"
Pancake syrup symbols and sports team mascots are trivial matters. What's important here is that Tom Pauken comes down against political correctness when it affects something as silly as a basketball team mascot. So, you'd think he would condemn political correctness when it affects real political speech. You'd be wrong.
Elsewhere on Dallas Blog, another contributor praised the 1950s as "the last normal decade", calling on Americans to return to the "old ways of living". When a reader pointed out that the "old ways of living" included "segregation and the Red Scare", Tom Pauken could have condemned the political witch hunts of the McCarthy era. He could have condemned persecution of people for political association. He could have condemned blacklisting of actors, writers, directors whose personal backgrounds included past membership in a political party later deemed unpatriotic. Tom Pauken had a chance to condemn some of the worst excesses of "political correctness" in our nation's history, in a case when it was focused directly on politics itself. Mr Pauken had his opportunity and missed it. Instead, he excused McCarthyism by arguing that Communists were a problem. Instead of condemning McCarthyism, he excused it!
I'd have more sympathy for Tom Pauken's lament of the fate of the fictitious Chief Illiniwek if Tom Pauken wouldn't side with the "politically correct" persecutors when real people's lives were on the line in the 1950s.
P.S. My own contribution to that thread on Dallas Blog came to an abrupt halt when I condemned McCarthyism and Tom Pauken's defense of it. My post was censored by Dallas Blog, as usual with no announcement or explanation. Ironic, don't you think, in a discussion of Tom Pauken's defense of McCarthyism?
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