Month: November 2003

An e-mail purportedly from the Los Angeles County Purchasing and Contract Services Director urging technology vendors with county contracts to avoid “unsensitive” technical terms.

The County of Los Angeles actively promotes and is committed to ensure a work environment that is free from any discriminatory influence be it actual or perceived. As such, it is the County’s expectation that our manufacturers, suppliers and contractors make a concentrated effort to ensure that any equipment, supplies or services that are provided to County departments do not possess or portray an image that may be construed as offensive or defamatory in nature.
One such recent example included the manufacturer’s labeling of equipment where the words ”Master/Slave” appeared to identify the primary and secondary sources. Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label. We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment or components thereof that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature before such equipment is sold or otherwise provided to any County department.

So, for example, all those references to attaching a subordinated hard drive to another, the former traditionally (like for a decade or two) called a “slave” and the latter a “master”? Right out. Labels on hard drives that indicate how to change the jumpers to make a drive a “master” or “slave,” as has been standard industry terminology (and well-descriptive terminology) for years? Don’t go there. In fact, scrape off those labels and put on new ones — perhaps “manager/staff,” or “suggester/considerer,” or “fuzzy bear/cuddly bunny.” Don’t want folks to get emotionally traumatized by their computer upgrades, or file a racial harrassment suit against the IT group …

It’s not 100% clear that this is real. The BoingBoing article‘s link is malformed — SOCALWUG is here — and I don’t see the letter in question posted at the site anyway. But it’s certainly believably bizarre in its PCness, which means that even if there’s no such e-mail, there’s certainly a bureaucratic zeitgeist that would let one exist.

In either case — yeesh.

While eschewing Scott’s obligatory Evil Warmongering Cowardly Dubya rhetoric, I have to agree with him that it’s disgusting that the National Guard would go ahead and deploy troops overseas to Iraq who tested positive for drug use, despite the Army’s “zero tolerance” policy. I certainly can’t support illegal drug use, but a policy touted with such moral righteousness during peacetime in order to winnow out the unfit and scofflaws shouldn’t hardly be set aside in wartime.

And in response to the idea that at least some of these guys were doing drugs in order to avoid deployment — well, screw ’em. Forget about the dishonorable discharge — throw in some serious brig time for both drug use and dereliction of duty in wartime, and show that it’s not behavior that’s “rewarded.”

The Guard’s actions here comes across as highly cynical — especially as there are plans to prosecute the offenders after they return from Iraq. The cynicism can only be increased by statements like this, from a Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, spokesperson:

A positive on their drug test is not going to keep them here, unless there’s a dependency issue. These units have to have so many people to go overseas.

If it makes ’em unfit in peacetime, it makes ’em unfit in wartime, quotas or not. And if it doesn’t, then change the policy, and don’t file charges after they’ve done their service.