I am really not this much of a Star Trek nerd, but have you seen the episode of ST:TNG entitled “Where no one has gone before?” They actually go billions of light years away to a totally foreign galaxy that literally no one has been to before. So, yes, they do go there sometimes.
Are you talking about the American Idol that was on Tuesday? Are you sure they changed it to “ones”? I heard “men,” like in the original, but then again, I wasn’t really paying close attention to it. I do remember there was a group of people singing it, so maybe some of them sang “ones” while others sang “men.”
And if they wanted to avoid bad publicity, why would they change “men” to “ones” and not even bother to change the song lyric which is the actual title of the song, “God Bless the USA,” into something more secular, such as “I Love the USA”? I mean, it seems like deleting a reference to God to avoid offending atheists would be just as high on their priority list as changing a pronoun to be more gender neutral, if they really wanted to be politically correct.
To the best of my knowledge, women have been in the military since at least the Civil War, albeit, dressed as men. Still counts.
You mean, bad publicity from people who felt the original lyrics were exclusive of women, and thus inappropriate when both men and women are currently fighting in Iraq? What’s the difference? Do you want Fox network executives to only take actions they truly believe in their hearts to be right? That could be a problem, because I don’t think network executives have hearts.
So far, I’ve heard you say that changing pronouns in songs is OK, unless you’re doing it to be “politically correct” at which point it’s wrong. Even though you don’t actually know, you’re assuming the American Idol people were doing it out of blind adherence to the ill-defined laws of PCness, hence your outrage is justified.
I think that’s dumb.
Now I can’t read this thread without laughing, because I keep hearing Devo singing, “Are we not ONES?”
highjack (sort of)
Occasionally the debate about our national anthem raises IT’s ugly head. One complaint is that the Star Spangled Banner sucks on account of it is a military march (well, duh…), it glorifies violence & war (“the bombs bursting in air…”), and, well, it’s just not pretty. A popular replacement proposal is “America the Beautiful”. I mean, after all we should follow Canada’s lead and sing a funeral dirge before the hockey game starts.
Anyway to the point. Do the proponents of “America the Beautiful” have a plan for what we’d do with the line:
“America, America, God shed his grace on thee.
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea”
I mean, jeez, how politically incorrect can it get?
On the other hand, in spirit of our new era of self-flagellation, maybe we should just not have a national anthem.
To avoid confusing the issue, let’s drop the subject of other songs. My stance is that the changing of lyrics in this song was unnecessary, and that it was done for the wrong reason, political correctness.
And FTR, I haven’t heard anyone pipe up and say that they would have been offended if the lyrics had not been changed.
Mostly b/c I wouldn’t have been watching American Idol to be offended. Taking that into consideration, however, I’ll pipe up and say that acknowledging the sacrifices of military men, but not women, in this context would be offensive.
Would I be protesting in the streets? Sending around petitions? No. I wouldn’t have even started a Pit thread about it, to be honest. 
Though my annoyance would certainly be greater if I were a woman in the military and felt that my efforts were being dismissed.
I do believe the language issue gets blown out of proportion sometimes, for example in the case of “manhole.” I could care less what the damn things are called. I wouldn’t even give an argument about “a-woman” the time of day. (Well, maybe I’d direct the annoyed party to any number of woman-centric traditions.)
Just an interesting sidenote:
I love those songs. FTR, screw Burt Bacharach.
Sorry, Lord. didn’t mean anything mean. Got excited.
While I’m on the fence with regard to gender neutrality in music (I can’t stand it in Christmas songs, though…) I don’t like replacing “men” with “ones”…it sounds, I dunno, cold…I think such neutrality should be acheived by use of “folks”…
There are many of us out there who like the song and the message behind it. Other good songs in this genre include “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” by Toby Keith and “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly” by Aaron Tippen. That little tickle of irritation you feel when you hear the songs is your conscience reminding you that there are people right now making the sacrifices to protect our way of life that you are incapable or unwilling to make.
No the irritation we feel is the grating annoyance of Jinoistic suckitude set to country music.
If you want to hear a good patriotic song, Try Ray Charles’ version of America the Beautiful or john Cougar Mellencamp’s Pink Houses.
What exaxctly are those people “protecting” us from, btw.?
I am offended by the song’s suckiness. Nothing else. I was begging my mom to stop the tape, but NOOOOOOO…she wouldn’t. She says she kinda likes that song now. God help me.
But in case she’s lurking, I’d better shut up about THAT. 
And whenever people start ranting about “our way of life” I tend to leave as fast as I can. Our way of life, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean, is NOT the be-all and end-all of human social evolution. This is NOT necessarily the greatest country EVER. Don’t tell me to leave. I LIKE this country. I’m glad I was born here. But we aren’t the only civilized people on the face of the earth!
I already pointed out the mistake in that article. Are you being sarcastic? My Sarcasm Detector is in the shop.
Actually, I was thinking of two songs when I posted, but then realized it was two halves of the same song. “What the hell is that other song?”
Anyway, so on the following point I was being sarcastic:
“Screw Burt Bacharach”. I actually like Burt.
And on the following point I was being dense:
“I love those songs”
Diogenes The Cynic asks:
“What exaxctly are those people “protecting” us from, btw.?”
I don’t want to hijack the thread with a primer on how the United States military has protected our way of life in the past and continues to do so. I think the point would be intentionally ignored in any case.