Blue's Blog: UDUMASS

OK, yeah, I'd be fucking ashamed to be from Oregon right now.

Oregon DMV spokesmorons Bell and House (nice, safe, white, middle class, anglo-saxon names) twitter on about how these folks' personalised plates UDINK1, UDINK2, etc are offensive because (brace yourselves) 'dink' : "can be treated as a verb, which gives it a sexual reference, and also can be a racial slur targeted at the Vietnamese"

What The Blue Fuck?

It's their NAME, you dumb fucks!

Also, anyone who knows that 'dink' is a sexual reference would think the plate hilarious and I doubt that a Vietnamese person on the planet would think that some random Oregonian family had chosen, of all things, to insult the Vietnamese race via their personalised licence plates!

For fucks sake, people! Does this sound like the boy in Oz who was banned from school because of his name? (Note, I had this bookmarked but apparently the article has 'expired' from Yahoo and i can't find it. Note to self: quote entire articles from now on so they'll live forever on da net.) Anyway, the kid's name was 'Helle' which is a perfectly acceptable German surname.

Dumbest. Case. Of. Censorship. Evar.

Should I send the Udinks one of my new snarky t-shirts?

Wouldn't this one be a great funny t-shirt for wearing to the in-laws' house? Or meetings at work? (EGH needs this one for some of his co-workers. Not all, just a select few.) Ohh, how about political rallies? Great tees for the upcoming presidential election in 2008! Ha! Wear it to vote.

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Oh, here's the entire article:

MERLIN, Oregon - The state of Oregon has ordered a family to turn in the vanity license plates on its cars because their Dutch last name, which is written on the plates, is similar to an offensive word.
The plates, UDINK1 UDINK2 and UDINK3 are on the vehicles of Mike and Shelly Udink and their son Kalei. Two of the plates are five and seven years old. One was issued last year.
Last summer, Kawika Udink's application for UDINK4 was rejected and the state ordered that the other three plates be returned.
"DINK has several derogatory meanings," Yvonne Bell, who sits on the Department of Motorvehicles panel that approves vanity plates, told the Daily Courier newspaper.
DMV spokesman David House and Bell said the word can be treated as a verb, which gives it a sexual reference, and also can be a racial slur targeted at the Vietnamese.
House said the "U" in the front could be construed as "You."
The DMV denies requests for any combination of letters and numbers that may be viewed as objectionable, in any language, by use of phonetic, numeric or reverse spelling, or when viewed as a mirror image, or that would alarm or offend a reasonable person.
Intimate body parts or sexual or bodily functions are taboo, as are offensive references to race, color, gender, ethnic heritage, or national origin or to alcohol or drugs or paraphernalia.
The panel's ruling surprised Mike Udink, whose name is Dutch. He says it is a common last name in The Netherlands.
"Since when can a panel dictate whether your name's offensive or not?" asked Udink, a lineman for Pacific Power.
House said the state has the right to censor license plates, because the state owns them