Funkin' Gonuts

BOSTON - Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism. The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because "the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."

Seriously. Sometimes, I think people have too much time on their hands and too much influence. Rachel Ray - security threat.

Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. Critics who fueled online complaints about the ad in blogs say such scarves have come to symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism.

Michelle Malkin. You remember her. She's the nut that made Absolut pull its ad because she thought it depicted the southwest as part of Mexico. It prompted a dozen calls. A dozen, and they caved. This time, all Malkin had to do was bark loud enough to make noise.

A statement issued Wednesday by Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin' Brands Inc., however, said the scarf had a paisley design, and was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot.
"Absolutely no symbolism was intended," the company said.

But they pulled the ad anyway, thereby giving right-wing nutjobs like Malkin even more influence on American society. Maybe Malkin is the terrorist?

Malkin, in a posting following up on last week's column, said of Dunkin's decision to pull the ad, "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."

I think it's pathetic that an American company can be influenced by one person to the extent that they pull an ad because one person found a problem with it. I think it is a symptom of a bigger problem that exists in America that we have media people with an agenda who can make a name for themselves by pressuring companies to change something that the vast majority of people didn't recognize as a problem until they exerted their political viewpoint.

What a stupid world.