'Offended!' (Tiptoeing in America)

• Steve Soifer, CEO of an international support group for people with "shy bladders," excoriated DirecTV in November for its series of commercials featuring Rob Lowe, whose "awkward" character in one ad stands at a urinal and says, "Fact: I can't go with other people in the room." Soifer says the ad ridicules a serious problem -- and compared it to "making fun" of a man missing an arm or leg. [Associated Press via New York Daily News, 11-4-2014]

• The Power of One Sensitive Soul: (1) Lt. Col. Sherwood Baker was turned away from Adams High School in Rochester, Michigan, in September by a guard who said a school official sent word that Baker was not allowed in to discuss his daughter's class schedule until he changed to civilian clothes -- because "a student" might be offended by his military uniform. (The Rochester school superintendent later apologized.) (2) The British Embassy in Washington, D.C., apologized twice in August, first a tongue-in-cheek "apology" for England's War of 1812 attack on the White House and then for making that "apology" in the first place -- because of a backlash on Twitter from Americans complaining the jokey "apology" was "offensive." [Daily Mail (London), 9-11-2014] [Sky News (London), 8-25-2014]

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