Uh oh — cereals in a crunch

I have received a disturbing letter from Mr. Frank J. Phillips, who describes himself as both a patriot and a Latin teacher.

I didn't realize we still had Latin teachers, but I'm glad we do, because contrary to what you think (and as a member of the news media, I know exactly what you think) Latin is not just an old dead language spoken by old dead guys who are no longer relevant because they are old and dead. In fact, Latin is the "mother tongue" (or "alma mater") of our own language (English): Many of the words and phrases we use every day are actually of Latin origin, including "etc.," "kazoo," "Roman numeral," "Caesar salad," "No way!" and "bling bling."

But Mr. Phillips did not write to me about Latin. He wrote to me about a troubling thing he has noticed; namely — and here I will quote Mr. Phillips, using his own words — "the complete male domination of the breakfast-cereal cartoon-spokescharacter world."

And he's right. Think about the characters representing your major cereal brands: Cap'n Crunch. Tony the Tiger. The Quaker Oats Quaker man. Toucan Sam. Count Chocula. Frankenberry. Lucky the Leprechaun. Snap, Crackle, and — yes — Pop. The Kellogg's rooster. The Trix Rabbit. All males!

(If you're wondering how I know that the Trix Rabbit is male, the answer is, I asked various people: "Is the Trix Rabbit male?" And they all said he was.)

Now many individuals, confronted with a social injustice of this magnitude, would choose to look the other way. But Frank J. Phillips is not "many individuals." He wrote a petition to the cereal companies and circulated it at his school, St. Mary's School in Medford, Ore., where many students signed the petition out of what I assume was a sincere desire to keep Mr. Phillips distracted from attempting to teach them Latin.

Some of the students also wrote letters expressing their deep innermost feelings about this issue. "As a young girl," wrote one young girl, "I subconsciously grew to dislike cereal because I felt that I could not identify with the characters that represented cereal."

I know what you're thinking now. You're thinking: "Dave, are you insane? Our nation is struggling to deal with war, worldwide terrorism, a mounting budget deficit, a health-care crisis and some very questionable votes on 'American Idol.' With all these serious problems facing us, how can you possibly ignore the Honey Nut Cheerios Honey Bee? Surely you wouldn't call IT a male?"

No, I would not. I would call it gender-neutral. And as the father of a 4-year-old girl, I frankly do not want my daughter to grow up in a world where her cereal-spokesperson role model is an asexual bee.