Chlorine in the gene pool

Posted by Baceseras on June 14, 2010 at 20:06

In Reply to: Chlorine in the gene pool posted by ESC on June 14, 2010 at 00:04:

: Helen, the main character/heroine in the Dead-End Job Mystery series, is on the lam to avoid paying alimony to her deadbeat ex-husband. In "Dying to Call You," she is a telemarketer and thinks, "The computers were calling Kentucky and Tennessee in areas where the gene pool needed some chlorine." I say that is an ethnic slur. Author Elaine Viets says it is not. What say you? More detail: Ms. Viets has worked as a telemarketer and says Kentucky and Tennessee people were the rudest. But she didn't talk about our lack of telephone manners in the book - she made a comment regarding our genetic makeup.

[Of course it is an ethnic slur, and if she's going to make such remarks she ought to own them for what they are. Telemarketing calls are intrusive by definition and on purpose; I hope my fellow Ohioans gave her an earful when she called here. If she thought we weren't "rude" to her, she just didn't get what we were saying. Tennessee and Kentucky got the point across: so they're "the rudest." - B.]

• Chlorine in the gene pool ESC 15/June/10