In a decision that reverberated from coast to coast, Iowa’s Sweet Corn Technical Institute in Des Moines voted to change the name and logo of its athletic teams from the “Grasshoppers” to the “Indians,” a course running counter to current fashion. “This tribute to the courage, dignity and historical tenacity of an often-derided minority is long overdue,” said Athletic Director Giffer Goffer.

“We are proud to emphasize our cultural kinship with a group which in the face of overwhelming odds during this nation’s founding maintained ethnic pride and whose accomplishments since should bring a blush, so to speak, of admiration to us all” he added after the unanimous vote of students and faculty.News of the Sweet Corn decision caused the New York Times to reverse one of that paper’s more foolish policies: A Times editorial thundered that “it is about time the silly campaigns by local governments and many schools to eliminate such team names as `Indians,’ `Braves’ and `Redskins’ is recognized for the absurdity that it is. We regret our past endorsement of such demeaning efforts to deny America’s indigenous people the emblematic prominence they deserve. It is inspiriting that this challenge comes from Des Moines, the heartland of the heartland, and we trust the bold decision will be emulated widely.” The Washington Post, noting the Times’ policy retreat, several days later also published a lead editorial: “Bravo to the faculty and students of Sweet Corn Technical Institute for asserting that symbols can be eloquent. For our part, this newspaper will no longer use the term `Native Americans,’ realizing that the very imprecise usage is insensitive to immigrants and their descendants. We salute Iowa’s Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, for his quick appreciation of the decision in his state: `What’s good enough for Sweet Corn is good enough for me,’ the ultraliberal Harkin said at a press conference.”

Whoa! Enough whimsical improbability.

The cult of “victimhood” first cousin to multicultural faddism, is too embedded at the moment for any actual transition to mother wit to occur. Indeed, there is a bow-wave of enthusiasm for promoting “group identities” and erasing supposed denigration of minorities. This daft confusion of perspective was exemplified by former vice president Al Gore, when at a campaign rally he slyly translated one of the nation’s mottos, E pluribus unum (From Many, One) as “From One, Many.” When questions arose, his handlers insisted the reversal was inadvertent.

The most recent nonsense comes from — where else? -the nation’s capital. An organization composed of representatives from the city and surrounding jurisdictions passed a resolution urging that the owner of the Washington Redskins professional football team change its name by next season.

In the overheated rhetoric usual in these peevish squeakings, the resolution proclaimed, “The use of this degrading and dehumanizing term for a team name is offensive and hurtful to Native Americans and to many people who reject racial stereotypes, racial slurs and bigotry as socially and morally unacceptable.” Two members of the body voted against the addled motion and five abstained. The resolution is toothless: Such a coagulation of governmental officials has no enforcement power.

The trend frequently in cases such as this is for the offending school or team immediately to grovel and acquiesce to the demand for change — notwithstanding that students and parents often object. Happily, at least so far, the Washington Redskins are not impressed. A spokesman for the team said, “We have no intention of changing our name.”

Actually, changing the name of any National Football League (NFL) team would require a decision by NFL Big Chief Paul Tagliabue. The last time there were mutterings about renaming the Redskins, he sensibly demurred.

A similar feel-good assault on athletic nomenclature in 1997 led Washington’s pro-basketball team to change its name from the “Bullets” to the “Wizards.” The notion behind that episode was that “Bullets” was suggestive of violence and guns and it might lead impressionable younger fans to secure pistols or antitank guns.

In the midst of a vastly important mobilization in the war against terror, and the national consensus that is supporting it, the niggling efforts to get team names changed and to enforce other tenets of liberal political rectitude are as germane as flying a kite in a hurricane.

If anything, the continual involvement of governmental bodies in such flapdoodle makes an irrefutable case (as if it needed making yet again) that the United States now suffers from excessive layers of officialdom. Too many of these puny panjandrums do not have enough serious labor to concentrate their attention.

Traditions are not immune to criticism or change, of course, nor should they be. It is well, however, that fiddling with them ought to be consensual — ought to meet even a modestly democratic concurrence — rather than be the result of promiscuous itches by politicians seeking feel-good issues.