Dan Seligman notes in his monthly New York Post column that the new style manual of the New York Times seems to spell the end of one of the Times's favorite phrases for slamming Ronald Reagan, "voodoo economics" (which was actually coined by George Bush in 1980). THE SCRAPBOOK counts at least 250 uses of the phrase by the Times over the years. Perhaps you have already guessed that the reason for its demise has nothing to do with a new fondness for Reagan at the Times. No, here is what the stylebook has to say: "VOODOO is a religion with many followers in Africa and the West Indies, not to mention the United States. They are offended by disparaging uses of voodoo to mean irrational beliefs."
Seligman goes on to highlight other absurdities, for instance: " Times writers must not identify women as housewives or homemakers, as this would be 'belittling' -- even, it appears, if true. But 15 lines below this regulation, we encounter another no-no: a news story telling us that some famous person's father was a steelworker, but failing to mention the mother's situation in life. . . . What if the mother was a house-wife? The manual naturally doesn't say. It's voodoo rule-making."