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That's the reasoning behind the Fox ads promoting Dads, which premieres Tuesday night. (Short version: Giovanni Ribisi and Seth Green as two guys who run a videogame company and deal with their embarrassing dads, played by Martin Mull and Peter Riegert.)

The Fox promo crows about the reviews that point out that the show is kinda racist (it's also kinda sexist, though that's gotten considerably less play). And the reason Fox is pushing that angle is that that's all there is. There's genuinely no reason to watch this show other than to be titillated with the idea that you're watching something naughty that offends other people. The seductive pitch here is that other people are stodgy and lame, but that you, however, are so cool, so modern, so down, so unsafe, so bad-ass, so beyond political correctness that you will look at two white dudes making their Asian employee do a "sexy Asian schoolgirl" routine and think, "See, I can take it. Why? Because I'm pretty edgy. I'm pretty alternative."

Honestly, if you don't think of it as controversial, Dads is just recycled from a gazillion other shows about how funny it is when old people walk around naked, use the bathroom, or otherwise act embarrassing. If it weren't attached to Seth MacFarlane's name as executive producer and it didn't have jokes about Asians and Jews and Latinas and you saw it out of context, you'd assume it was a tentative foray into comedy by some obscure, underfunded basic cable channel that's never made scripted television before. Or maybe a basic cable channel run by a sturdy consumer brand without an actual creative arm.

The non-racist version of Dads, relying on the actual quality of the jokes, would be what you'd expect to see from, say, the first comedy produced in-house by Frito-Lay, where the sons and the dads solve their problems over a big bag of Tostitos.

So if you don't want to fret over the idea that Dads is offensive, then don't. But do me a favor: don't give it extra points for the fact that other people think it's offensive. Don't tee-hee over putting one over on people who don't like racist jokes. If you don't want to avoid it because of how it treats Asians, Latinas, Jews, or Puerto Ricans, then don't watch it for that reason. Walk up to it with no preconceived notions, don't assume watching it is a rebellious act, and see whether the jokes are of the quality you expect from the things on which you spend your time.

(Spoiler alert: they are not.)

There's news this week that shipbuilder STX Finland will close what it describes as "the world's leading ferry builder," a yard where the company also built small cruise ships, ice breakers and naval craft.

The company blamed economic conditions for the closure of the Rauma Shipyard. Work from there will be shifted to the company's facility in Turku. About 700 people will lose their jobs.

"The anticipated volume of future demand is not enough to sustain two shipyards at STX Finland," the company said in a statement. "The Turku Shipyard is able to build all types of vessels. The restructuring will not limit the company's offering or reduce the volume of its operations."

A Global Problem

The troubles at STX Finland mirror much of what's happening in the global shipbuilding industry.

The company is a subsidiary of South Korea's STX Pan Ocean, which itself filed for bankruptcy in June. At the time, the company said a "combination of a sharp decline in freight rates, a delayed industry recovery, oversupply of ships due to an increased production at Chinese shipyards and higher fuel costs drove up debt and squeezed margins."

The problems aren't confined to South Korea, the world's second-largest shipbuilder.

Quartz reported in July about the difficulties faced by China's Rongsheng Heavy Industries, China's largest private shipbuilder. Here's more:

"China's shipbuilding industry as a whole is suffering a divergence of supply and demand— new orders fell 23% at the end of May from a year earlier and the ships that are being sold have fallen in price. To compound problems further, an ongoing liquidity crisis has diminished access to loans, squeezing shipbuilders even more."

There's news this week that shipbuilder STX Finland will close what it describes as "the world's leading ferry builder," a yard where the company also built small cruise ships, ice breakers and naval craft.

The company blamed economic conditions for the closure of the Rauma Shipyard. Work from there will be shifted to the company's facility in Turku. About 700 people will lose their jobs.

"The anticipated volume of future demand is not enough to sustain two shipyards at STX Finland," the company said in a statement. "The Turku Shipyard is able to build all types of vessels. The restructuring will not limit the company's offering or reduce the volume of its operations."

A Global Problem

The troubles at STX Finland mirror much of what's happening in the global shipbuilding industry.

The company is a subsidiary of South Korea's STX Pan Ocean, which itself filed for bankruptcy in June. At the time, the company said a "combination of a sharp decline in freight rates, a delayed industry recovery, oversupply of ships due to an increased production at Chinese shipyards and higher fuel costs drove up debt and squeezed margins."

The problems aren't confined to South Korea, the world's second-largest shipbuilder.

Quartz reported in July about the difficulties faced by China's Rongsheng Heavy Industries, China's largest private shipbuilder. Here's more:

"China's shipbuilding industry as a whole is suffering a divergence of supply and demand— new orders fell 23% at the end of May from a year earlier and the ships that are being sold have fallen in price. To compound problems further, an ongoing liquidity crisis has diminished access to loans, squeezing shipbuilders even more."

For sportswriters the fattest target has always been the America's Cup. It's too easy. It's like all those political writers who make fun of vice presidents and think they're being original. Sportswriters have been going har-de-har-har about the America's Cup even long before one of their wags said it was like watching paint dry. Or like watching grass grow. One or the other. Maybe both.

But while America's Cup yachts can gracefully skim above water at better than 40 mph, Frank Deford says when he looks back at the seven seas in 2013 he'll remember 64-year-old Diana Nyad "plowing, all by herself, freestyle, through 100 miles of surf from Havana to Key West."

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.