Slog
News & ArtsSaturday, August 4, 2012
News The Saturday Morning News
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Posted by news intern Mike Gore
Fire Destroys Things: Oklahoma fires have destroyed over 50 houses, and may have been set by some jackass throwing a flaming newspaper out of a car. They're having an unusually dry summer, so weather conditions aren't expected to help.
SPD Officer Loses it: Video shows a 19-year veteran of the force yelling, cursing, and pushing someone at the scene of a call. SPD got out ahead of the incident, saying that other officers at the scene immediately reported the actions to supervisors. Maybe he was having a bad day, but another YouTube video shows him agitated and up in people's faces at the scene of a shooting.
Business Owners Give Yelp One Star: Some say that Yelp's ad pitch is close to coercion, an allegation that has been brought before a court in a class-action lawsuit. Locally, businesses with poor reviews feel forced into buying advertising on the site in order to get rid of bad reviews.
Chick-Fil-A Boycott a "Backfire": Washington Post says the August 1st "appreciation day" left the chain with record sales. The chain created a lot of pissed of Facebook statuses after news of the owner donating millions to anti-gay groups became widely known.
Unemployed Alaskan Homeowner Brings Hope to Missouri Senate Candidate: That's really all I can say.
CrossFit Headed for Disaster? A divorce is breaking apart the owners of the now-popular workout franchise, and one is selling to a private equity firm. Folks who CrossFit (is that a verb yet?) aren't pleased.
Leave Fat People Alone: So says Lindy West, constant defender of the Fats. She is completely right-on, but I'm starting to think she's like Jesse Jackson of fat people, which may be a dangerous precedent. But seriously—come up with something better than insulting people's bodies. It's not hard to do.
1
If anybody whines about not having a "straight pride day/parade" from now on, point them to Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day and the #StraightPride hashtag. And yes, participating in that does make them homophobic bigots - they're not allowed to redefine those words just because they don't like what they mean.
Also, Lindy West is a treasure and I miss her.
Also, Lindy West is a treasure and I miss her.
2
No snitchin' yo! Maybe SPD will do us all a favor and stop policing the Rainier valley, just put a fence around it and send in a meat truck once a week to collect bodies. Then they can come focus on the thuggery we have in here in Wallingford like stroller dads double parking their Audis outside Molly Moons.
3
Way to link to Lindy's terrific work! About time somebody with Slog posting privileges did that. Since she became a Jezebel editor she's been knocking them out of the park.
4
I like what Jon Stewart said about the Chick-fil-a/anti-gay thing: Like a drive-thru window, you don't go backwards.
They can sell all the chicken sandwiches they want and donate all their profits to hate groups, but marriage equality for gays is happening. Right in their faces. And there's nothing they can do to stop it. They've already lost.
They can sell all the chicken sandwiches they want and donate all their profits to hate groups, but marriage equality for gays is happening. Right in their faces. And there's nothing they can do to stop it. They've already lost.
5
Jesse Jackson was once notable as an eloquent speaker. Lindy... let's hope she speaks better than she writes.
6
It isn't OK to make fun of fat people, but it isn't OK to be fat either. As *mean* as it is, obesity (and heart disease and sedentary life styles) is not the trait of a healthy society. How can we urge society to be fit, without being labeled bigots or haters?
8
@4: Women's contraceptive rights, the freedom to vote, the right for small towns to elect their officials. These things were also great advances that have been largely undone by Tea Party thugs over the last few years. Gay marriage is happening, but don't count the forces of evil out. They play a long term game.
9
Lindy is mostly right on:
This whole Chick-Fil-A debacle, it seems, is all fat people's fault. This might be a great week to be a chicken, but it's the fucking worst week to be a fat gay guy.I'm pretty sure it's never a great week to be a chicken.
11
Phil M. down below left a link he found from a Times commenter of the same cop a couple of months ago at a shooting scene getting into it with everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8r1qehj…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8r1qehj…
12
All I know is, Ezell's Famous Chicken had a line out the door at 7:30 last night, and the cashier said it hadn't let up since lunch. I'd draw some sort of meaningful conclusion from that, but I'm still annoyed they ran out of mashed potatoes.
13
FULL TRANSPARENCY
In a real democracy or republic, some form of at least minimal transparency would be the order of the day.
Instead, the latest professional crook campaigning for the presidency, Willard M. Romney, hides his history of tax evasion by refusing to release his tax returns, obviously having much to hide.
President Obama made promises of open government and transparency, promises he has yet to fulfill and actions which have decidedly gone in the opposite direction.
Now Romney may possibly be stalling while his returns are amended, so if he finally releases them, and we see they've been amended, we will be certain we aren't observing his original returns!
Let's call their bluff completely: declassify all those documents involving the Kennedy assassination --- surely there's no valid reason for such classification any longer?
Since the Bush administration refused any serious investigation of 9/11, let's demand a full and open investigation of that as well.
The worst information which could surface would be all those myriad connections between the murder of President Kennedy and the Rockefeller family, and the financial circumstances surrounding 9/11 and the Rockefeller family.
Certainly, the heavy involvement of life-long David Rockefeller protégé and associate, Peter G. Peterson, and his private equity LBO firm, the Blackstone Group, to the events of 9/11 should be obvious (Blackstone Group brokered the WTC deal, was mortgage holder of Building 7, and in the aftermath of 9/11, was awarded management and control of Bush's FEMA-established captive insurance fund), just as close Peterson (and Henry Kissinger) friend, Hank Greenberg of AIG (which was also involved) is well known.
The Rockefeller connections to at least the murder of President Kennedy (and probably Rev. King and Bobby Kennedy as well) and the events of 9/11, substantiates the importance of open and honest investigations, as sordid history appears to keep repeating itself, but with ever greater fatalities.
Just as Willard Romney and his wife, Anne, claim they have nothing to hide and should immediately release those tax return data, so too should the Rockefeller family, Peter G. Peterson, Henry Kissinger and Hank Greenberg also having nothing to hide from a new and transparent investigation of 9/11 and the complete declassification of documents surrounding the Kennedy assassination.
The American public deserves to know!
Suggested reading:
Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett
Brothers: the Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot
JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass
Family of Secrets, by Russ Baker
A Terrible Mistake, by H.P. Albarelli
Who Shot Bobby?, by Shane O'Sullivan
Wall Street Capitalism: The Theory of the Bondholding Class, by E. Ray Canterbery
Treasure Islands, by Nicholas Shaxson
Extreme Money, by Satyajit Das
More...
In a real democracy or republic, some form of at least minimal transparency would be the order of the day.
Instead, the latest professional crook campaigning for the presidency, Willard M. Romney, hides his history of tax evasion by refusing to release his tax returns, obviously having much to hide.
President Obama made promises of open government and transparency, promises he has yet to fulfill and actions which have decidedly gone in the opposite direction.
Now Romney may possibly be stalling while his returns are amended, so if he finally releases them, and we see they've been amended, we will be certain we aren't observing his original returns!
Let's call their bluff completely: declassify all those documents involving the Kennedy assassination --- surely there's no valid reason for such classification any longer?
Since the Bush administration refused any serious investigation of 9/11, let's demand a full and open investigation of that as well.
The worst information which could surface would be all those myriad connections between the murder of President Kennedy and the Rockefeller family, and the financial circumstances surrounding 9/11 and the Rockefeller family.
Certainly, the heavy involvement of life-long David Rockefeller protégé and associate, Peter G. Peterson, and his private equity LBO firm, the Blackstone Group, to the events of 9/11 should be obvious (Blackstone Group brokered the WTC deal, was mortgage holder of Building 7, and in the aftermath of 9/11, was awarded management and control of Bush's FEMA-established captive insurance fund), just as close Peterson (and Henry Kissinger) friend, Hank Greenberg of AIG (which was also involved) is well known.
The Rockefeller connections to at least the murder of President Kennedy (and probably Rev. King and Bobby Kennedy as well) and the events of 9/11, substantiates the importance of open and honest investigations, as sordid history appears to keep repeating itself, but with ever greater fatalities.
Just as Willard Romney and his wife, Anne, claim they have nothing to hide and should immediately release those tax return data, so too should the Rockefeller family, Peter G. Peterson, Henry Kissinger and Hank Greenberg also having nothing to hide from a new and transparent investigation of 9/11 and the complete declassification of documents surrounding the Kennedy assassination.
The American public deserves to know!
Suggested reading:
Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett
Brothers: the Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot
JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass
Family of Secrets, by Russ Baker
A Terrible Mistake, by H.P. Albarelli
Who Shot Bobby?, by Shane O'Sullivan
Wall Street Capitalism: The Theory of the Bondholding Class, by E. Ray Canterbery
Treasure Islands, by Nicholas Shaxson
Extreme Money, by Satyajit Das
14
No mention of Clint Eastwood endorsing Romney, even after that whole "Halftime in America" thing?
Anyway, regardless of whether the allegations are accurate, I've always hated Yelp. It is the forum for passive-aggressive bitter people to beat up unfairly on some little restaurant while feeling important at the same time. I don't even go click on the link for the website.
Anyway, regardless of whether the allegations are accurate, I've always hated Yelp. It is the forum for passive-aggressive bitter people to beat up unfairly on some little restaurant while feeling important at the same time. I don't even go click on the link for the website.
15
@14: I still find Yelp to be quite useful when I'm looking for a new place to eat. I know that the whinier the Yelp reviewer, the more likely I am to enjoy my night out by going there.
16
Chick-fil-A was probably greatful for the extra free publicity. Their target customer really likes that they are extra religious (being closed on Sunday and all) . Since the boycott was focused on gay marriage, which the average Chick-fil-A customer thinks is yucky, and the opposition painted it as being about the Cathy's freedom of speech and religion, C-f-A experienced the increased sales. The boycott was a total failure.
17
@ 14, Eastwood's a moderate Republican and also a true loyal American, in that he will assist a Democrat if it's the right thing to do. Something few Republicans (especially those in Congress) would even consider doing today. They hate Obama more than they love America, which isn't true about Clint.
20
It's not hard to get a bunch of white trash to go out for fast food. Tell me the boycott has backfired in a few months. Until then I reserve judgement.
21
Making fun of fats is a better use of time than shoveling another doughnut into my alimentary canal, hth
22
@8
I eagerly await your many newsletters explaining how "Women's contraceptive rights, the freedom to vote, the right for small towns to elect their officials [...] have been largely undone by Tea Party"
I eagerly await your many newsletters explaining how "Women's contraceptive rights, the freedom to vote, the right for small towns to elect their officials [...] have been largely undone by Tea Party"
23
@6: We can start by focusing on *fitness* rather than *weight*. We as a society have reduced health in fitness down to a convenient little metric - one simple number - that is easy for us to understand and easy for us to assess. We ignore all the complexities of biology and circumstance and judge anyone we perceive as overweight to be a disgustingly unhealthy slob. Is it sometimes true? Of course. But then, sometimes rail thin people are disgustingly unhealthy slobs. We need to recognize that being healthy does not simply mean being thin, and vice-versa.
25
@24
I must be going to the wrong sources.
In the papers I read, women still have easy access to contraception, we have not returned to the Jim Crow era, and small towns still elect local officials. Thus my eagerness to read these very interesting-sounding newsletters.
I must be going to the wrong sources.
In the papers I read, women still have easy access to contraception, we have not returned to the Jim Crow era, and small towns still elect local officials. Thus my eagerness to read these very interesting-sounding newsletters.
26
@23, you can't be fit if you are a 5'6" woman and weigh 250 pounds. That "heavy but fit" thing has its limits, and those limits are walking around everywhere you go now.
27
We shouldn't bash on fat people but we should encourage them to lose weight so they don't die early.
28
@6: We can distinguish between not healthy and not okay. Adults are allowed to take risks with their own health, and sometimes circumstances force them to do so. It's important that everyone has access to healthy, nutriant dense food and a way to get regular aerobic and stength-training exercise. It's also important to make sure that people are aware of, for example, how many calories they're consuming vs. how many need and how much they should be exercising.
Judgement and cruelty, however, are counter-productive. Weight gain shouldn't be treated as some sort of moral failing. First off, you don't know why the person is overweight; you can't tell by looking if it's a medication side effect, or if they don't have easy access to healthy food, or if they're horribly clinically depressed, or if they've successfully adopted a healthier life style and lost some but not all of the extra weight. Even if it's simply a result of unhealthy eating habits, as others have pointed out there's plent of unhealthy habits that don't show so easily (including a poor diet if you happen to have a fast metabolism), and people shouldn't get a pass on sneering at people because of how they look in a bathing suit under the pretense of lecturing them about their health.
Judgement and cruelty, however, are counter-productive. Weight gain shouldn't be treated as some sort of moral failing. First off, you don't know why the person is overweight; you can't tell by looking if it's a medication side effect, or if they don't have easy access to healthy food, or if they're horribly clinically depressed, or if they've successfully adopted a healthier life style and lost some but not all of the extra weight. Even if it's simply a result of unhealthy eating habits, as others have pointed out there's plent of unhealthy habits that don't show so easily (including a poor diet if you happen to have a fast metabolism), and people shouldn't get a pass on sneering at people because of how they look in a bathing suit under the pretense of lecturing them about their health.
29
I'm with Lindy. Calling someone "fat" is the cheapest, crassest and dumbest way to insult someone. Whenever I hear someone call another person fat as an ad hominem, it makes me think a lot less of them. It makes me see them as stupid, small-minded and mean-spirited.
30
I know a couple people who are super duper into crossfit, they bring it up a LOT. I think it's a near-cult.
31
i liked Lindy better when she wrote funny movie reviews and wasn't always busy being the moral boss of everyone.
32
Except Jesse Jackson couldn't stop being black. Lindy can stop being 'fat' if she wants.
Please don't argue with this, it's true.
Please don't argue with this, it's true.
34
I just think calling someone fat is a thoughtless insult. Not thoughtless because it is mean but because it is too easy.
I liked that one meatball's response to The Situation on Jersey Shore when he told her to lose a few pounds and she responded with, "yeah that's the thing, I could lose a few pounds and for free, but you'd have to pay a shitload of money to change that face"
You know, not that I watch Jersey Shore...
I liked that one meatball's response to The Situation on Jersey Shore when he told her to lose a few pounds and she responded with, "yeah that's the thing, I could lose a few pounds and for free, but you'd have to pay a shitload of money to change that face"
You know, not that I watch Jersey Shore...
35
@25:
Contraception still mostly easy to get: yes. But not as easy and some places; abortion very hard. Missisipppi recent law which would have closed last abortion clinic there. There is little question that was the purpose as republican lawmakers are on tape saying just that.
There are more than a handful of Michigan towns (large and small) no longer electing mayors and city councils....at least ones that can do things like spend money and raise taxes. That job is the emergency managers task. No city under an EM there has been returned to local government.
We aren't back to Jim Crow but we sure as hell are moving in that direction. Exhibit A: Pennsylvannia. The team defending the voter I.D. Law: the state admits it has NO examples of known in-person voter fraud for a long long time. That some legit voters will be turned away; yes. Exhibit 2: Ohio. It may have been the case that it was an honest mistake to have caused 4+ hour long voter lines in minority neighborhoods but lets not pretend that the actual effect wasn't Jim Crow.
Contraception still mostly easy to get: yes. But not as easy and some places; abortion very hard. Missisipppi recent law which would have closed last abortion clinic there. There is little question that was the purpose as republican lawmakers are on tape saying just that.
There are more than a handful of Michigan towns (large and small) no longer electing mayors and city councils....at least ones that can do things like spend money and raise taxes. That job is the emergency managers task. No city under an EM there has been returned to local government.
We aren't back to Jim Crow but we sure as hell are moving in that direction. Exhibit A: Pennsylvannia. The team defending the voter I.D. Law: the state admits it has NO examples of known in-person voter fraud for a long long time. That some legit voters will be turned away; yes. Exhibit 2: Ohio. It may have been the case that it was an honest mistake to have caused 4+ hour long voter lines in minority neighborhoods but lets not pretend that the actual effect wasn't Jim Crow.
36
@35
Oh, don't get me wrong, the newspapers I read do tell me about the countless unpassable bills the nutters on the right introduce for propaganda purposes, and the few they've managed to cram through for the time being, in one local jurisdiction or another.
What I'm looking forward to are the newsletters that explain how contraception and voting rights have been largely undone by those efforts.
Oh, don't get me wrong, the newspapers I read do tell me about the countless unpassable bills the nutters on the right introduce for propaganda purposes, and the few they've managed to cram through for the time being, in one local jurisdiction or another.
What I'm looking forward to are the newsletters that explain how contraception and voting rights have been largely undone by those efforts.
37
@25
Guess you skipped over all the GOP controlled states defunding Planned Parenthood (principle source of contraception for women in many small communities) and purging minorities from their voters rolls. My favorite was when the tri-corner hat crowd got all worked up about insurance coverage being mandated for contraception, calling it 9/11 and Pearl Harbor Day all rolled into one! Guess you missed all that on your way to the funnies. Granted those Family Circus kids sure are adorable.
Guess you skipped over all the GOP controlled states defunding Planned Parenthood (principle source of contraception for women in many small communities) and purging minorities from their voters rolls. My favorite was when the tri-corner hat crowd got all worked up about insurance coverage being mandated for contraception, calling it 9/11 and Pearl Harbor Day all rolled into one! Guess you missed all that on your way to the funnies. Granted those Family Circus kids sure are adorable.
39
@28: no one's arguing that anyone should get a pass sneering at someone's appearance in a bathing suit. But for whatever reason someone is obese, it's not healthy in the short run and it makes it much more likely they'll develop major diseases in the long run. Clamoring publicly for respect isn't going to save them from that.
40
@39: Why should they have to clamor publicly for respect in the first place? What does their health have to do with whether or not they deserve respect? I'm in health care, and believe me I'm aware that we're getting more type II diabetes, for example, in much younger patients. BUT I think all my patients deserve my respect, not just the ones that acquired their disease through morally sanctioned channels. My point was that there's a difference between the health risks of obesity and the cultural factors that come into play in regards to publicly acceptable bullying of fat people. You want to talk about doing something about increasing obesity and obesity related diseases? Let's talk about increasing high quality food in poor areas, incentivizing exercise and employer support for time to exercise, mandatory calorie postings in restaurants and encouraging restaurants and food producers to cut back on preportioned sizes. Let's talk about the cheap low quality high calorie crap that goes into publicly funded school lunches. Let's talk about what structures and approaches support and incentivize long-term dietary changes. Let's talk about studies to figure out which interventions work, and which don't. In other words, let's talk about this like an actual public health crisis and not an affront to puritanical values. You want to sniff at other people and say 'well, I just don't think they're trying to be HEALTHY," and you're just looking for an excuse to feel better about yourself by looking down on someone else.
41
The morbidly obese are the gas-guzzling, inefficient, American SUVs of homo sapien sapiens: discuss.
42
I could write about the individual and societal factors behind obesity, Lindy's comparing LGBT rights to fat acceptance, or a few other things, but all I can think about is my aunt who died at 62 of obesity-related complications, and how much I miss her. She should be in my life, not in an urn on the piano. But she's gone. Her final years were living hell. She never got to meet her great-granddaughter. By the time she wanted to change, it was too late.
44
@40: As long as there's no mention whatsoever of personal accountability in that long list of systemic issues you've posted, people who do a shit job of taking care of themselves to the point that it affects others will continue to be criticized for their apparent lack of care for their own body.
45
Cavalier statement-making intern Mike: What you call "constantly defend[ing] the fats." I call constantly reminding everyone to check his or her dickishness. (And if Jesse Jackson was one-billionth as witty as Lindy in his polemics, we wouldn't use his name as a negative comparison.)
31: I love both.
31: I love both.
47
Weekend's over, spam patrol!
I tried clicking the "Report Spam" link under @46's comment, but then I realized SLOG has no such feature, even though this is the year 2012.
I tried clicking the "Report Spam" link under @46's comment, but then I realized SLOG has no such feature, even though this is the year 2012.
50
@38 I won't argue with that, I'm probably giving you the most attention you've gotten in a while right now just by responding.
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