Sinclair Sounds Like An Evil Place To Work

A still from that Sinclair News Group "hostage video" in which anchors
at local television stations were ordered to read a pro-Trump fake news
script to their viewers. 

I'm sure many of you have heard the hue and cry about Sinclair.... the parent company of  lot of local television stations who forced all those local anchors to parrot Donald Trump's "fake news" talking points. (read: lies.)

This was made wildly famous earlier this month by that viral video that came from Deadspin of all those anchors from Sinclair-owned stations being forced to read a "hostage video" script about how every news outlet except Sinclair, supposedly, is biased fake news.

You can see this video for yourself at the bottom of this post. I'll quote a key line from the video.

"Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control 'exactly what people think'.......This is extremely dangerous to a democracy."

So instead, the Sinclair Trumpian overlords used their corporate platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control what the people think - which is extremely dangerous to a democracy.

But, whatever.

Sinclair owns 193 local television stations and is looking to buy many more, apparently in an effort to sell their right wing bullshit at the expense of accurate local news. And since there are often no local alternatives for viewers, Sinclair believes they can brainwah the viewing public.

Besides all this awful stuff, Sinclair sounds like a terrible, terrible, place to work.

First of all, most journalists, certainly including local television journalists, pride themselves on accurate,  hard-hitting reporting that is unbiased as humanly possible.

I was in journalism for year. I get it. We all have our biases, opinions and slants. We're human beings after all. But from Journalism 101 and on through my 20-year career as a reporter, it was always ingrained in me to follow the fact where they led, question everything, be skeptical and do everything I could to purge my internal biases from my reporting.

A group of Sinclair local anchors wrote about their outrage about being forced to read the script in a Vox article last week:

"For many of us, that was the death knell. The perception among much of the public was that Sinlar was Trump TV. Now it felt like that perception was a reality. Had Trump's seal of approval put is in the same camp as Infowars and Fox News? This was a place many Sinclair journalists never expected, or wanted to be in. 

A station we've cared about for many years has been stripped of its credibility. The station lost longtime viewers - and respect from the community, its most important asset. And we Sinclair employees have lost respect for our jobs."

So why don't these Sinclair journalists just quit and find work somewhere else?

The answer gets into why Sinclair is such an evil company for employees. The anonymous Sinclair journalists writing for Vox were anonymous knew that if their names became public, Sinclair would fire them, and worse, make them pay back the corporation thousands of dollars.

That's right.

Various versions of Sinclair employee contracts leaked to the media show that employees who quit the company might be subject to "liquidated damages" which would make them pay Sinclair up to 40 percent of their annual paycheck as penalty.

Now, most television stations, and many companies in general have a non-compete clause.  You'd be restricted from working for a direct competitor, and if you do, your former company can demand money.

But some Sinclair employees, like Jonathan Beaton, quit his job at Sinclair-owned WPEC and took a new job by starting up a public relations firm, which is not in competition with Sinclair or WPEC.

As the Daily Beast and other news outlets point out, this Sinclair contract could well be iffy from a legal standpoint.

"This liquidated damages clause seems highly problematic......In general, such clauses are not enforceable if they are simply punitive; they have to be reasonable attempts to capture likely damages. In the employment contact, this is very unusual," Samuel Estreicher of the Center for Employment Law and New York University told the Daily Beast. 

Former Sinclair employees could then conceivably fight the company in court, but most don't want to invest money and time they don't have for a legal fight.  That's why the anchors in the above-mentioned Vox article want to remain anonymous.

Beaton, though, IS fighting in court.

And, demonstrating how badly Sinclair is into controlling employees, the company is trying to claw back $5,700 for the part of Beaton's unfinished contract. Beaton, writing in HuffPost, tells us he's fighting it. 

First of all Beaton tells us why he quit the Sinclair owned station:

"As reporters and anchors at the company, we were routinely told to follow leads and angles with a clear-cut conservative agenda. At  CBS-12,  (WEPC) I was ordered to do man-on-the-street interviews that were clearly politically biased. I'd ask loaded questions like, 'How much do you disagree with Obama this year?' 

It was disguised as real journalism. The funny thing is, I'm a Republican - and I was still pissed by it. But it was more than just the questions. It was stories we were told to do. They often had to have a religious tie-in. We couldn't do stories, for the most part, that involved the LGBTQ community. There were a set of parameters and we had to stick to them."

So much for Sinclair's anchor hostage tape supposedly decrying fake or biased news, huh?

You'd think a corporation making a profit of $443.5 million in its latest quarterly earnings wouldn't spend a lot of time and litigation trying to get $5,700. But you'd be wrong.

"Sinclair argues that I caused them irreparable harm by leaving. Believe me, I was a good reporter, but not that good," Beaton says.

Of course, there's a larger goal here on the part of Sinclair. Make an example out of Beaton and nobody else will quit. But as Beaton puts it, "I refuse to cower and acquiesce to this malevolent corporation. I'm fighting back."

Good. I'm glad to see some rebellions starting againt Sinclair. If anything good came out of the "hostage video," it's the attention it brought.

Fourteen journalism schools have come out critcizing Sinclair. Budding journalists have been put on notice not to apply for jobs at Sinclair because if they do, they'll face a career of misery. Which means, by attrition, Sinclair will lose its remaining crop of good journalists, and just complete its transformation into an untrustworthy shill for the Trumpians of the world.

And then we can all go on ignoring the blah, blah, blah noise of the Sinclair Trump hornblowers. Buh-bye!

In case you forgot it, here's that "hostage video."

Jan Crouch, Televangelist With Very Interesting Hair, Has Died

I mocked televangelist Jan Crouch for her, um,
amazing hair and makeup, but to me she
was also a tragic figure. She died recently at age 78. 

The subject of what is so far, mystifyingly the most popular post in the history of this here blog thingy has died.

Jan Crouch was the subject of my February, 2012 post: "The Televangelist With The, Um, Amazing Hair," in which I contemplated the remarkable structure, if you can call it that, of her hair and wigs.

We learned this morning that Crouch died of a massive stroke at the age of 78.  

I guess it's a requirement that female televangelists have elaborate makeup and hair. Crouch's makeup, by the way, was as amazing as her hair.

Another requirement in third rate cable televangelism TV, Crouch became mired in infighting, lawsuits and allegations of criminal activity.

Crouch was the co-founder of Trinity Broadcasting, which pushed what is to me a very scammy sort of televangelism. Basically: Give all your money to me, and God will then reward you with material riches.

Though I'm not a Bible expert, I don't think that's the gist of the Holy Book, but what do I know?

I know it's mean of me to kick round Jan Crouch when she's just passed away.  It's true I didn't respect her.

However, I felt a bit sorry for her when I wrote that post about her hair in 2012 and I feel sorry for her now.

She seemed obsessed with gaudy, showy moneyed ickiness. I wonder if she was at all spiritual, and in her quest for money, did she miss out on what really matters in life.

At the end, she was estranged from much of her family, due to the infighting. Her grandchildren wrote pleading messages to her, saying that they loved her, but the grandchildren were kept away from her, due to the fighting and lawsuits about all the money the "ministry" raked in.

Jan Crouch's wigs were certainly works of art, of sorts. The artful beauty of love and compassion and just experience life as a human being seemed to elude her.

Which makes this subject of my mockery also a tragic cautionary tale.

Like To Go Sledding In The Winter. Your Town Might Not Want You To

Sledding can be hazardous, but should we ban
the fun? Photo by Erik Holladay, Jackson (MI) Citizen Patriot. 

Via Andrew Sullivan, I read the sad news that towns and cites  across the country are banning sledding, or as we call it here in Vermont, sliding, in municipal parks.

The issue seems to be liability. About 20,000 people are injured in sledding accidents yearly, and municipalities don't want to be sued and lose tons of money.

The bans are coming fast and furious. Dubuque, Iowa recently banned sledding in 48 of its 50 parks.

According to the Associated Press:

"In meetings leading up to the ban, Dubuque council members lamented the move but said it was the only responsible choice given liability concerns and demands from the city's insurance carrier.

They pointed to judgements in sledding lawsuits in the past decade, such as a $2 million judgement against Omaha, Nebraska after a 5-year old girl was paralyzed when she hit a tree and a $2.75 million payment when a man in Sioux City Iowa slid into a sign and injured his spinal cord."

Of course, people aren't giving up their sledding hills that easily, says the AP:

"In Omaha, the city banned sledding at a popular hill as a test one winter after losing the lawsuit, but decided to allow it again after most people ignored the restriction.

'It wasn't practical,' assistant city attorney Tom Mumgaard said 'People wouldn't abide by the ban." 

The city instead posted warning signs and put pads around posts and hay bales around trees, which seems to me like a more reasonable approach than banning sledding altogether.

Yes, sledding is dangerous, especially if you're being a bonehead, or drunk when you're sledding. Or, probably in the case of that poor girl in Omaha, had the terrible luck of having her sled veer off toward the tree.

I sympathize with the people who got so badly injured, I really do, but should we ban all potentially dangerous activity.

All kinds of other activities, like skating or skiing in the winter, or swimming, boating, or whatever in the summer, are sometimes dangerous, too.

Maybe we should ban people from crossing the street, since they might get hit by a bus. Maybe we should ban people from driving, since they might get into a crash.

We should ban people from doing anything. Even doing what I'm doing now, typing on a laptop at my desk. What if I reach over to the filing cabinet, fall over and hurt myself?

After all, maybe I'll sue the builder of my house for not designing a bedroom that is properly functional when some random homebuyer (me) decides to convert the bedroom into an office.

Maybe I'll sue the makers of my chair for not having a seat belt for holding me in place. Maybe I'll sue the makers of the file cabinet for not having drawers that extend out more. Maybe I'll sue the makers of my laptop, for not having a device that reaches out from the laptop and gets what I need for me from the file cabinet.

You can see how ridiculous this can become.

Yes, sledders should try to be careful, even maybe wear helmets. Cities should examine sledding hills and remove obvious hazards, or mitigate them.

But banning fun because somebody might get sued shouldn't be the American way. It is, but it shouldn't be.

General Mills (Reluctantly) Gets Rid of Anti-Suing Arbitration Rule

You might have read my screed last week about how General Mills, the makers of such things as Cheerios and stuff under the Betty Crocker label, had a new terms of use clause.

Betty Crocker, or at least her parent company
General Mills, now says it won't force you
into an arbitration session if you deal with them,
them get injured by one of their products.  

It basically said if you interacted with them, like downloaded a coupon or something, you lost your right to sue them.

Instead, if, in the unlikely event something bad happened to you through a General Mills product, like, I don't know, cooties in the Cheerios, you'd have to go through an arbitration process.

I guess a lot of other people were annoyed with this, too, and it became a PR nightmare for General Mills. So they rescinded the arbitration deal, but insist we're losing out on a Really Great Deal.

General Mills said arbitration would have "streamlined" the process for consumers if there were a product problem.

But Consumerists says they're still pulling the wool over our eyes on that one. 

Here's what Consumerist says:

"Arbitration clauses force every individual consumer to give up his or her right ot a lawsuit into a process that is proven to be unbalanced in favor of the business with massive legal teams at their beck and call."

As General Mills notes, people can still participate in the arbitration, which the consumer could theoretically win, but the arbitration clause means most lawyers won't get involved on the consumer's sice because of the unbalance and because damages are severely limited.

A consumer might have a good case, but the cost of making that case would far outweigh any damages he or she might receive under the arbitration clause, according to Consumerist.

So, the bottom line is, the process would have been streamlined and improved for General Mills, not you and me.

The fact that General Mills retracted this boneheaded arbitration deal in the face of bad PR means every once in awhile, we can win against big companies that try to take fairness and balanced business dealings away from us.

An Excellent Reason To Hate Cheerios, Betty Crocker And Nature Valley

Whatever you do, don't say on Facebook or Twitter that you like Cheerios or any other product made by General Mills.  

With parent company General Mills
new "arbitration" agreement, Cheerios
suddenly taste like crap to me.  

Don't download or obtain any of their coupons. Pretend they don't exist. At least on line.  Don't do anything that has to do with Betty Crocker. She's now a scary whore, her owner/pimp is General Mills.

Nature Valley? Well, the parent company is a valley all right.

Why am I going off on these products so badly?

In the latest scumbag corporate move, General Mills says if you have any interaction with them like I've just described, you can't sue them for any reason, says the New York Times. 

You'd instead have to go to arbitration sessions set up by General Mills, and the deck will be so stacked against you, you probably won't win.

True, it's unlikely General Mills will do anything that will make you want or need to sue them.

But what if glass shards somehow end up in your bowl of Cheerios? What if you have a raging peanut allergy, and the General Mills box says there are no peanuts in the ingredients, but yet there are?

Well, you're screwed. And not just health wise. If you previously "liked" Cheerios on Facebook, General Mills will tell you to go pound sand if you get very sick or die from using eating their products.

Yeah, General Mills, in typical Big Corporate Speak, says they're doing you a favor because if something goes wrong you won't have to go through the pain and trouble of hiring a lawyer.

Actually, no. They're just trying not to get sued, to save their bottom line.

So much for the goodwill General Mills generated with their multi-racial family commercials.

(UPDATE: Amid the swirl of bad publicity over this Thursday night, General Mills said merely liking them on Facebook or Twitter won't stop you from suing. But as the New York Times pointed out Friday, the policy is muddled and can be interpreted as a ban on suing the company. )

Now back to our regularly scheduled rant:

You could boycott General Mills, but other companies might be doing this too, although the New York Times said this is the first major food company to pull this stunt.

These "you can't sue because you interacted with us" clauses are buried in a lot of credit card and on line companies' terms of agreement verbiage.

You've seen those terms of agreement. Pages and pages of legalese that nobody has the time or wherewithal to read. So you just sign up.

These companies know it's not humanly possible to wade through these long legal tracts. They could make them simple and easy to read. But that would defeat the purpose. The terms of agreement are not designed to lay out what you can and cannot buy.

They're designed to be daunting so you don't read them. Like I said, corporate scumbags trying to squeeze every penny out of you, and preventing you from getting relief if their product injures you or screws up your life.

Some states don't really let these clauses hold much water and you still might be able to sue, but some "pro business" states say they're fine. Because corporations NEVER do anything wrong and people who get injured by companies are just lazy losers trying to get a quick buck.

Yes, there is such a thing as a frivolous lawsuit, but there's also such a thing as a legit one.

But the deck is getting more and more stacked against you. A Whataburger joint in Texas even put up a notice that you can't sue, you have to go to faux arbitration if you just step into the place, says Mother Jones. 

If a company injures you through neglect or malfeasance, you're on your own, pal.

I'm sure as hell NOT going to have Cheerios for breakfast tomorrow. And probably not ever.

Scumbags.

Sue The Gays To Make Them Straight?

I was definitely perplexed to say the least when I ran across a little item last week when I was researching extremist right wing crazies.

This guy is trying to figure out how to
sue the gays. 

Yes, I'm a masochist, deal with it.

This guy named Rick Scarborough of some outfit called Tea Party Unity said he had a great idea.  He doesn't like gay people, so he and other activists say they should file a class action suit to stop the gays.

His buddy Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Trust About Homosexuality (well, maybe not truth, necessarily) wholeheartedly agreed.  So that's two people who think this is a great idea.

The lawsuit would sort of be like those class action lawsuits against tobacco companies a few years ago that accused the tobacco companies of basically selling death.

I'll leave aside for a moment that political end of his idea and go straight (ha!) to the practical side.

Scarborough didn't offer a plan as to exactly whom to target in the lawsuit. The tobacco companies were easy. Find which big companies sold tobacco  products and have at it.

But last I checked, there was no company selling "gay"

Who would you sue? Every gay person out there? That could get complicated. How would you find them all? Assuming you could win the lawsuit, how would you collect settlement money?

Various Web sites that featured this bit of news had helpful comments from readers offering Scarborough potential targets.

At Towlerroad, someone suggested suing all straight people, because they're the ones who make babies, some of whom turn out gay.

Others suggested anti-gay groups sue themselves, since many of them have workers or volunteers who are self-loathing closeted gay people.

How would the results of the lawsuit work? The tobacco lawsuits led to controls on the sale of cigarettes. What would the demands on gays be in this lawsuit?  Would gay people have to stop having sex? Or register with Peter LaBarbera before they engaged in sexual contact?

You'd like that, wouldn't you, Peter?

Rest assured, quite a few people who associate with the Tea Party think Scarborough's idea is nuts.

David Webb of Tea Party 365 had this to say:

"Rick Scarborough is not a Tea Partier....He is not a Tea Party spokesperson, no matter what he, or the media, wants people to believe."

Well, that's a relief. I was afraid someone would shut down the government again until they found a way to sue all the world's gay people and make them straight.

Parents Of Brats Who Trashed Ex-NFL Players House At Party Now Ready To Sue Him For Good Measure

So now we're learning how the 300 or so mostly teenage kids who trashed a New York vacation house decided it was their right to break into the building and have their big bash.

Exterior view of the house kids in New York State
trashed at a party there  

The owner of the house started a web site called Help Me Save 300 and posted a whole bunch of Tweets from the partygoers as they trashed the house to identify them.

The police are finding this helpful and the owner hopes it prompts some apologies, not necessarily severe punishment. He's hoping the teens involved become ambassadors for accountability and respectability

Hah!

Instead, parents of the identified brats are threatening to sue the owner of the house. 

Let's start from the beginning. A guy named Brian Holloway, an ex-NFL player has a nice vacation house in Rensselaer County, New York, not far from Albany.

While at his year round house in Florida on August 31, Holloway's son discovered through Tweets that a bunch of kids broke into the New York vacation house and were having a HUGE party.

They punched holes in walls, urinated everywhere, sprayed graffiti everywhere, broke windows and basically caused more than $20,000 in damage to the place.   Holloway, as you can imagine, wasn't happy.

As it became apparent his house, through Twitter and Instagram, was getting trashed, Holloway called the cops and they busted the party. No arrests have been made yet.

Allegedly, some of the 'guests'
at a party inside a New York
vacation home that had
been broken into.  

But there is plenty of evidence of whodunit. The kids who were stupid enough to break into the house and party were also stupid enough to Tweet photos of themselves far and wide as they overran Holloway's vacation house.

By the way, when you post a selfie or whatever out on social media, it becomes part of the public domain. You can pretty much do anything you want with it. Except use the information to commit a crime.

Judging from the photos and the Tweets on Holloway's Help Me Save 300 site, the kids involved seemed to be those obnoxious, self-entitled, Abercrombie & Fitch wearing, arrogant, I can get away with anything twits that drive me the most crazy.

Here's some sample Tweets from the partiers. Each Tweet begins with the Tweet name of the person involved:

ChrisWarren: "So glad my parents don't give a fuck what I do."

MaddieKennedy: "I wish the party didn't get busted cause that shit coulda got so much bigger."

CodyBlain: "We got a solid 4 or 5 hours  of partying before the pigs came anyway. So fuck all y'all haters."

The sad thing is they obnoxious kids will get away with it. True, the sheriff's department is investigating, and using the Tweets to help guide them. But as I noted, the parents are threatening to sue, or even have Holloway arrest. On what grounds, I'm not sure.

The parents are clearly as obnoxious as the kids. It does run in families, apparently. According to the New York Post, quoting Holloway:

"You would not believe the calls that have come in, threatening to firebomb me or hurt or sue me --any number of things," the stunned Holloway told The Post Thursday as he toiled away cleaning up the damage at his 200-acre spread in Rensselaer county.

"Some complained that this will ruin their kids' college plans. Others have threatened me, saying 'Take my kids name down or I'm gonna press charges against you.'

Some of the damage inside Holloway's vacation
home after the break in and illegal bash.  

I was willing to give many of the kids the benefit of the doubt. It just got out of hand. They weren't thinking about the consequences of breaking into a house, trashing it and partying.

If they got caught, they would have probably gotten a slap on the wrist, maybe be ordered to do a bit of community service, then have any record of the incident expunged from their record. On to a successful college career.

Now that some of the kids and their parents are being so obnoxious toward Holloway, I hope the kids really get busted. I hope their college plans evaporate. It wouldn't hurt if some of them ended up in jail.

It seems like most people agree with me, judging from the comments sections on all the news stories about this on the Web

Of course, some of the people who are backing the kids say the house was for sale anyway and was already damaged and might be in foreclosure, at least according to TMZ

Well, fine. But does that give them the right to make things worse?

I'm not too worried about Holloway's house. It will get repaired, sold, whatever. What I am worried about is what happens when these horrible kids get older. Will they be those horrible cheats that rob people blind, not at gunpoint, but by the click of a computer key at some financial institution, tech business, or some other outfit that regularly victimizes the rest of us.

So maybe it would be good if these people are convicted of crimes, and have their "lives ruined" now. It could save us all from a world of hurt a decade or two from now.

Gag Order On Kids?

Can a corporation imposed a lifetime gag order on kids, even though the kids aren't old enough to agree to something like that.

The Hallowich family. Even the kids
here are subject to a gag order after
a lawsuit. Can the lawyers do that?  

Apparently, they can. 

Some landowners have sued gas companies over fracking, that practice of injected mass quantities of water and some chemicals to extract oil or gas from the shale or rocks way underground. The practice is controversial, as you have probably seen on the news.

In Pennsylvania, Chris and Stephanie Hallowich settled for $750,000 with gas and oil companies over problems related to fracking on and near their property.

Part of the settlement includes a provision that the couple not discuss the case or publicly disparage the oil and gas companies.

Those provisions are common in lawsuits, though I don't like such gag orders. If there are problems related to fracking, or anything else for that matter, the public doesn't know if there is a gag order,  and the offenders can say to investigators that there are no reports of problem. No public reports, at least. So things get covered up.

But that's not my big concern here. According to several published reports the Hallowich's kids, ages 7 and 10, are also subject to the gag order.  For the rest of their lives, they can't talk about this at all. This opens up a new front in corporate secrecy, which to me is scary.

According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

"Several independent legal scholars and attorneys involved in the Hallowich side of the case say they know of no other settlement agreements that gag the children of parents involved in legal settlements, and questioned whether such an agreement is enforceable."

Well, duh!  Kids 10 and under aren't exactly considered competent to sign adult contractual agreements, so how are they subject to gag orders like this?

And as Chris Hallowich noted in the court transcripts, what if one of the kids utters a "forbidden word" on the playground?

It's unclear what the forbidden words even are. The Post Gazette had to fight for the court transcript, which is normally a public record. And they didn't get the settlement agreement, and I think those are supposed to be public, too.

But during the settlement hearing, it was clear the lawyers wanted to shut the children up, according to the Post Gazette. One lawyer for a gas company said, "I guess our position is it does apply to the whole family. We would certainly enforce it."

Some of the parties to the lawsuit, maybe inspired by the potential for negative press, are backing off the claim that the gag order applies to the kids.

Let's hope so. I mean, what are you going to do? Throw a 12 year old in jail or sue him for a million dollars for saying on a playground, "Friggin' fracking!"

And what if these agreements become commonplace? What if there is a whole host of things kids are barred from talking about?

I hope there is an appeal to this case. It needs to be made clear that we can't impose legal contracts on kids without their consent.

Really, this is almost child abuse, if you ask me.

Looking for Good Handyman Deal, Couple Kidnaps One

It's so hard to hire good help nowadays. People are busy, the work is sometimes not up to snuff, and paying the poor dude to fix your place is wicked expensive.

One California couple solved the problem by kidnapping a handyman and forcing him to perform six hours worth of work, all the while beating him and threatening to kill him, according to CBS San Francisco.

Jason DeJesus and Chanelle Troedson are accused
of kidnapping a handyman and making him work

The fifty year old handyman, who authorities did not identify, escaped when his captors stopped at a gas station en route to another house, where they planned to force the guy to do more work, according to CBS San Francisco.

Of course, the couple, Jason DeJesus, 36 and Chanelle Troedson, 33, are in a heap of trouble.

This apparently all stemmed from work the handyman did at DeJesus's mother's house that the mother didn't like. I guess this was the couple's way of making up for the supposedly shoddy work.

I still think it would have been a lot better if DeJesus and Troedson went to Angie's List or Yelp to post a bad review of the handyman's handywork.

Then again, it turns out posting reviews on Yelp can be dangerous, too. A contractor is suing a Fairfax, Va. woman for $750,000 for posting a really negative review about him on Yelp, according to the Washington Post.

The article says it's the woman's free speech rights running up against what can happen to a business in a viral Internet atmosphere by one review. The woman says the contractor did a crappy job, the contractor disagrees.

Then there was the case back in January when a Chicago area woman, Cecelia Groark, wrote a negative Yelp review of a restaurant called Bottled Grapes over a screwup with a reservation to a wine and food pairing class at the restaurant.

The restaurant's owner, Krunch Kretschmar, apparently an internationally known wine expert,   i  set up a fake blog purported to be from Groark, that made it appear she was a major crook and an incredible jerk, according to the media reports on the litigation with this.

The fake blog had postings like this: 

“Cecelia troubles began when she started Embezzling from her last employer to support her drug addiction. While her treatment in the Cook County jail did little to help her, she is continuing to fight her demons everyday. Now turning to the Oldest profession to gain the funds need to support her habits, she is now trying to turn a new leaf. We wish her well.”

The fake blog was quickly deleted. Groark, of course is not a drug addict and does not work in the world's oldest profession." According to reports last winter, she was suing for a total of $650,000 in damages.

I couldn't find any recent updates on how the suit went.

In any event, it's Wild West out there in Yelp land, apparently.

Maybe the couple who kidnapped the handyman in California were indeed looking for an easier way to handle the situation than turning to Yelp.  Are kidnapping and criminal charges easier than a messy lawsuit?

More Obnoxiousness from Abercrombie and Fitch

The Huffington Post recently ran a weird list of rules the head of Abercrombie & Fitch has for employees on his airplane.

An A&B model relaxes and protects his abs, in case
he's called upon to help out on the company plane.

Like something created by a self-entitled rock star, the rules are just an obnoxious to do list to ensure the employees know that the Boss, namely CEO Mike Jeffries, is in control. Like they don't know that already.

Who in the world could remember these rules, anyway? I wouldn't last a minute, because I'd be so busy trying to subvert the rules I wouldn't get any work done.

For those of you who aren't into retail, Abercrombie & Fitch is a clothing store catering to young people. The store tries to sell an atmosphere of being for Beautiful People only. (Anyone over 27 and having imperfect looks need not apply) Abercrombie & Fitch stores are dark, so you can't actually see what you're buying, so I guess it doesn't matter what the clothes look like.

They pump in very loud club music, and I'm surprised the overwhelming fumes of cologne wafting through the stores hasn't caught the attention of the EPA or the World Health Organization.

Anyway, some of the rules on the company airplane include:

The models (and they're all models) working in the plane must always respond to Jeffries and Smith with "no problem."  Nothing like "Yes, sir" or "Sure" are permitted. I would have responded by saying "Whatever you moronic highness."

The "no problem" response could be well, problematic. Imagine this conversation:
"Hey, the plane engines are on fire and we're going to crash. We're all going to die!
"No problem."

Well, geez, a deadly crash is a problem, no?

The models must wear Abercrombie & Fitch clothes, which makes perfect sense, but they must be in jeans, polo shirts, flip flops and boxer briefs. Uh, who does the inspection to make sure they are wearing boxer briefs. On second thought, I don't want to know.

Male staff, and they're all males, should spritz their uniforms with Abercrombie & Fitch #41 cologne during the duration of the shift.

Great, the planes smell as bad as the retail stores. And wouldn't all those fumes cause some sort of in air explosion if it mixes with hot jet exhaust somehow?  I'm surprised I haven't heard about a series of Abercrombie & Fitch airline disasters.

I get it that Jeffries wants to keep things clean in the plane.  Who wants to jet around the world in a dump?  But everything, including cabin, galley and cabinet doors and seat belts should always be free of fingerprints, according to the rules.

How the hell do you use all that stuff if you can never touch it?

Here's one rule I actually like and would demand if I were in charge: All loose advertising and inserts in the 13 specific magazines that are stocked in the airplane must be removed. I hate it when I pick up a magazine and a blizzard of advertising cards and papers falls to the floor. Who wants to pick up piles of paper when you really want to sit down and read a magazine?

Bathrooms must have eight washcloths, no more, no less, and they must be "tri-folded," whatever that means.

Before any guests go to sleep on beds that are apparently in the company jet, the crew should "spray the bedding with sleep spray."

What the hell is "sleep spray?"  Is it Raid, to kill the nonexistent insects? I hope it's not Abercrombie & Fitch #41 cologne. I'd rather be sprayed with Raid before going to bed. At least it smells better.

All these rules  came to light after Michael Bustin, a former pilot, sued Abercrombie & Fitch for age discrimination.

The pilot that replaced Bustin was reportedly 32 years old. Which I guess is better than what I would expect. Imagine a teenage model with no brains but awesome abs piloting the plane.

Cleanliness would be the least of Jeffries' problems.

   

 

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