Strarbucks Fires Dwarf

Starbucks is being sued for firing a woman who has dwarfism. After three days of barista training, the woman was fired from an El Paso store on the same day she asked for a stool or small stepladder to perform her job.

If you read the comments (and  do recommend it) make sure you clink the "all" button.  There's a very thoughtful discussion going on there.

Bottom line, IMHO? Starbucks didn't make nearly enough of an effort to find a reasonable accommodation, and has a pretty lousy track record in this department.  And I think it's absurd that the expected reaction should be that if they lose, more companies will be leery of hiring dwarfs or anyone else they might need to accommodate.  It's so absurd.  There are so many ways this could have easily been worked out, but in the end sloth motivated by no more than simple discrimination won out.  The ADA is one of those laws I see as an inherent good and it's signing was one of the non-war related highlights of the Bush'41 administration and it's expansion to include a broader range of people was one of the few thing Bush'43 did right. 

It's equaling amazing and depressing that there remains a group of people in this country who are afraid to ask for reasonable accommodations or feel they need to hide their handicaps (when possible) to avoid discrimination.  I read all the comments in that article, and it really made for a very thoughtful, spirited discussion in which both sides were represented, but really? Starbucks is 100% in the wrong here because they didn't even try to accommodate her or find something that would work.  (Couldn't she have been a dedicate cashier?  Or transferred to a different Starbucks, with a larger workspace? Seems like there usually a dozen with walking difference.) I'm interested to see how this plays out.  Here's hoping they draw the Liberal equivalent of a Hanging Judge. 

Oh, yeah... And the best comment?

What do you expect from a company whose smallest drink is a Tall?

This made me sick

Every now and then I read an article that just makes wonder what the hell is wrong with people. OK - to be fair, I actually spend most of my waking hours thinking that, but recently I read something that really kicked it up a notch or three.

Recently, in Concord, New Hampshire, several teens were charged with various crimes and misdemenors after coercing a younger, mentally handicapped classmate of theirs into letting them tatoo obscenities on his body in exchange for their "friendship," protection from their own harrassment and some additional tatoo work. Now as sick and twisted as these little scum-suckers are, what really floored me was the absurd defense offered by the mother of one of the boys charged:

He's the captain of his own ship. Nobody made the kid do that," she said. [...] "What are you going to do, arrest every bystander and call it hazing?"

Now, I realize that it's pretty much instinctual for parents to defend their kids - I'm a parent myself, so I know the drill - but this stupid bitch needs a few things pointed out her...

1) The victim was mentally handicapped. In some instances he may not even be held accountable if he had done this someone else. So right off the bat, putting his responsibility above that of your son's borders on laughable.

2) The victim was threatened, several times, with bodily harm. This includes at least one instance when he was surrounded (held captive, actaully) by the perpetrators, at least one was armed [with the tatoo gun.] That's ASSULT. Period. Even if NOTHING else happens. Theatening someone with bodily harm in a such a way as they believe the threat and you are in a position to carry it out is ASSULT.

3) Your son is not a liscenced tatoo artist. Thus in the state of New Hampshire, as in most states, him tatooing ANYBODY is, in and of itself, a crime.

4) Tatooing a minor in the State of New Hampshire is forbiden. So again, in and of itself this would STILL be a crime, even if #3 did not apply!

That's three crimes committed, before you even consider the bodily mutilation that the victim endured (and the fact that the victim was 'compensated' in WEED) at the hands of that piece of shit you call your son. Isn't a rape victim "Captain of her own body?" I mean - it's not like anyone's making her stay there, right? Maybe I can fire a gun in this disgrace to women everywhere's general direction and suggest that as "Captain of her own body" she should have not just stood there, in the path of the bullet.

I sincerely hope that these four scum bags are charged to the fullest extent of the law, including being charged with hate crimes wherever applicable. And while I'm usually loath to hold one person accountable for the actions of another, in this case I would have little problem going after the Mother as well. At a minimum, she should lose her parental priveliges and and legal influence that goes with them. Negligence... shit, I don't know. What I can tell you is that if I had been there (or knew of it) and did anything short of calling the police, my parents would have KICKED. MY. ASS. And I would have richly deserved it!

These four rat-bastards are sociopaths. They should be committed after their jail term is up. And the fault lies with the parents who didn't instill even the most basic levels of humanity into these four future career criminals. My only compensation is that they'll all probably be dead by 30. I hope that the memory of every one of their future victims haunt theirs parents, as does the guilt that they failed in their charge of raising these kids, and instilling some values in them - ANY values, at all!

What the fuck is wrong with people?!