My gut reaction was that the story--although a legitimate consumer complaint—seemed to reinforce a cultural stereotype about Black people and chicken. I know for a fact that no one on our staff meant for that to be the point of the story, but the fear that we would be accused of this sounded an alarm to me. It’s sad that I even had to worry about this.

Last week a couple of Popeye's restaurants in Rochester ran out of chicken. And local ABC affiliate WHAM decided to run a story. Some people complained, and WHAM responded. Warning: Second link contains some idiocy.
posted by hifiparasol on Apr 26, 2009 - 135 comments

Libertines (NSFW) would frown on the idea of Valentine's Day and devoting yourself to your one true love; they were all about fun, all the time. Think free love (or polyamorism as current practitioners would call it) is a product of the swingin' 70s? No way. The libertine philosophy has been around since at least the 17th century. Notable practitioners include John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who wrote some juicy poetry on the topic; Choderlos de Laclos of Les Liaisons dangereuses fame; the Marquis de Sade; the fictional Don Juan; and the poster boy for libertinism, Charles II of England. In fact Rochester once had to flee court for making fun of Charles's appetites (though Rochester was no angel himself).

Fast forward to the current day, when Johnny Depp is starring in a new movie, "The Libertine," in which he portrays Rochester to some critical acclaim. Is Rochester simply a sad, sorry sort who justified a lifestyle that some see as immoral, and got his just deserts when he died of syphilis? Or was he caught up in a way of life that he alternately enjoyed and despised, finding that "Old age and Experience, hand in hand / Lead him to Death, and make him understand, / After a Search so painful and so long, / That all his Life he has been in the wrong." Maybe there's something to be said for abstinence, after all.
posted by MiHail on Feb 14, 2005 - 18 comments

Kodak gives more reason to convert to digital photography. Eastman Kodak's "Kodak Park facility" in Rochester, is #1 in New York for releases of suspected toxicants and neurotoxins to endocrine, gastrointestinal, liver, cardiovascular, kidney, respiratory, and reproductive health. Remember dioxin? The stuff of Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam war that caused so much grief to war vets and Vietnamese, well Kodak released more dioxin into New York's environment in 2000 than any other source. In 1996 they were dumping methylene chloride concentrations as high as 3,600,000 parts per billion into area rivers, when the legal level is five parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found Kodak guilty of illegal disposal of hazardous wastes, illegal use of incinerators and waste piles, failing to notify the EPA of groundwater contaminations, making undocumented shipments of hazardous wastes, and for 20 years having leaky underground pipes, among other violations.
posted by giantkicks on Jun 1, 2003 - 30 comments