barnard has no love for this kid, she said “The pain was so excruciating that I didn’t even know I was deaf” and in emails she is said to have written “I guess we are simply fortunate that my eardrum was exploding and I was swallowing blood…Had it not been for that, I would have dragged that kid out of his mother’s arms and stomped him to death.”

i’m sure she meant that in the nicest of ways.

[time, photo via djabonillojr.2008, azaria chamberlain story]

the national association for the advancement of colored people (n.a.a.c.p.), the champion of civil rights can now take responsibility for the limiting of one colored person named shirley sherrod. ms. sherrod, up until yesterday, worked for the department of agriculture. she was forced to resign because a video of her giving a speech about the perils of racism was edited to look like she was a racist. in reality in the speech she gave last winter to the n.a.a.c.p. ms. sherrod explained that her work more than two decades ago with a white farmer taught her overcome her discriminatory beliefs and made her realize that there was no place in the world for racism in editing, it was made to look like she was denying service to or was providing a lower level of service based on the fact that the white farmer was white.

the n.a.a.c.p., wanting to look good, called her out and said something about a yardstick and civil rights. fox news, wanting to look like, fox news, wanted to make her, the government, and the n.a.a.c.p. look bad. and the federal government, wanting to look decisive, pressured her to resign and so she did.*

fast forward less than 24 hours and the real tape revealed that she was making an anti-racism speech. secretary of agriculture vilsack has called her back and offered her her new job. i’m guessing she’s going to look for employment elsewhere.**

* it’s got to be said that the feds acted faster on firing this poor lady than they did fix the oil spill.

** one that offers mutual respect and common civility.

[nytimes, naacp pledge]

senator levin, democrat from michigan and chairman of the senate armed forces committee says that while the survey is unusual, he supports it.  the chairman believes that the policy should be repealed but says “I think it’s okay, even though it’s kind of unprecedented…I can understand the resentment, by the way, in the gay community, that this occurs now but not with those other efforts”.  the efforts he was referring to were the aformentioned inclusion of blacks and women in the military ranks.

the survey data will be included in a final report on about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ due to be delived to the president on december 1, 2010.

[washington post, photo of relesased lt. dan choi via bilerico]

and like lindsay lohan, you’ll probably get sent to jail the third time.

well filled out : thick, big <a fat book> b : full in tone and quality : rich <a gorgeous fat bass voice — Irish Digest> c :d : prosperous, wealthy <grew fat on the war — Time> e : being substantial and impressive <a fat bank account> well stocked <a fat larder>

somehow i’m guessing that the center for science in the public interest didn’t have this definition in mind when it threatened to sue mcdonald’s not for the toxic toys we reported on a couple weeks ago but for the toxic food that accompanies them. it claims that the toys sold with happy meals are deceptive marketing and entice kids to add bad foods that are hazardous to their health “McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children…It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction” said stephen gardner their litigator.

of course mcdonald’s says the suit is crizazy and their spokesperson said “McDonald’s is committed to a responsible approach to our menu, and our Happy Meal offerings…We have added more choice and variety than ever before, a fact that has been widely reported and recognized.”while it may be true that mcdonald’s made it on a list of the top 10 healthy fast food options, it can’t be overlooked that the fast food industry spent 520M bones on toy advertising last year.

this was also interesting because of another report on nbc related to their ‘be well, be healthy‘ series that talked about the soaring rate of childhood obesity, it’s reaching epidemic levels– 4% of kids in the united states are extremely obese and more and more kids are getting weight loss surgery.

[cnn money , cbs for 2009 list of healthy fast food options, nbc nightly news photo via bioethics blog]

if you didn’t believe that young people are being cautious, here’s another story about the consequences of putting it all out there. a young woman that was a ‘house guest’ on the recent season of mtv’s the real world in washington, dc is suing the show and mtv for $5 million bones because she wasn’t depicted in the best light. according to the dcist.com, 22 year old golzar amirmotazedi says that “during one episode, cast members Andrew and Josh plied her with alcohol at a bar, brought her home, kicked her out after she refused sex and then proceeded to make fun of her.”

amirmotazedi claims that her appearance on the show led to her ridicule online, a loss of self-esteem and the onslaught of depression. add insult to injury, she lost her job and couldn’t find another one, she couldn’t sleep and was constantly nauseous. mtv has a very long release for people featured on the show, protecting the network from character’s remorse so they don’t seem to be too worried about the lawsuit. we’ll see.

sal’s from east boston and is scheduled for jury duty at the suffolk superior court on march 23.  the only problem is, sal won’t be able to be impartial … or maybe he will be too impartial… because sal’s a cat.  despite being of the feline persuasion, the appeal to have him excused from jury duty has been declined.  so the next time you try to make up some lame excuse to get out of sitting in court for a few days, you can forget it. sal’s probably a cool cat but i’m thinking it’d be more entertaining if they got the keyboard cat instead.

i really miss alias.

so i wonder why they’ve banned the burka. i also wonder whether this woman is hiding from the popo ’cause she’s wearing pants.

photo of chic pants-wearing parisian woman via the sartorialist