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Lives of the rich and corporate
Tony Hayward is off to Russia, having overstayed his welcome as CEO of embattled British oil company BP. Hayward, if you’ll remember, pissed off the entire United States with his cavalier handling of the oil leak, triggered on April 20 by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in which 11 people died.
If you’re tempted to cheer BP for removing Hayward from the helm, don’t. BP could and should have gotten rid of him back in April when he first opened his mouth and proved he didn’t give a shit about his employees’ deaths or the oil spill. The fact that they didn’t proves that a lot of people high up in the company likewise didn’t give a shit.
BP didn’t seek Hayward’s ouster to punish him. It’s a PR move designed to appease Americans — and to keep Hayward away from Congressional hearings. That’s why BP now has its first American CEO, Robert Dudley. If BP wanted to punish Hayward they would drop him on his ass, not send him to Russia with a $1.6 million payoff and a pension deal worth $17 million.
Corporations take care of their own, and they don’t care about you, apart from finding new ways to take your money. If you’re waiting for BP and other corporate giants to do the “right thing,” you’d best buy the Devil a pair of long johns, because Hell will freeze over first.
Here kitty, kitty
We get lots of unusual things here at Boulder Weekly. Once, a company sent a box with half a dozen waterproof vibrators. Those disappeared overnight. Another time, a company sent samples of sexy panties. They vanished. Trojan sent new twisty condoms that promised to drench women in pleasure. They disappeared, too.
But last week, we got something no one wants to claim. We opened a package and found two tiny condoms. And by tiny what we mean is “wouldn’t fit over your pinky finger much less your junk.”
The guys in the office looked at them, laughed, and clearly felt smug and satisfied in the macho “I’m sooooo much bigger than that” way.
And then we discovered what these condoms were. No, they weren’t designed specially for some liberal plot to teach condom use to toddlers. They’re cat condoms.
Yes, cat condoms. They were part of a clever press release put together by The Feline Fix, a high-quality, high-volume spay-neuter clinic, and the Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance (RMACA), which seeks to get cats spayed and neutered to prevent unwanted litters of kittens. On the condom package are the words, “Prevent a little, cover your critter.”
There’s nothing sadder than an abandoned kitten starving in an alley, and we support the efforts of The Feline Fix and RMACA. But we’re confused on one point: How do you get the cat to use the condoms each and every time he meets a sweet pussy in heat? Heck, human males can’t even manage that.
Shame on everyone
Did you hear the story of the unjustly fired USDA employee Shirley Sherrod? It’s a tragic tale of shoddy journalism, shoddy bureaucratic maneuvering and shoddy ethics.
In short, Sherrod was forced to resign after right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a video showing a clip from Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP meeting. She appeared to be telling a story about how she once denied a farmer financial assistance because he was white.
Heavens, thundered the right-wing blogosphere. None of us are racists, get her outta here! The uproar was fierce and deadly, and within days USDA officials called Sherrod and forced her to resign, she says. The media, thirsty for a juicy story, gleefully pounced and supported Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack’s decision. The NAACP president supported the resignation as well, saying the organization would not tolerate racists as members.
Had it been true, there is no question that Sherrod should have been canned.
However, once the full video of Sherrod’s speech became public, it became clear she wasn’t a racist — far from it. In reality, she actually helped the farmers in question.
Does no one check facts anymore? A simple phone call could have prevented an innocent public servant from the humiliation of a 24-hour news cycle. Shame on Breitbart for promoting the edited video for nakedly political purposes, and shame on the Obama Administration for enthusiastically swallowing Breitbart’s bullshit hook, line and sinker.
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