- Hiring practices have evolved time and again over the
years in the United States. This is their best evolution to date and it’s not
even close. Forget giving women and minorities a fair shot at desirable gigs
because while that is commendable, it doesn’t compare to what Anne Arundel
Medical Center in Annapolis, Md. is doing. In a move that other employers
should emulate, the hospital says it will no longer hire folks whose idea of a
work break is heading out to the nearest entryway and choking down a cancer
stick with their fellow leather-faced smokers. The hospital announced
this week that it will no longer hire applicants who use tobacco. “We want to have a
healthy workforce, a healthier environment for our patients and visitors,” said
Dr. Stephen Cattaneo. The good doctor noted that for the hospital and its 4,000
employees, the change is about living out the same healthy message they deliver
to patients. The obvious question is how an employer deals with such a public
policy against hiring smokers, but Cattaneo noted that in Maryland, there are
no discrimination laws against smokers.” This innovative policy is possible in
large part because unlike its neighbors, Virginia and Washington, D.C.,
Maryland is free of such restrictive discrimination laws. The only downside to
the hospital’s policy change is that it doesn’t go into effect until next
summer. To tide everyone over until then, all six of the hospital’s campuses
will ban smoking, making it all but impossible for degenerate lung dart addicts
to light up anywhere close to their place of employment. For the next week or
so, smokers can still light up on public sidewalks around the hospital, but
that all comes to an end July 1. Employees who smoke (sadly) won't be fired,
but they will have to comply with the new rules. With this paradigm shift, Anne
Arundel Medical Center follows the innovators at the Cleveland Clinic, who required
employees to be tobacco free in 2007…….
- Well done, World’s Worst Rapper Pitbull. Your lack of
actual rap ability and your lyrically stunted garbage that passes as music and
is punctuated by you pumping your fist nonstop and spouting inane words about
how cool you are and how much you love to party should be insult enough to the
world, but you know there can always be more to give. In a sense, Pitbull’s
songs, his albums and his entire musical existence are one ginormous, continual
middle finger to the world. That makes his act after receiving an honorary
degree by Doral College in Miami for his services to education all the more awesome(ly
bad). At the ceremony, Pitbull (real name Armando Christian Pérez) gave a
speech in which he said, "I remember being kicked out of a public school
because I didn't have the right address. That's why I want better schools for
the kids who live where I grew up. That's why Doral Academy was founded, and
that's why I helped create SLAM (Sports Leadership and Management Academy) in
the neighborhood where I grew up - a school that offers a choice for students,
like me, students who need someone to inspire them, someone to believe in them."
The academy itself can't take too much heat for inviting in a celebrity – even
one who is a giant hack – in the interest of gaining public attention and
possibly coaxing a donation from him, but giving this knob a degree for
anything is a bit of a reach. After the ceremony, Perez delivered an actual
middle finger to the digital world when he posted the news about his new
qualification alongside a photo of him holding his faux degree while extending
a middle finger. The photo was accompanied by a message explaining that the
extended digit was "for those that didn't believe #dale.” What should
haunt Doral College for a long, long time is that Perez is reportedly the first
ever recipient of an honorary degree from this glorified community college. Not
the finest choice for that lowly honor………
- Who doesn’t want to ride in one of the few luxury whips
that isn’t a decrepit, decaying piece of Soviet-era crap on the island of Cuba?
For a price, that opportunity can be yours….or be for anyone looking to get
from point A to point B in one of the poorest nations in the Western
Hemisphere. A
fleet of black, boxy, Soviet-made limousines that for years were at the
disposal of Fidel Castro are no longer needed by the now-retired despot and in
a country where few things are discarded because its impoverished population
can almost always find some use for a beaten-up relic, they have been decommissioned
and repurposed as Havana taxi cabs. The cars were produced by Russian
manufacturers GAZ and ZIL in the 1960s and '70s and even though Cuba is
not known for its cutting-edge technology in the automotive industry or
anywhere else, the cars sent to Cuba reportedly included a ZIL-111 convertible model
that was the first of its kind to roll off the assembly line. That particular
model was allegedly a personal gift to Castro from Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev, a man Castro outlived, much like the cars now being repurposed for
commercial use. Because Cubans really don’t have the luxury of spare cash for a
taxi ride to the market where they can barely afford to shop or a trip to the
mall to purchase clothes they don’t have the income to own, the limos are
almost exclusively used to transport tourists who want a little slice of
history to go with their ride across town. Sadly, the taxi rides do not come
with a complimentary audio guide narrated by Castro or one of his prized
top-end cigars to smoke along the way……….
- Mexican national team soccer coach Miguel Herrera is in a difficult
spot…and yet, that doesn’t excuse the wrong choice he made Friday. Herrera, his
team riding a wave of energy after a 1-0-1 start in group play that includes a
scoreless tie with World Cup host Brazil and has El Tri on the verge of
advancing to the knockout stage of the tournament, found himself in a pinch
when questioned about Mexican fans chanting a gay slur at Cameroon goalkeeper Charles Itandje. The chant is
under investigation by FIFA and even in a cross-cultural situation where
people’s understanding of what is and isn't acceptable could vary, backing
people using a gay slur against anyone is a poor choice – so why is it the
choice Herrera made, saying Mexico fans shouting the slur as the rival team's
goalkeeper takes a goal kick is not "serious." "About the
chants, we don't have anything to say, we are going to concentrate in working
hard, that is what corresponds to us," Herrera said. "We support our
fan base. They just do it to put pressure on the other goalkeeper. That chant
was invented in the Mexican league by one team and all the Mexican fan base has
adopted it, therefore I don't think it is something that serious.” We support
our fan base? How about you support them acting like human beings with a shred
of sensitivity, Miggy? The rationale that a Mexican league team’s fans used the
slur and somehow its wider acceptance within the league makes it OK is
indefensible, even if Herrera did try to power his way past the controversy by
implying that gay slurs are somehow not as important as the tournament itself.
Even if every Mexican uses the slur 25 times a day in a jovial way, that
doesn’t make it acceptable or allowable. Fare, the European fan-monitoring
group, reported the chants at Mexico's 1-0 win over Cameroon in Natal and FIFA
subsequently opened a disciplinary case against the Mexico federation. Sadly,
Herrera is correct about the slur being a long-running issue, as it was also
used during a Mexico-United States qualifying match for the 2004 Olympics.
Maybe it’s time for a new tradition, Mexico……..
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