An Amur tiger walks across a passageway after a news conference at the Philadelphia Zoo on Wednesday. The mesh pathway, called Big Cat Crossing, is part of a concept called animal rotation that zoos use to enrich the experience of both creatures and guests. Image via Matt Slocum/AP.
Today, the labor coalition leading the ongoing movement
The movement to unite fast food workers for higher wages and better working conditions has been going on longer than most people thought it ever would, and it's gained more support than many thought was possible. It is the single most visible ongoing labor movement targeting low-wage American workers, and that is just one reason it is extremely important. It represents an attempt to create some sort of real organized labor class at the very bottom of the income pyramid. In the context of growing income inequality and the vast American class war, it is a lone beacon of light from the flagging world of unions. It is hope.
It is also not really a labor campaign. It is a PR campaign. And that is completely rational. A real unionization campaign of American fast food workers would require resources so vast as to be almost impossible. There are just too many fast food workers, and the job turnover is incredibly high, and getting enough of them to become actual union members to make a serious industry-wide difference is a task that boggles the mind. A unionized fast food labor force would be great. But it is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
What can happen, though, is that fast food wages can be raised and working conditions can be improved as a direct result of public relations pressure applied by this campaign. This campaign brings a lot of public attention to the awful conditions of fast food employees. It humanizes fast food employees. And it makes the fast food industry look greedy, small-minded, and un-American. Which they are! So we are always ready to offer our full-throated support to these fast food workers across the world, as they complain loudly about the raw deal they've been getting for too long.
That is PR. That is politics. Both are important. But the organized labor issue is also important. More important, in fact, since PR campaigns ask for improvements in working conditions and wages, whereas strong organized labor demands those improvements. So here is an idea for the union coalition leading this fast food campaign: unionize one store. One single store. One McDonald's location. Better yet, write a check to purchase and run a McDonald's franchise, unionize the work force, and prove to the world that it can run well and make a profit and serve all the Big Macs that anyone can want, while still treating workers well and paying a living wage. This would be an irrefutable testament to the viability of what the campaign is asking for. It would be proof that it can work. It would be more than a powerful PR tool; it would be a profit-and-loss statement that unions can hand over to the industry and say, "See? This works."
Big unions are spending millions of dollars on this campaign. Take a chunk of that money and start your own franchise. These arguments are all theoretical, until they aren't.
[Photo: Getty]
Of all the strange cars I've driven in cities — a Bugatti Veyron and a Morgan 3 Wheeler amongst them — nothing has so captivated onlookers as this. It's a Cessna that once skipped through the air, but now glides along the road, the shimmering body hiding the mechanicals of a Toyota Van. Screw your Ferrari, get a damn plane if you want to impress people.http://jalopnik.com/the-spirit-of-...
Readers of this site are already well familiar with SpeedyCop and his insane creations, but for the rest of you here's a short primer: Jeff Bloch is SpeedyCop, a police officer who puts his life on the line to support his racing habit. He builds… well… here's some of the stuff he's built:http://jalopnik.com/5578879/63-thu...
So when I heard he was bringing his "Spirit of Lemons" Cessna to New York for our party with blipshift, I knew we'd have to drive it. And by we, of course, I demanded that I'd be the one to pilot it. Sure, I'd never driven a plane. I've never even driven the '80s Toyota Van that gave its life to such a noble cause. Life is defined by the things we say yes to, and my life needed this kind of definition.
Things were getting off to a slow start though, because SpeedyCop, despite being one of the best wrenches around, couldn't figure out how to get a Honda he'd towed up from Maryland running. Some kids had put it together and failed, so he was trying to reach out to someone local as he was planning to race tomorrow.
Sleep was probably out, but he didn't spend all that time (thousands of hours) getting the twin-engined 1956 Cessna road legal to not drive it on the road. This plane, despite its beauty, was designed for the scrapyard when he picked it up. The Van, with 177K miles, came from Craigslist.
The work is remarkable. Climbing into the fuselage, it looks like a plane with a racing seat fused with a Toyota. The dashboard is all Cessna flat and shiny, with a gauge cluster from the van tacked to the middle. Your view forward is surprisingly good, as you're sitting up rather high. To your right is a full Cessna copilot setup and it's hard to shake the feeling that at any moment you might not just takeoff.
Unfortunately, the view out the back is a little more challenging, there's a lot of mirror and it tapers because it's a wing, but you've got so much freakin' vehicle poking out there you have to be very aware of knocking something over. There's a reason why long hook-and-ladder trucks have a driver over the rear-wheels. It's tough. (look at me trying to back it up)
Once we get going, though, it's not that hard to drive. It feels like just another car. Despite the extra weight you'd imagine was added, this old Cessna was an aluminum body — which Jeff in the nonexistent passenger seat says was a pain to cut and polish. Steering is relatively direct and acceleration, perhaps due to the low coefficient of drag, is at the very least extant.
But the most noticeable aspect of driving it is the reactions. As Jeff correctly notes, no one doesn't look at the plane. Traffic cops jaded by a Rolls or a Lamborghini, see the plane and they stop traffic for it. You can't not notice it.
We're way out near Javits, but we make sure to take a detour across the island into the center of mass consumerism and dreadful taste that is Times Square. Natives avoid it, but no visit to New York is complete without a trip to the place full of all the same restaurants you have at home, only bigger.
And that's why it's the perfect place to drive a plane. You go there expecting to be wowed when, for many people, they're just creeped out by a beleaguered man in a Mario costume awkwardly touching himself.
Nothing will wow you like a plane that drives. Nothing on wheels will make you smile more short of, maybe, a Mister Softee handing out free dip cones laced with MDMA.
And that feeling extends to the driver as well. Piloting this thing is a dream, because the surprisingly pedestrian controls and ease of use means you don't have to worry and can just enjoy the reaction.
I've rarely desired a plane of my own because I don't like the idea of having a plane I can't park. Since a flying car may never happen, I think this is obviously the next best thing.
Special thanks to SpeedyCop and Joe Oh from Blipshift for setting this up. All photos Brian Williams/ Jalopnik
Last week, Clayton Lockett, a convicted killer, died strapped to a table in Oklahoma, but nothing else about it went as planned
Well, while the needle on that one has not yet made it all the way at "Possibly," it does seem to be moving slowly from "Snowball's Chance in Hell" to "Maybe If People Get Real Serious."
Sure, there are still signs that nothing will really change, among them this report from Andrew Cohen at The Week about the task force Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin set up after the Lockett execution. Cohen points out that the bureaucrats who will conduct the study are loyal to Fallin and thus unlikely to take anyone seriously to task about what happened last Wednesday. Per Cohen:
Does anyone think that Thompson, the newly appointed chief investigator, is going to question his boss under oath about her important role in this sorry story? Is he really going to issue a report that blasts her intervention in core judicial functions? Is he going to call members of the state legislature to explain and justify their impeachment proceedings? Is he going to explore the public rift now widening between state officials and the corrections officials' union? If he does so, he will effectively end his career in state government. And if he does not, this "independent" investigation will be a sham.
Fair point! But because we want to preserve some kind of hope in this time we spend here on earth, I'm happy to report that there have been, in the last week, some encouraging developments.
Chief among them was the fact that Obama himself said he found the circumstances of Lockett's death "deeply troubling," and that he'd asked Eric Holder to take a broader look at the death penalty itself. A symbolic gesture, sure, but this is America, we have to be grateful for crumbs sometimes.
And then today the Constitution Project released a report that, while it took no position on the propriety of the death penalty, was highly critical of the way it's currently being administered. And among them was a recommendation that instead of using the dreaded three-drug cocktail which probably resulted in so much suffering for Lockett, states should use a one-drug method. In effect, they think that the only humane method of execution would be to administer a massive dose of the barbituate that right now just sedates the inmate at the outset of the procedure.
There's a catch, of course, in that barbituates are still in short supply in the United States, so even the panel's recommendation hits practical snags:
Many medical experts agree, but an acute shortage of traditional barbiturates, mainly because manufacturers refuse to provide them for executions, has led states to scramble for secret suppliers and try out new drug combinations. Mr. White said in an interview that it was up to the states to find a humane method.
For those of us against the death penalty, that is an unequivocal bright side. It's hard to get too upset about the possibility that states will be stymied by the practicalities of designing a "humane" method of death.
And if that weren't enough, the report — which again, is non-partisan — goes on to point out a number of other problems in the death penalty process, ranging from the bad forensic practices that lead to so many DNA exonerations via the Innocence Project down to the arbitrary evaluation of mental disability in death row inmates.
[Image via Shutterstock]
This video was posted on reddit with no context other than, "I had to babysit my girlfriend's cat," as if that adequately explains what happened next.
Unfortunately, there's no followup video showing the look on the girlfriend's face when she came home to find boy and cat passed out under a pile of empty martini glasses, probably still drunk, with chillwave spilling out of the stereo.
She's never going to let her cat babysit her boyfriend again. He obviously can't keep up with it.
By the way, the track is Chrome Sparks' "Marijuana," and this should probably be its official music video.
[H/T Reddit]
Subway, a store that sells the smell of baking bread, says it will start slicing its meat thinner, so that sandwiches will get the same amount of meat but 50% more slices. The company's cofounder explained,"For some reason, it looks better. It looks like more meat." TWSS
Rise of the slut-shamed: After being invited, disinvited
Welcome back! Wednesdays belong to Midweek Madness, in which Callie Beusman and I "read" the celebrity weeklies so that you don't "have" to. This week: Ben Affleck's gambling problem means his marriage is in crisis; Kate Middleton is "officially" having another kid (someday); and so much Kim Kardashian wedding stuff, yer buttons will bust.
Life & Style
BABY NO. 2!
The operative words in that headline are "baby no." There has been no "official announcement," even though the story inside is titled "IT'S OFFICIAL." the info here is all based on the fact that when given a hand-knit shawl for Wee Prince George while in Australia, Prince William said "you might have to make another one soon." Only if you are seriously desperate and straight up thirsty to "break" "news" is that an "official" announcment. Also inside: Charlize Theron and Sean Penn are "fast-tracking" their wedding and should be hitched on a beach in Malibu sometime in August. Godpseed. The Justin Bieber/Selena Gomez drama frolics on with the news that El Beebo cheated on Selena with both Kylie and Kendall Jenner; he took the 18-year-old on a sushi date and exchanged "inappropriate texts" with the 16-year-old. Christ. All of these people should be in school. In Bachelor news, noted dirty dog Juan Pablo and Whatshername (Nikki) are "hanging by a thread"; at a recent Dancing With the Stars taping, they did not speak or even touch each other. To be fair, most women would not touch him with someone else's ten foot pole. Next, Candy Spelling will allegedly pay Tori $20 million to leave Dean. This story sounds super fake but if it's not, TAKE THE MONEY, TORI. George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's wedding could cost $2 million, and the magazine calls it "the wedding of the century," which is an outright dis to both The Royals and Kimye. Finally, Katy Perry's "love is blind" because Diplo is leading a "double life" since he has a son with a former LA bartender — but never sees the kid and, in an interview, called the child "an accident." Still, in a "reader poll," which we imagine was conducted solely among magazine staffers, 53% of responders think Katy should still be dating Diplo. Congrats on winning the approval of strangers, Katy!
Grade: F (ripped crotch and worn-out thighs in favorite jeans)
Star
MARRIAGE CRISIS!
Even though the rumors of this couple's issues have been going on for years, this story comes across as fairly plausible: Ben Affleck was caught counting cards and asked to leave a casino in Las Vegas on April 22, but returned to Sin City on April 28, only to be banned for life at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino — for counting cards. An eye witness says he was chain smoking and looked "a mess" and Jen was at the table; after an hour or so, the pit boss made some calls and they were both escorted out. "Before he left the table, he grabbed a ton of chips and put them in his satchel," says the witness. Jen looked "embarrassed and ashamed." EESH. Anyway, Ben "has a compulsive personality," and even though he went to Malibu for booze, he's been drinking, and Jen is trying to raise their three kids but "feels like a single mother" and is having a meltdown. Drama. Also inside: Leonardo DiCaprio's "move" is to take a lady to Soho House and pre-order her meal, but, a source says, "he orders them all the same thing." George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin have an "ironclad prenup," because DUH, she's a brilliant lawyer and he's worth $200 mil. Nuptialius!: Daniel Radcliffe is engaged. Your old pal Kiki Dunst got drunk and took some rando home and her boyfriend the hottacular Garrett Hedlund found out but they have reconciled. The story called "Kanye Cheating Shocker!" is about how Mr. West has been "lavishing attention" on his protégé Pia Mia, but even a source says "Kanye is just trying to help this girl out with her career before he focuses on the wedding." The entire "cheating" storyline seems to have come from the fact that Pia Mia tweeted about the movie The Other Woman: "story of my life." Good job jumping to conclusions, Star! In other news, Kate Middleton broke up Harry and Cressida because she doesn't care for Cressida's half-sister Isabella Calthorpe, granddaughter of an earl, who William had a thing for back in the day. Somehow these royal rumors would be better if the dudes had breeches and the ladies were wearing corsets. Finally: LeAnn Rimes is worried that her upcoming reality show won't be tragic enough to compete with Tori Spelling's. Yo, LeAnn, hate to break it to you, but regardless of Tori, feelings about your upcoming show can be summed up thusly.
Grade: C (missing button on nicest dress)
Us
COUNTDOWN TO CRAZY
Kim and Kanye's wedding is coming up on May 24, and Us has some fanciful predictions about it, which differ from the fanciful predictions made by the two other tabloids with a Kimye cover story this week because they are made up. There will be 120 guests, says Us, each of whom received a 15-page confidential PDF about logistics but containing barely any details about what's going to occur at the wedding (Us Weekly says that everyone's cell phone will be confiscated at the wedding location to keep it extra private up in that ceremony). Also, Kim still hasn't picked out a dress. And Kris "triumphed" over Kanye, having enlisted her favorite wedding planner to oversee last minute details. And Anna Wintour will only maybe be there. K. In other news, Robert Pattinson is dating another model; her name is Imogen Ker, and she is friends with Kristen Stewart, but it's all good. Moving on: George Clooney's ex, Stacy Keibler — who is now married to another dude and pregnant with his child — is reportedly "irked" that he's engaged. Uh, yeah, whatever. Sure. Elsewhere in the mag, we learn the reason that Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas broke up: because she was uncomfortable with living in the public eye, and she didn't want to "sacrifice her twenties" to doing dumb boring royal stuff and wearing unnecessarily ornate hats. That makes sense! Anyway, they miss each other lots and might reconcile.
Grade: C- (pit stains in beloved t-shirt)
OK!
KIM'S DREAM WEDDING
Here are OK!'s fanciful predictions about the Kimye wedding, which will surely be a "dream": the wedding party, which consists of Jamie Foxx, Kourtney and Khloe, will be made to wear gold. The wedding cake will be gold. All the silverware will actually be goldware. Versailles is a "top contender" for the location, which apparently has not been chosen yet?? Anna Wintour is the event's "fairy godmother" (as opposed to "maybe attending"), and she oversaw many of the wedding choices. According to OK!, all cell phones will be confiscated AT THE AIRPORT and everyone will receive a prepaid burner phone (HAHAHA). Also, "no one will be surprised if Kim and Kanye sign a lucrative deal" to release the wedding footage, "in a huge and unforgettable way, sort of how Beyoncé did with her album." K. In other news, Katy Perry and Hilary Duff are getting over their relationships in very different ways — Katy by drinking a lot of wine and hooking up with Diplo and Hilary by maybe converting to Scientology. I feel like Katy's path to healing her heartbreak might work a little better???? Next: John Mayer is trying to make amends for being an asshole and has thus left Jennifer Aniston an apologetic voicemail, sparking a few "heartfelt conversations" and Justin Theroux's ire. Ok, whatever, where is my personal apology for your entire musical oeuvre, but especially for "Who You Love" feat. Katy Perry? Aaaand, finally, Kelly Clarkson is having a "harrowing pregnancy" which OK! is exacerbating by discussing her pregnancy weight gain at length ("she's mortified" about putting on weight whilst growing a fetus inside of her, quoth the mag).
Grade: D (broken zipper on best coat)
InTouch
WEDDING FROM HELL
And, finally, here are inTouch's decidedly more sinister Kimye wedding predictions: first of all, Kim has chosen a dress; however, she can't fit into it. This point is helpfully illustrated by an image of a woman meant to look like Kim struggling to fit into a wedding dress, which the magazine notes in very tiny font is a "Photo recreation" (Fig. 1a, 1b). That same image also appears on the magazine cover without said informational caption, alongside a horizontally-flipped still from everyone's favorite Kim crying gif (Fig. 2). Anyway, in other gross wedding rumors: inTouch says there will be 150 guests; that Kim and Kanye have already gotten their marriage license (a rumor Kim dispelled two nights ago and again today on Twitter, oops); that Kim and her mom are "at odds" over cashing in on the wedding exclusive; and that Khloe will not be a bridesmaid. The grossest thing in this article: inTouch says that Kim is embarrassed about Bruce Jenner's "increasingly feminine appearance," noting that he shaved down his Adam's apple in January. "Her biggest nightmare would be him showing up in drag," says an "insider." Uhh, ok, if Bruce is trans — which the magazine seems to be implying by mentioning the Adam's apple surgery — then wearing a dress would not amount to "showing up in drag." Ugh. Moving on: Selena Gomez kicked out her own parents in revenge for telling her to stop dating Justin Bieber, or something. This is what inTouch has gleaned from the fact that she's selling her spare mansion. Idk, guys. In other news, everyone in the universe is terrified by the Katy Perry/Diplo romance, because he is a "bad boy." Sources worry that Katy is having "too much fun" with him and partying all the time — they were recently spotted out at a club til 2 IN THE MORNING, for instance. Ok, grandma, calm down. Elsewhere in the mag, Charlize Theron and Sean Penn, who have been dating for five months, have secret plans to wed. It will be a "low-key" gathering, "on a beach in Malibu in front of 200 guests." A paltry 200! Wow!
Grade: F- (busted seams in wedding gown)
Fig. 1a, from In Touch
Fig. 1b, from In Touch
Fig. 2, from In Touch
Hollywood is giving yet another sliver of your childhood the gritty reboot treatment: the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (or one of their many incarnations) are getting a new movie, Lionsgate announced Wednesday.
The production company has partnered with Power Rangers creator Haim Saban to make the unnecessary reboot. The bad-guy-fighting team has gone through many changes through the years: Since their original launch in 1993, the Power Rangers have been everything from mighty and morphin' to space-dwelling to samurai to something called a Super Megaforce. They've also been the stars of two movies, only one of which anyone actually remembers.
Of the new Power Rangers, which might actually be just the ongoing Power Rangers since they apparently never actually left us, Lionsgate says:
The Power Rangers stories and characters have been embraced by generations of audiences for more than 20 years, and today they are more powerful than ever. We have the ideal partner and the perfect brand with which to create a motion picture event that will resonate with moviegoers around the world for years to come.
Good luck with that.
No adult is under the illusion that menstrual blood is the tranquil blue color of, say, toilet bowl cleaner or one of the mediocre flavors of Mountain Dew, so why do ads for maxi pads have to sanitize a natural, healthy part of the human experience?
Oh, that's why. Thanks for clearing that up, Upright Citizens' Brigade.
[H/T Digg]
A security camera outside the St. Luke United Methodist Church captured the Tupelo, Mississippi tornado as it hit the building, raining debris down onto the playground outside. The video shows how conditions can go from calm to destruction in a matter of seconds.
The action picks up around 1:15 in the video.
The EF-3 tornado that struck Tupelo was part of a larger tornado outbreak at the beginning of last week, which produced over 70 tornadoes from Arkansas to North Carolina.
The person who uploaded the security camera footage also took a video as he or she attempted to access the church not long after the tornado struck.
[Videos via YouTube user TheTishbite]
Willow Smith, the 13-year-old daughter of America's jiggiest scientologist, caused a collective freakout when she Instagrammed a photo showing her in bed, fully clothed, with a shirtless actor from Hannah Montana.
The guy, 20-year-old Moises Arias, is best friends with Willow's big brother, Jaden, and Big Will says he has absolutely no problem with a photo of the two together. He told TMZ that Arias is a family friend, Willow is mature enough to make decisions about who she spends time with, and the photo is just an innocent "expression of art."
Law enforcement authorities agree. After some detractors raised questions about whether the photo constituted child porn, TMZ consulted police sources at both departments that could have jurisdiction over the photo, who couldn't find any sexual content there to turn into a chargeable offense.
Geez, a 13-year-old celebrity child posts one photo with a shirtless dude and everyone goes into concern-trolling mode, but she constantly tweets about Orgonite—a thoroughly debunked antique conspiracy theory—and nobody bats an eye.
[Photo: Instagram]
Michael Arrington is a man who would prefer to keep the things people whisper about him out of the public eye. So the blogging-capitalist, whose "conflicts of interests" run longer than his resume (literally), came out gunning for Whisper CEO Michael Heyward during a TechCrunch Disrupt panel earlier today.
Heyward did not do himself any favors and Whisper investor Roelof Botha did not lift a finger to help. (Botha's firm, Sequoia Capital, led a $21 million investment in the anonymous app last September and another $30 million round in March.)
The conversation completely unraveled when Arrington put up a slide of the Whisper post that outed Gwyneth Paltrow's alleged affair . . . right after Heyward brought up Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who committed suicide after he was cyber-bullied by his roommate.
Whisper was credited with breaking the news
This is part of a larger discussion right now about the potential negative impact of anonymous apps. Every social network has had to deal with cyber-bullying concerns, but it gets harder to police when secret-sharing is built into your business plan.
Whisper's competitor Secret works off of your contact list, increasing the likelihood of gossiping about a mutual friend or acquaintance. Heyward said Whisper does not allow proper names, except in the case of public figures. Arrington, he said, would not be considered a public figure, only people with "global relevancy."
Heyward's meandering answer gave Arrington enough rope to ask whether Whisper had put together a hit list of public figure "targets," which would not be unusual for a news organizations. It doesn't seem like Whisper has a hit list, but watch the video above to see for yourself.
Earlier on the panel, Heyward managed to somehow admit that infidelity caused his parents' divorce and that his mom would be mad at him for saying that on stage. That was in the context of trying to explain how social media's "24/7 highlight reel" of how awesome your life causes people to be less empathetic. Heyward's argument about carrying the burden of identity was compelling, but his delivery was painful and naive:
"Maybe in a 100 years from now, we're gonna live in a world where Whisper doesn't even exist in its present form, where we're all so intimately close with one another that nothing is taboo, nothing is weird, you know? We just come on here and everyone is just like, 'Hey, this is what's going on with me today. I'm a, oh, my parents are cheating on each other.'"
At the end of the panel, Arrington told Heyward that he disagreed with him on the Paltrow "part of the business," adding:
"I just want to say that you did great. And you're genuine and you clearly believe the stuff you're saying. And that's a lot more fun for me than somebody who comes up and just is an expert in deflecting stuff."
Well, as long as everyone's having fun!
[Video via TechCrunch]
Union-busting retail giant Target is having a tough time: its CEO just resigned, its stock is down, and it faces an existential threat from Amazon. We now bring you one current Target headquarters employee's thoughts on what's wrong with Target.
We received the following email from a current mid-level employee at Target's headquarters in Minnesota. This represents just one person's experience inside the center of the Target bulls-eye. But it does contain some fascinating insights into their workplace culture. We've bolded a few parts that stood out to us. Enjoy.
I started at Target almost 2 years ago, in Sept 2012. Prior to Target, I worked in a technical field and I was job hunting. I had a lot of friends who worked at Target - in the Twin Cities you can't help but know people that work at Target in some capacity. They seemed to enjoy it so when I got a call from them, I jumped at the opportunity to work for them. I went through 3 weeks of interviewing, and then I got an offer. The money was an increase but their vacation time sucked - only 2 weeks! Most big companies give 3 weeks even at the lowest levels...
After your onboarding experience you're expected to still network and have [30-minute "Getting to Know You" meetings] with new people, either those who join your teams, or that you meet through networking through the company. And then once you have a GTKY, you're expected to continue to have 30 min meetings with various people to catch up and share what you've been working on. You're also supposed to have these status meetings with the people on your team, your manager, your manager's manager, your mentor, etc.
Since you're having all these status meetings, you're probably wondering when you should be working. Well you don't have to worry about that because you don't really need to. Target purposely staffs assuming that everyone is working at 50% productivity. In essence they have 2 people doing a job that 1 person could do at another company, because the rest of the time you're in status meetings or volunteer events or FFF events (that's Fast Fun & Friendly, basically an excuse to not be working). You're penalized and viewed as unfriendly and not a team player if you spend too much time in your cube working and not enough time socializing. There have been times when I've taken my laptop and worked from Starbucks because I need to be out of my cube but I also need to get work done. Target also doesn't reward the people who are productive and good at their jobs. The way to move up at Target HQ is to be popular. At other companies you need to at least be popular AND produce good work, but at Target you can be popular and do shitty work or no work and get promoted. The people who keep their heads down and do the work, they get ignored and passed over until they get fed up and then quit. Doing good work won't get you a good raise though, because Target HQ is known for giving shitty raises. You can get an excellent score on your performance review and be rewarded with a 2% raise, and they expect you to be super happy and thankful for it. If you want to make $ at Target, you have to leave and come back, but you won't make it on raises...
The Target culture is very Minnesota - it's very passive aggressive. They expect you to conform to them, to be "Targetized" and drink the Koolaid. If you aren't super bubbly, super social and passive aggressive, you get told that you're a problem. Being direct, wanting to actually get your work done, asking questions and pushing back are all viewed as bad things and you'll be told to tone it down or you'll be pushed out. They also do a really bad job supporting their new hires who moved to the Twin Cities to work at Target. A lot of people quit after a year and move back to wherever they were before because they hate it and they don't have a network of people to support them.
Target HQ is in bad shape and in desperate need of help, direction and vision, starting from the top down. [Former CEO] Greg Steinhafel getting fired was a good step, along with the CIO being fired a few months ago, but it's not enough. The entire executive team with the exception of the CMO Jeff Jones needs to go. Why? Because everyone was homegrown and "Targetized" and has no concept of how to run a 21st century business. They still think it's 1996 and you can keep throwing up Target stores and suburban moms will love them. They pay lip service to how retail is evolving but it when it comes to actually making good decisions, they do horribly. When I started, they were so excited about getting "Buy online, pick up in store" as if that was some new invention. How many other stores have that and do it better than Target? Regular customers don't even know about it, because people hate Target's website. They've tried starting a Netflix like service, or a subscription service, but no one knows about them and they are just copycats of what other businesses are doing. Target has no original ideas, they are just reacting to what other companies are doing and jumping the bandwagon. They have a culture that makes decision via consensus, so it takes FOREVER to make a decision and implement even the smallest change. That keeps them from being able to make the necessary changes, and they won't ever get there without a big change in leadership and a true vision beyond "keep the doors open".
Overwhelmingly the area that has the most issues is Target Canada. From the very beginning it was a bad decision, but the company had already made contractual obligations and couldn't get out of them. So they carried forth with a really bad plan and had people in charge who don't know what they are doing, making bad decisions. Very simple, elementary things in retail/supply chain are being messed up which is why the Canada opening has gone so bad. To make it worse, they are repeating all the things they did wrong in 2013 - absolutely nothing is getting better. A few execs came back to Target US from Canada and were given promotions, after a complete failure in Canada. And this is who they have in charge.
If Target doesn't make a serious change in their leadership and culture, it will end up being a Kmart, a Sears, or even worse a Circuit City. The Twin Cities would be devastated - around 15,000 people work for Target HQ at one of their numerous sites in the Twin Cities. The local economy would be hit super hard. Sadly I don't see Target getting better, and I'm actively looking for employment elsewhere. As soon as I get a job offer I feel is a good fit, I'm jumping ship. I'm not the only one, since last November, I get at least 5 "So and So has resigned to pursue other opportunities" emails, and that's just in my pyramid (a pyramid is like a big dept, like Finance, or HR, or Merchandising). When I started getting those emails and it included people like Senior VPs who were quitting, I knew it was time to go. There have also been a few rounds of layoffs, though mainly TTS (Target's IT group) and Property Development. I actually really hoped that my area would be laid off but instead we're staffing up :-(
I think I've rambled enough - even if you don't publish this, it was therapeutic to write it all down.
It is safe to say that this is not the level of morale that America's third-largest retailer is looking for in its own headquarters.
[You can peruse more thoughts from Target employees here. Photo: Getty]
The year of the heroic
The reasons for the alleged shit mailing remain unknown but here are the facts—via The Delmarva Daily Times—as we know them now: On April 30, Mark Flynn, the vice principal of Stephen Decatur High School in Worcester County, Md., told a sheriff's deputy he'd received a package containing some sort of excrement. The deputy contacted the local Post Office, telling them to look out for any other suspicious packages addressed to Flynn.
Two days later, someone dropped off two more packages for Vice Principal Flynn, both of which were later found to contain poop. Thankfully for police and Vice Principal Flynn, the quick-thinking postal inspector had written down the poop-mailer's license plate number.
The Worcester County Sheriff's Office tracked the car to the the teen's home. Deputies found him in the parking lot of a nearby McDonald's; upon searching his car, they found "a large quantity of alcohol." The teen later confessed to mailing the poop, telling police he got it from a cow and a dog.
He was arrested and charged with three counts of disturbing activities at school, three counts of molesting a school administrator, and underage alcohol possession. The school, seeking to make an example and squelch any shit-mailing copy cats, hit the teen with their harshest non-expulsion penalty: a ten-day suspension.
"We do promote a respectful and positive learning environment," Barb Witherow, a spokeswoman for Worcester County Schools, said. "Any inappropriate or disruptive or illegal activity is not acceptable."
[Image via Shutterstock]
Lifting weights in an American prison means joining a culture unlike any seen in a free-world gym, full of crudely welded pig iron and rust. Men forsake masturbation to improve their bench-press stats and consume cans of Jack Mack, the cheapest tinned fish in the world, along with the filthy broth it's packed in for every one of the 72.5 grams of protein promised on the label. It's a manly, aggressive universe with rules and customs of its own. I lived it for 10 years.
Walking into the main yard of a maximum-security prison for the first time is an unforgettable experience. I was instantly reminded of Flemish paintings in which sinners toil in hell. A thousand sweaty, shirtless men groaning and cursing over a bunch of rusty iron and home-welded equipment looks much more like torture or the opening credits of a certain type of blue film than exercise.
But exercise it is, and lifting weights is practically a religion in American prisons. Considering the limitations on supplements and equipment, the prisoners have thought of some truly ingenious ways to get themselves jacked. Sometimes too jacked. In the mid-'90s, a number of states enacted bans on weightlifting; the prison systems of Wisconsin, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Florida, and even California all removed at least some of the weightlifting equipment that had been in their yards for years, according to Alex Tepperman's research. Georgia alone unburdened itself of 150 tons of steel.
Hard-on-crime approaches by right-wing legislatures contributed to this trend, but so did films like 1991's Cape Fear remake, in which Robert De Niro emerges from prison a pumped-up madman. Later films like 1998's American History X also invoke the culture of jailhouse lifting, even though real California prisons currently do not feature equipment beyond dip and pull-up bars.
Walking for the first time through that Boschian yard on that sunny day in June 10 years ago, I knew that I would have to participate. I was already massively out of place; I had just finished my NYU degree in history and French a few years before, and begun a career in publishing after some time in Europe. Then I became a heroin addict for long enough to get desperate and commit a couple of amateur stickups. They give you 10 years for that.
Jailhouse weightlifting in New York State has its own culture. The yard in Green Haven Correctional Facility, where I spent four years, is divided into 15 or so courts, each one a concrete paddy with weights and rusty cable machines. Being a constituent of the court is theoretically like having a gym membership, but in fact it's much more like joining a gang. In the 1970s, John Gotti was the captain of my court, so I used to use "John's weights." The courts are racially segregated; I was on the Irish court, which took all the oddballs, but there was also an Italian court, a Jamaican court, a Blood court, etc. There was even a Christian court where the sex offenders could exercise.
I got into jailhouse bodybuilding right away, joining a court and acquiring weightlifting gloves from a man in wheelchair. That was the only way to get them; the gloves are issued only to wheelchair-bound inmates, who then flip them for a nice profit. There were other paraphernalia. Straps for the slippery pig-iron bars, for instance. Guys would sew them out of canvas belts and sell them for a pack of cigarettes. The price was low because the cops took them away all the time.
Then there was the belt, which was a jailhouse bodybuilder's very identity. Leatherworking was allowed in Green Haven CF, so for $50, a man would make a weightlifting belt that expressed your personality. In truth, they weren't even that comfortable. The best one I ever used was a jury-rigged canvas belt sewn out of a punching bag's exterior, with the word "Everlast" still visible. But every serious weightlifter I knew had his own personalized belt. I saw one that said "Silverback" in calligraphy, with a stylized gorilla face. Others had the images of Hitler, or dice, or gang images, or various kinds of ethnic signifiers. I saw Polish flags, Trinidadian flags, Chinese flags, Thai flags. American prison is a melting pot, too.
I decided that this was the way to go. I designed my belt with the old double-headed eagle of imperial Russia and an oxblood-and-black color scheme, and submitted it to Mafia along with a smuggled-in $50. Mafia was a prisoner who had done 22 years at that point and had never cut his hair. He spent hours braiding it in the morning before working on my belt.
Once I received it, I wore it for every exercise. It's part of the culture, especially since prisoners are so limited in what they can wear. In an environment where your self-expression is constantly denied, you seize any opportunity to assert who you are, even if it's only a bit of colorful leather wrapped around the waist. Wearing the belt for squats, with my wheelchair gloves and my sewn canvas straps, made sense, but I wore it to do forearms as well. It was just part of the uniform of a jailhouse bodybuilder.
Guys manage to get themselves in good shape inside, even with all the primitive equipment. Nutrition is a problem, of course, as any bodybuilder knows that feeding the muscle is half the battle. Getting enough protein is a struggle for every incarcerated weightlifter, so now there's a whole racket in which people steal cases of whitefish out of prison warehouses and sell them to inmates. There are other methods. In New York State, prisoners with AIDS are issued cases of Ensure, a drink that provides massive doses of nutrients. While the stuff actually has a bunch of calories and not as much protein as one might think, it's also chock-full of vitamins and minerals. Naturally, the Ensure gets sold to the bodybuilders.
On the inside, where people tend not to know all that much about body chemistry, vitamins are regarded as an almost magical product with mysterious powers. Many guys won't even start a workout regime without a supply of them. In truth, the prison menu is designed by a professional nutritionist and contains all your dietary necessities. The massive doses of vitamins E and C and B-12 that prisoners steal and smuggle only make for expensive urine.
Getting the protein required was an exercise in theft and smuggling. The prison commissary sold protein powder and amino acids and vitamins, but this was hardly enough, especially after reading the ads in Flex magazine, which has a devoted readership inside. One guy I knew ate Tums by the roll, for the magnesium. Creatine is an entire industry: A few prisons in New York State actually sell the stuff, most notably Eastern Correctional Facility, which hosts a body-building competition that is covered by media. Everywhere else, the creatine is smuggled in. Usually a jar of creamer is opened by an enabling (and free) relative, the powder replaced with creatine, the jar glued back together and shipped in. Such a jar retails for $50 in the yard, which becomes an expensive proposition if you load it. But the stuff works: When I reached Eastern and began to use the stuff, I saw great gains.
There are exercises done in prison that I have never seen inside a free-world gym. A tricep maneuver that's supposedly for pecs is called a "Chestbuster," while front-lateral-delt raises are "Heil Hitlers." Abs are trained in bizarre ways, with men sitting in each other's laps to weigh down the legs and isolate the muscles. The homoeroticism of this—as well as the oil rubs in the showers—is strenuously denied by the participants, as the weightlifters consider themselves only the manliest men.
Since the weights are all welded together, you make adjustments to the bars with leather straps; dumbbells are tied to the ends of a bar to increase the poundage. The jumps in your lifts are extreme; the increments are at least 30 pounds. But guys manage, and since they have the time and dedication, many come out of prison in excellent form.
Which they lose immediately. Having a "prison build" lasts a few months. These are not the kinds of men who join the New York Health and Racquet Club, and outside, they have other problems—poverty, unemployment, child support, addiction, and parole requirements—that keep them from their old jail-yard hobby. I have seen many a man return to prison on a parole violation and have to start all over in the weight yard. Strangely enough, it's the barmen who keep their builds the longest. There's an entire subculture in prison-based exercise centering on the use of the pull-up bar. The barmen figure out all kinds of gymnastic maneuvers to work different muscles, and somehow the calisthenic nature of the exercise leaves results that last longer than those of the weightlifters.
I myself preferred the challenge of a heavy bar over my chest; after four years of practice, I could bench 315 pounds at the weight of 185, at least until I slipped three disks and ended my bodybuilding career. We had strapped ourselves to a slippery bar with approximately 550 pounds on it to do shrugs; I was in a hospital bed two days later.
It's part of the macho prison culture to lift weights, and to be manly and tough. Some convicts, after years of hard work, really do look imposing. At first glance, it's understandable why a right-wing legislature might want to prevent prisoners from becoming physically stronger. But from personal experience, I can say that the discipline and dedication required by weightlifting, plus the confidence it inspires, make for a better man. Perhaps slightly vainer, too, but with at least one success under their $50 leather belts. Many prisoners are former drug addicts; many suffer from low self-esteem, the result of being poor, ignorant, and generally unsuccessful in life. The weight yards help them to see a better version of themselves, and offer them a concrete achievement in a place meant to degrade and diminish.
I was released only two months ago. Unlike many a parolee, I did not emerge into the free world brimming with pecs. My injuries and my hiatus from lifting had seen to that. But I knew I had it in me. I had a confidence that comes from once witnessing extreme vascularity in a blurry mirror. That is how it worked for me, and that is why I look wistfully at every grunting, sweaty gym I pass by.
Removing the weights from state prison might make for weaker criminals, but also weaker men. And in our society, apart from the white-collar offenders, it is really the weak who commit the crimes, not the strong. Taking away the weights—and thereby killing a culture with its own customs, traditions, vocabulary, and even festivals (the annual lifting contest was much-anticipated)—would deny the men a chance for a true mens sana in corpore sano. From my own time inside, I can attest that it's better for men to emerge from the hell of incarceration stronger—not necessarily in their biceps, but in their hearts and minds.
Daniel Genis is the author of the novel Narcotica, as well as many translations from the Russian. He began his career with a rather classical education, and finished it off with a decade in prison. These days he is concentrating on reconciling the subtleties of the Brooklyn scene with the requirements of parole.
Image by Sam Woolley.
Illinois' newest menace is a group of three men called the Miley Cyrus Gang, who are alleged to have beaten multiple people in the city of Joliet this week. Why are they called the Miley Cyrus gang? Well, because before they pick fights, they "start talking about Miley Cyrus."
The trio—Daniel Lahey, 26, Robert Krapil, 27, and Ryan Elliot, 27—were arrested and charged with simple battery after attacking a man and a separate couple at a bar earlier this week. According to one of the victims, Donnie Rice, the Miley Cyrus Gang spouted racial slurs at a Mexican man before attacking him and his girlfriend. Rice says he spoke with a detective after the fact to stress that the beatings—which he says were racially motivated—warranted stronger charges.
The three men allegedly picked a similar fight on the same grounds last weekend when they attacked a man at Lety's Place after again "starting to talk about Miley Cyrus." No charges were brought after that incident.
Miley Cyrus, presumably, does not approve.
[image via Getty]
Brazilian kids in Liberdade wanted to speak fluent English, while senior citizens at a Chicago retirement home were looking for new friends. CNA's Speaking Exchange program put the two together over video chat, and it turned out to be a perfect match.
The kids knew they were getting an opportunity to practice their English, but they didn't know they were getting new grandparents, too. The only sad part is that all the hugs are long-distance—for now, anyway. Some of the retirees are already talking about visiting Brazil one day.
[H/T DPAF]
Protesters lobby for higher wages for fast food workers outside a McDonald's in New York City on Wednesday. Image via Andrew Burton/Getty.
