(Punnish headline courtesy of Linda Thompson)
A lawsuit in Florida has made the news — and it shouldn't have.
Actually, two things: there shouldn't be a lawsuit and it should not be receiving publicity. In the latter regard I'm not helping, so I apologise to both my readers, but this needs
to be brought to the attention of ordinary people, people like us who would never dream of taking McDonald's to court over a slice of cheese.
Cynthia Kissner of Broward County, and Leonard Werner of Miami-Dade, filed a class-action lawsuit against the fast food giant because they wanted a burger without cheese ... but had to pay for the cheese! Aaah. The world is ending!
Rational people would behave differently, but these two people from Florida are suing McDonald's for more than $5 million!
When does a grievance become a shortcut to riches?
Sure, it's the US, where unnatural things happen all the time (led from the top), but why don't the normal rules of reason apply in America?
What would happen here?
Would Kiwis suck it up and pay for the cheese (a few cents)? Complain loudly but take their custom elsewhere?
There is no doubt a list of probabilities, but no way would anyone of sound mind even contemplate taking McDonald's to court for millions of dollars.
Apparently Kissner and Werner suffered injury and therefore deserve to be millionaires as a result. The injury is unclear and is certainly not physical, unless one of them broke a bone in their foot while stamping in anger and frustration.
The lawsuit also claims McDonald's is being "unjustly enriched" by having customers pay for cheese they don't want and don't get. So what's new? How many people think McDonald's is a philanthropic organisation trying to feed the world at the lowest possible cost to the consumer? Face it folks, they're out to make as much money as possible and there are some things they should not be doing, like charging for non-existent cheese.
But suing them for $5 million? Really? That's hardly going to make America great again. (There was an opportunity there for a great/grate pun but the cheese is one of those plastic-looking slices so the joke wouldn't work).
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There's been another political poll. Yeah, I missed it as well, just as I have missed every other political poll there has ever been. In fact, I don't even know anyone who has taken part in any poll, ever. Still, I'm sure they're as accurate as any poll taken in one street in Auckland.
This poll, the Newshub-Reid Research poll has got a few people worried about their status as "preferred prime minister" — because, apparently, this poll really matters — and others, like National leader Simon Bridges putting a positive spin on his negative result.
Rumour has it that Simon is a smart bloke, even if I can't understand a word he says, and he should treat such polls with the disdain they deserve. Instead, he makes a meal out of it by saying that if so many people (3.7 per cent) now prefer Judith Collins as their potential prime minister, then National must be in a "strong place" under his leadership. This is in spite of the fact that the same poll has him hovering at a should-try-harder 9 per cent after four months as leader of the party.
Seriously, why comment at all? Such polls are about as accurate as long-range weather forecasts and have absolutely no bearing on actual public opinion. Their flaws become apparent at election time when the polls are almost invariably wrong by huge margins.
Just ignore the silly polls Simon, and concentrate on those beautiful rounded vowels and clear consonants.
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A wide, general knowledge is a wonderful thing and certainly something to aspire to, but it's very easy to get snobbish about it.
A recent quiz on things Asian had a lot of New Zealanders performing poorly. According to the compilers of the quiz we should all know a lot more about Asia than we do, and they have made their feelings public.
The quiz was part of a survey sent out by the Asia New Zealand Foundation, and the results are not surprising. Asia is a big place and includes a lot of countries. That few New Zealanders know where the Mekong flows is not something to get grumpy about. How many in the Asia New Zealand Foundation know where the Whanganui River flows? How many Chinese people know the political system of New Zealand? How many know that New Zealand exists?
The foundation's people think we should have greater knowledge of Asia, our neighbour.
Personally, I think we should have greater knowledge about many things, but in this age of digital fluff where pointless trivia rules and attention spans are shrinking to the size of soundbites, it's not likely to happen anytime soon ... or ever.