All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category
FIRED FOR INSUBORDINATION, BLIND ROOF READER FILES DISCRIMINATION SUIT
Colona) A recently dismissed blind proofreader who now turns out to be deaf as well, has filed a discrimination suit against the San Juan Horseshoe. Agnes Stope, who worked in the above capacity since 1977. alleges that the paper, which employed her despite her blindness, fired her after finding out that she couldn’t hear a canon go off in her bedroom.
Her legal action asks for fiscal compensation but not reinstatement. Lawyers for Stope, 101, did not elaborate saying only that they were asking for an undisclosed sum in what is “clearly a case of discrimination on the basis of physical encumbrance”, a crime in Colorado.
A spokesman for the newspaper, commenting without prompter, said, “We kept Agnes on for much longer than we should have considering her challenges. Most papers have clear policies regarding the employment of handicapped persons. She would have been canned in a heartbeat in most news rooms.”
Conjecture has it that Stope was simply misplaced on-the-job and forgotten in the board room 30 years ago and nobody on her side of the workingman’s desk wanted to tell her that she was no longer useful.
“She’d come to work on time every day and just sit quietly until the paychecks rolled around,” said fellow worker Avril Souze’. “She didn’t bother anyone. For most of the 37 years she commuted from Howardsville where she successfully operated a family smelting plant and sold peanuts on the train.”
According to a flock of reporters employed at the paper, Stope, from the very beginning, habitually ignored all orders and requests on the part of management and as a result no one in the front office could tell that she was losing her hearing. Her blank stare became “a standard, synonymous with the paper’s one-dimensional masked allegiances and curt, provisional aloofness.”
Principles at The Horseshoe say that her audio disability was preexisting which exonerates the employer of liability. They point out that other problems may have existed at the time she was hired but were never disclose by the applicant.
“She took the job knowing full well that she was xenophobic, olfactory-challenged and unable to distinguish between bright colors,” said a management source. “In addition she had severely in-grown toenails, bad teeth and arthritic eyebrows. It is certainly to her credit that she never missed a day of work but our entire relationship was built on false pretense.”
Stope’s attorney acknowledged that his client had a history of maladies prompting his legal adversaries to call for a complete roster as an indication of pre-trial cooperation.
“Agnes could no longer engage her taste buds after a brutal fist fight with several Basque uranium miners at the Little Chef Saloon in 1981,” confided Souze’. “Her sharp speech impediment should have been obvious enough to merit further investigation, as well as her missing right leg, lost during the siege of Madrid in 1936.”
She also suffered from a acute prune face, cauliflower ear and artichoke heart.
Detriments aside, Stope never took on penny from the McGovernment. She is celebrated in the Guinness Book of World Records, not for her hindrances, but for her extravagant collection of paper clips which she would drop in a prearranged pattern all along Red Mountain Pass every morning so as to find her way back to San Juan County that night.
“We respect her independent demeanor,” said the Horseshoe spokesman. “I remember years ago when her colleagues took up a collection to build her a double-wide handicapped parking space right in front of her cubicle. Rumor has it that she never found the spot and subsequently didn’t parked there.”
“Lot of damn thanks I get for all those years of loyalty,” spat Stope who would not comment further on the proceedings. – Kashmir Horseshoe
Salary Caps replace Football Helmets says NFL
(New York) The National Football league says salary caps, not traditional helmets would grace the noggins of players in 2013. The space-age caps, made exclusively of the elytron of a female stag beetle, the fangs of a pigmy fruit bat, and the feathers of a male peacock are said to be soothing to the scalp and to protect from concussions by conjuring up white magic while off the field.
This sect of Lesser Antilles Voodoo believers has set up shop in Miami and is referenced right along with The Iceman Cometh and The Fireside Book of Baseball in both the National Hockey League and in the baseball’s American League.
Many say it was becoming difficult to locate helmets large enough to fit the player’s heads anyway.
“This will give us a whole new look for 2012, said Jeremiah Johnson, a spokesman for the owners. It will be like the old days when players went at it with no face guards and fans could identify players face to face without names stenciled on their backs. When a player got leveled everyone could see who he was.”
Player response was minimal with one special teams’ standout asking if the new bonnets would come out of his pay or if the team would absorb the expenses like it does with shaoulder pads, towels and jock straps. – Warren of Wexley
Council recommends counseling
Bears – Potentially Violent Pests
The Crested Butte Town Council has passed a resolution which prohibits bear from plundering the town limits and, in cases where authorities are forced to anesthetize the animals, provide professional counseling for bears caught trespassing. The new ordinance calls for bears caught in the act of eating garbage, berries or birthday cake to undergo six weeks of counseling and submit to drug testing.
Sociologists from Boulder will be in town on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11am to 3 pm and all wild animals that are experiencing trauma are invited to stop by. All leash laws will be suspended for the entire population until further notice.
One incident, where a 500-pound black bear was captured in a local fudge store, perched on a counter seat munching on candied apples, magnified the danger inherent in a hungry bear population.
Sources within the walls of this storied city tell us that bear have been known to respond to behavior modification and therapy such as bass fishing and role playing. Most suffer from lower level schizophrenia, passive-aggressive tendencies and anger issues.
“But mostly they are hungrier than you or I can imagine,” said Eunice Pelt. “Imagine filling up a body like that on berries. No wonder they love beer nuts and cereal.”
“This is the 21st Century! We will not be held hostage by bruins. There are millions of acres to roam,” said one councilperson. “Can’t the bear go there?”
Experts from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory to the Roaring Fork Fish Hatchery say the bear will be a problem until it gets cold and they all go to bed.
Utah Flips Polygamy Card
These ladies may be due multiple husbands in Utah after passage of a reverse Polygamy Bill in the Beehive State.
(Salt Lake) The State Legislature in Utah has today passed a bill that legalizes polygamy but this time it’s women, not men, who can take multiple spouses. The shocking decision clearly approves extended marital arrangements whereas one woman might have up to three or four husbands in the household.
Greeted by some as progressive and others as absurd the new law will go into affect in 2013. Acknowledging that a host of details still need to be hammered out sponsors of the act say it is high time that females in the Beehive State, named for the lingering hairstyle, have their moment in the sun.
Montrose Teacher Signs for $1.2 Million
(Oak Grove) Muriel Armbruster, a third-grade math teacher here has signed a contract with the local school board for over one million dollars in salary and incentives according to a press release received this morning.
Armbruster who also coaches polo and heads up the Future Wool Growers of America chapter, was reportedly astounded at the offer.
BATS, BEARS AND BUTTERFLIES
It’s Getting Crowded in the Great Outdoors
(Oh-Be-Joyful) The place is overrun. Just the other night while camping out under a newly installed municipal street light up the Slate River we watched in horror as thousands, well hundreds, of fruit bats circled our tent with lord knows what intent. They are nothing more than little rats with wings. I don’t care if they are blind and operate on radar. They don’t bathe regularly and can carry rabies (in their back pockets?)
