Hi!
Why is there a picture of a Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich here, you may well ask? It is here because it symbolizes how weird American priorities are. That was last week’s ad. This week, being ignorant of Popeye’s recent promotions, I offered to cheer up my wife, who was not feeling well, by driving up King Street (usually about a 10 minute trip) to the local Popeye’s for some dark meat fried chicken, her favorite. As soon as I got on King, however, I was in gridlock. It took over a half hour to get to the restaurant, and it’s parking lot was in chaos. It turned out that the whole traffic disaster was being caused by the jam in the Popeyes drive-up line, which spilled into the street. I crawled up past Popeye’s and parked by the 7-11 a block away. Then I walked to Popeye’s—I would be damned if spent all that time in traffic without coming home with my wife’s treat—and the restaurant was packed wall-to wall. I was informed by one customer that the end of the line was out the door. “What’s going on?” I asked. “It’s the chicken sandwich!” he said. “All of this is for a fast-food chicken sandwich?” I asked, incredulous. “Yup!” he said, smiling.
“You’re all idiots,” I said, and left.
More than half of American won;t take the time to vote, or bother to investigate the vital issues and events that are shaping their lives, but they’ll waste hours of their lives to spend $4.50 on a Popeye’s chicken sandwich. Then, presumably, take pictures of it with their smartphones and put them up on Instagram.
1. Dog ownership ethics: Anyone who can’t figure this out on their own shouldn’t have a dog. What a surprise! Researchers have shown that screaming at dogs traumatizes them over the long term, and that love and patience lead to better training results. Science Alert reports that a team biologist Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro of the Universidade do Porto in Portugal tested 42 dogs from dog training schools that used reward-based training, and 50 dogs from aversion training schools. The dogs trained with shouting and leash-jerking were more stressed, indicated by higher levels of cortisol in their saliva.
“Our results show that companion dogs trained using aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare as compared to companion dogs trained using reward-based methods, at both the short- and the long-term level,” the researchers write in the paper published by biology news service bioRxiv.
Duh. Routinely shouting at dogs is animal cruelty. Our sensitive English Mastiff Patience would hide under the sink in one of our bathrooms any time anyone in the house raised his or her voice to anyone. If my wife and I argued, we had to coax Patience out by hugging each other as she watched.
2. Is the 2020 election a mass “Bias makes you stupid” experiment? Two terrible (and unelectable) potential candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and even worse, Obama “wingman” Eric Holder, are reportedly exploring joining the still-crowded field. Why? They recognize that none of the current candidates look like they can attract broad-based support from Democrats, much less the rest of the electorate. A short way of describing this phenomenon is to say that if either Bloomberg or Holder are an improvement over the current crop of socialists, totalitarians and septuagenarians vying to run against President Trump, the Democrats are in big trouble.
A week ago, a New Times/Siena poll showed President Trump highly competitive in the six closest states carried by the President in ’16. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn wrote about it, and didn’t sugar coat the message: even with a 24-7 news cycle bashing the President on all fronts, and even with the impeachment push giving Democrats the opportunity to soak the public’s brain with denigrating quotes, President Trump still looks like a formidable opponent.
Well, of course he is, and it should be obvious to all why. Yet Ann Althouse, who flagged the article, posted the two highest comments to the revelation from Times readers:
This is the most depressing article I’ve read in a while. The idea of a second Trump term is literally terrifying. Who are these people that like him? How can it be? Fox News, owned by a soulless Australian, is destroying this once great country.
Second highest:
I simply cannot fathom this. How is this even possible? Also I live in Michigan and my sense is that Trump is deeply unpopular here. Are these polls using the same techniques that were used to predict a 97% chance of victory for Hillary? Perhaps the polls are wrong? I sincerely hope so because the alternative is unthinkable.
Wow! How cocooned does one have to be in Leftist echo chambers, false narratives, fake news. conventional wisdom, “resistance” talking points and Big Lies to write things like this for public consumption? If reality is that far from permeating the biases of such people—-after three years of a mass effort to effectively disenfranchise citizens who rebelled against the media-progressive bullying of the Obama years and the blatant dishonesty and corruption of the Clinton candidacy—-they must be permanently damaged.
3. Is this monstrous doctor’s religion relevant? The Virginia Pilot’s story about Dr. Javaid Perwaiz, 69, of Chesapeake, VA., accused of performing hysterectomies and tying the Fallopian tubes of unsuspecting women without their consent, says nothing about the Pakistani immigrant’s faith. Outspoken anti-Islam writer Robert Spencer, however, based on the allegations and Perwaiz’s presumed adherence to Islam, makes this leap in a column titled, “Demographic Jihad? Virginia Muslim Doctor Tied Women’s Tubes Without Their Consent.”
The director of Jihad Watch writes in part,
[A]s uncomfortable as it may make some people to notice it, we have seen Muslim doctors do this elsewhere. It may be relevant in this context that Islam forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, but Muslim men may marry Jewish or Christian women (or women from the other “People of the Book”). The upshot of that is that the Muslim community will perpetually be growing and the non-Muslim community declining.
Consider also the fact that Houari Boumedienne, President of Algeria, said this at the UN in 1974: “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
Former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi once said: “There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent and the number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted to Islam. Europe will one day be a Muslim continent.”
And Iranian army representative Abbas Mohammad Hassani said recently: “Childbearing in the current circumstances is considered a type of jihad and it would please the Almighty God. Enemies of Shiism are trying to prevent the Shiite population from growing, while they continue to increase their own population. All Shiites must, therefore, take on the jihad of childbearing to counter the goals and conspiracies of the enemies.”
The idea of childbearing as a weapon in a demographic jihad isn’t limited to Boumedienne, Gaddafi, and Hassani. Is it possible that Javaid Perwaiz has the same kind of mindset, believing that he is performing an Islamic duty by preventing Infidel women from having children? It cannot be discounted, but of course the possibility will never be investigated; to do so would be “Islamophobic.”
Is that analysis bigotry and fear-mongering, or information the public, and especially women, have a right to know?
4. I don’t understand what the big deal is about “gender reveals,” but maybe if enough people have these kinds of things happen to them this stupid, sexist fad will die out.
In Iowa, a party last month to announce the gender of an expectant couple’s baby involved a planned explosion, and a 56-year-old woman in attendance was killed by flying debris when it went awry. The month before, on September 7, a plane engaged in an elaborate “gender reveal” stunt over Turkey, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, crashed when the planned release of 350 gallons of pink water made the the plane aerodynamically unstable.
It slammed into the ground and flipped over. Luckily the pilot and a passenger suffered only minor injuries, thus allowing them to go to Popeye’s for a chicken sandwich.
Ethics Alarms 
Just a note to remind that 350 gallons of water weighs just short of 1 1/2 tons. If you’re dropping anything that heavy from a plane, you should be trying to take out a bridge or something.
According to the NTSB the plane was an AT-602 rated to carry over 600 gals as a crop duster. Looks like the pilot just slowed it down too much and stalled. Still, a pretty stupid stunt and just luck that no one died. Given the location, it reminded me of WKRP in Cincinnati, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
I agree with you that these increasingly-complicated, Rube-Goldbergian gender reveal stunts are incredibly stupid, but I can’t quite see how it’s sexist. Care to share your reasoning?
You should give Patience more credit, she encouraged you and your wife to hug it out.. Dogs are pretty good at training their humans.
Everyone should have a mastiff in their life, at least once.
They are very good at that, ours almost got us trained they needed car rides and cones over the summer last year to cool down. The clever one only has to stare at Mother late at night for her to climb out of bed to tuck the blankie around him. That whole opposable thumbs thing when the blanket gets tangled from nosing it, you see. If staring doesn’t work, a tiny, repeating, pathetic whine seals the deal. The training does go both ways, indeed.
Regarding your preamble, since you seem to have missed the many stories about Popeye’s selling out of these sandwiches, lines like the one you mentioned popping up, not to mention a sandwich-related stabbing (I think), your photo exposes a virtue-signaling subtext.
They mention the sandwiches are back Sunday. Yes, Sunday. This is a backhand swipe at Popeye’s competitor, Chick Fil-a, which closes Sundays (so that its employees can hate gays in the privacy of their own home). For Popeyes, I think it is fair game for it to contrast itself with its competitor; they are competing, after all. But, the woke crowd will go to Popeyes to protest Chick Fil-a because they don’t want their chicken to come with “a side-order of hate.” For all you know, they don’t go to either one, but need to pay lip service to Popeyes.
For me, I would have no problem getting chicken from either place; but I don’t think I have eaten at either of them.
For me, it’s Taco Bell all the way.
-Jut
Way too complicated. I would have asked people wasting time waiting for a chicken sandwich if they were doing so to protest Chic-Fil-A, but I’m pretty sure if I missed that angle (I vaguely recall it) in favor of sock drawer duties, so did they. Yes, I put trying to demonize a whole company because of the political and social views of its owner about as foolish a life priority as fast food sandwiches.
But isn’t it amazing that being OPEN on Sunday is now considered a virtue?
“Yes, I put trying to demonize a whole company because of the political and social views of its owner about as foolish a life priority as fast food sandwiches.”
You’ve seen modern leftists right?
Popeyes can keep that chicken patty sandwich. The firm either purposely failed to ensure an adequate supply resulting in an outright bait and switch campaign initially or the management team is inept and failed to ensure consistent deliveries in the supply chain.
We heard the buzz about how good they are and went to Popeyes to try one when they first came our. When we got there we were told they were sold out. So we ordered something else and were told part of that order was also out. We walked out never to return.
As for reintroducing the product on a Sunday it may not necessarily a swipe but a cheesy way to avoid competition from the industry leader. This is how a tier 2 chain operates.
No, it is deliberate. It would one thing if it simply said “Chicken Sandwich this Sunday”.
However, they doubled down “Yes, Sunday.” to clearly indicate it was a dig at Chick-Fil-A.
Oh, it was deliberate to launch on Sunday because CfA is closed and unable to offer choice.
The question is, was it to take a competitive advange because they are closed or to point out the “unproven ideas” of a Christian business? I think the former rather than the latter.
I suppose it depends on the meaning of “take a swipe at”.
What I meant was Popeye’s was making the point “WE’RE open on Sunday and YOU-KNOW-WHO isn’t.”
But, the dog whistle for the left is: they aren’t chick-fil-a.
I doubt that Popeye’s was playing on any kind of political message.
-Jut
If Popeyes was not making a deliberate “dog whistle” to the left, then it is gross incompetence.
I read it as such, and was turned off by the it. Anyone who is a fan of Chick-fil-A because of its Christian values will be actively repelled from the store by the aggressive message.
On point 3.
The concept of demographic replacement theory is what Aliza has been arguing fo some time.
I ubderstand her position that we are allowing western culture (read white) to be obliterated through the mixing of races. This is caused by an unwillingness to see that certain groups are purposely using our culture of tolerance against us to allow anti-western ideals to take hold. Part of me rejects her positions on that because I believe humans that choose partners who are biologically different races cannot constrained by society to procreate only with those that will keep the race relatively pure.
Conversely, the idea that one theocracy tries to create a multigenerational strategy to impose its religion across every nation or race is equally antithetical to me.
Your post on gaslighting in which you state that the words you use are tools to convey that which you believe important will not be censored is required reading and something we must all choose to do to avoid the prospect that such censorship of words devolves into restrictions of liberties that we would never dream could occur.
Being one of the morons, someone I know told me they were going to a gender reveal party, and I thought it was for an adult coming out as a transgender (though, to be fair, in this day and age, it might be someone like the whack job trying to turn her 7 year old son in to a girl in the divorce case Jack wrote about recently…).
I didn’t think I was that out of touch, but the truth hurts, I guess.
I’ve had the Popeye’s chicken sandwich. Good enough, I guess, but not close to Chickfilet. Sort of like the debate about 5-Guys coming out west to challenge In-n-Out. Good, but nope.
On that thought, the hope that I’m not a complete moron may have life; being a life-long homer for In-n-Out, when they finally made it to us and opened, I went down to partake – and found a line as Jack described. I love In-n-Out, but not that much.
Not directly related to any particular post here, but I find myself in a minor ethical quandary.
Facebook is currently flooded by “Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself Memes”. I am sick of it. If he was murdered, an igloo lit from inside is not going to convince anyone to investigate (sigh). I’ve started “hiding” these post, hoping that Facebook’s algorithms will eventually filter them out. Any Facebook page that posts these tedious memes I think is fair game for me to block.
However, I also realize I could do collateral damage if enough people start hiding Epstein posts from meme-based pages. Innocent pages (ie, ones that do not have Epstein content) could start to be auto-blocked by Facebook if its algorithms are too stupid to figure out the common denominator (and we know that Facebook’s algorithms are pretty stupid).
Is it is ethical to use available tools to try to block out tedious content on the relatively private space that is my newsfeed? If it is ethical for me personally to use such a tool to curate content of interest to me, is it ethical for a handful of people abuse the patience of the many, prompting the many to use ethically neutral tools in a way that causes harm to third parties?
My take? Sure. It’s your page.
“It’s your page.”
And Epstein did not kill himself.
(Now Facebook will have all the more reason to ban EA based on Rich’s altering the algorithms, I guess. Sorry, Jack)
/sn
It’s still his page. I don’t dispute that people who use Facebook are stuck with Facebook’s rules and legally so–I just object to the unethical manner in which Facebook operates. I also question whether any user can affect the algorithm. It’s not unethical to do something that has no detectable effect on anyone and anything.
…uhmmm… did you just straight line my snark post?
I was pointing out absurdity by being absurd. I will have to work at being more obvious when being absurd, now.
Fortunately, I am JUST the man for the job!
A word of caution to any of you’s contemplating lending your name to any criticism of Popeye’s
Wouldn’t dream of it. Benefit of the doubt: there is obviously something going on with Chick-fil-A and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (stop sneering!) where you guys live that isn’t going on elsewhere. Since the former doesn’t exist in San Francisco (no, nobody tried to keep it out, it was their choice way back before anyone knew the owners had a biblical argument with gay gentlefolk), that just leaves a few KFC/Taco Bells at fair distances from the non-spinach-consuming Popeye to compete in The Great Chicken Sandwich Rush.
“My” Popeyes lies between a doctor’s office I visit on Tuesdays and its nearest bus stop. Signs announcing the advent of the culinary wonder have been up for months, their yummy looking portrait obscured by a bright red “Sorry, Coming Soon” banner running diagonally across the crust-rimmed bun (reminding me of the Where’s the Beef ads of yesteryear) that drew passersby attention to the absentee on the posted menu. Tuesday Special is a dark-meat twosome + biscuit for $2.49 or $2.79 for white, up from $1.14 and $1.99 within living memory. So there are always long waiting lines that day of the week. I can’t imagine what it would have looked like on Arrival Sunday, but two days later, the lines were still out the door and looping around on the sidewalk, all shuffling along like a happy chain-gang, patiently awaiting their turn to taste The Sandwich. Two to a customer. Reports were good, but then, after all, there was no fil-A competition. I was just leaving when the announcement came that they’d run out of sandwich. Some people were bummed about the wait, a few stayed for the Special or something else on the menu, but somebody said “BBQ” and most of them began a leisurely race the two blocks down to a pretty good rib joint.
I don’t understand what the fuss is about. It’s business doing business, and keeping the prices down while they’re at it. As far as I’ve heard (and I asked everyone I knew who lived elsewhere in the Bay Area when the Chick-fil-A controversy was going on) the “A” is where it’s at. People who boycotted it (“boycott” being a rather strong word for “stop going unless or until they change their policy” — which, by the way, they have. Sort of.) Fine by me. Full disclosure: I’m medically banned from fried foods. When the Tuesday appointments stop, I will once again comply with the ban; meanwhile, I’ll stay with the affordable Special — the idea of bread-covered batter is a bit much.
The following link explains exactly what’s going on, without the drama. Winning in this is not like Here’s the closer: … [H]ow will the competition respond to Popeyes? Given the number of choices out there, it may not feel a need to do so. According to Placer.ai, KFC is already enjoying a bump in business from Popeyes’ publicity..
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2019/11/08/inside-the-fried-chicken-sandwich-wars-how-popeyes-stacks-up-amid-a-flock-of-competition/#635bdbfc6ead