Is the US a dystopia?

New Investigation: Nonprofit hospitals avoid billions of dollars in taxes. But are they living up to their charitable missions? @jbsgreenberg and I have spent months investigating this question. Today, we're publishing the first two stories in our series. https://t.co/bG0mdCEDYv

— Katie Thomas (@katie_thomas) September 24, 2022

paywall evasion link
https://archive.ph/mwDQK

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeAgfmSXoAY0HdF?format=jpg&name=medium

^ngl what usually happens is bodies end up used for plastic surgery practice so if you don't want to think about your dead dad being used for breast enhancement surgery don't do this

Don’t donate what you should be selling.

I'm kinda surprised selling cadavers is even legal?

Submitting to evidence for

A town in Connecticut voted on and approved a resolution asking their local Starbucks workers to work faster because people didn't like waiting in the drive thru line. We live in an irredeemably stupid and selfish country. pic.twitter.com/aclk3X47F0

— Microplastics Enjoyer (@EclecticHams) November 6, 2022

Interesting that this story was on this thread, as there was an update today: Pieper Lewis, who killed her rapist, has escaped custody.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/us/iowa-teen-killed-alleged-rapist-escape/index.html

xp https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Move-people-quicker-Trumbull-seeks-action-16149765.php

It's stupid but it's not quite as stupid as that Tiktok says, basically a letter asking Starbucks to hire more people.

“What I would like to recommend is that we write them a formal letter saying that we feel they are not adequately moving people through the line, and during peak hours they should develop a plan to allow people to put an order in and move head in the line to deliver to relieve the backup on White Plains Road and in the parking lot,” he said. “I think they could do that. It doesn’t have to be a redesign of the parking lot. I could be just having extra people, during peak hours, figuring out a way to move people quicker.”

Tony Silber, who was acting chairman at the meeting, was supportive of Chory’s idea.

“What I would like to recommend is that we write them a formal letter saying that we feel they are not adequately moving people through the line, and during peak hours they should develop a plan to allow people to put an order in and move head in the line to deliver to relieve the backup on White Plains Road and in the parking lot,” he said. “I think they could do that. It doesn’t have to be a redesign of the parking lot. I could be just having extra people, during peak hours, figuring out a way to move people quicker.”

Tony Silber, who was acting chairman at the meeting, was supportive of Chory’s idea.

“I think that’s a reasonable request to make of the owner. It really is,” Silber said. “And they don’t have the same level of interior service, walk-in service anymore, so they could redeploy people.”

starbucks, like mcdonalds, and everywhere else that eventually got huge, turned into a slow, sloppy, unpleasant experience many years ago. there's no going back.

I haven’t been in a McDonald’s in a few years but I thought they were as efficient as ever?

Doesn't a single person in that Starbucks line know that you can order ahead with your phone and all you have to do is walk in, get it, and go on your way? No waiting.

If the other places I go to that offer phone ordering (Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts) are anything to go by, there's plenty of waiting involved. You're still dependent on human beings to get your order together and they don't bump phone orders ahead of people who are ordering in person. It's all one queue.

i went to a starbuck's near the knoxville airport one time, parked, went inside, and there was a fuckin HUM of activity, like six dudes, a blue of plastic cups and nozzles, cars picking things up, a bunch of stuff on the counter for the pay-ahead people, zero customers actually placing their orders in person, it was like i'd accidentally walked into the kitchen of a mcdonald's or something, except with vast stretches of empty couch, and i probably waiting like 5 or 6 minutes for somebody to have enough time to come over and ask me what i wanted. really disorienting if you have lived in a walking culture for awhile

a blue = a BLUR

god yes starbucks is a nightmare if you're a regular person used to ordering regular coffee at a regular coffee shop. the phone order thing is horrible it makes me ia.

Americans must be really unhealthy if they don't walk. I suppose that's the way the empire might die.

Many Americans will do anything to avoid walking.

That said, part of this isn’t totally the fault of people, but the fault of the car industry and planning boards that have made many cities completely unwalkable.

I like to walk but might be considered an oddball because of that by...various people close to me

I used to think this talk was exaggerated until I went to Dallas and it seemed like you couldn't cross any non residential street on foot?

Americans must be really unhealthy if they don't walk. I suppose that's the way the empire might die.

as an obesity glorifier can we not blame fat people here, the problem with our declining life expectancy of late can be better attributed to the surge of fentanyl overdoses and COVID deaths. obesity is the symptom of unequal health care access, malnutrition/food deserts, and poverty/racism related stressors, among others.

(and our car-centric urban planning ofc)

no disagreement there, but when you live outside of a city in the US, everything is so spread out you basically have to drive. public transit being slowly strangled to death was part of this

I am definitely not going to go down the road to assign blame on fat ppl.

That video was kinda amazing. There were lots of parking spots, so you could surely park, go to the shop and get your coffee then go back to your car? I thought only British ppl liked queueing? xp

it’s all one queue is the thing. going inside confers no benefit

DON'T GO TO FUCKING STARBUCKS

Didn't this happen in 2021? Milo's article is from May 2021

i only went to Starbucks because my kids wanted “the pink drink” and they wouldn’t shut up about it

they serve pepto-bismol at starbucks?

Do you mean the unicorn drink? Are you sure those children aren’t changelings?

behold teh pink drink. sorry i mean Pink Drink Starbucks Refreshers®️ Beverage

https://i.imgur.com/g8uEHnb.png

Beverage-style drink.

beverage-adjacent colloidal refreshment (note: may not actually refresh)

I'm guessing this must have blown over since the letter was written in May 2021 and I can't find any recent news about it since.

I can definitely understand why customers might not have wanted to go inside in 2021, being the newness of the vaccines and the Alpha wave at the time

Iirc the actual resolution was asking Sbux to HIRE MORE WORKERS not nec to make the workers work faster/more.

Universities are partnering with sports betting companies to introduce students and fans to online gambling — and reaping millions of dollars in fees. https://t.co/DZ6WOCAfoe

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 20, 2022

I've been waiting for the wave of families-ruined-by-gambling stories since legal sports betting exploded. Just seems a matter of time.

Honestly horrifying.

Chris Holdren, a top executive at Caesars Sportsbook, said in an interview that the email was sent to underage students by mistake. “We were very disappointed that it happened, and we asked our partners at L.S.U. athletics to identify and solve the system breakdown,” he said.

I hate this so much. They're positioning the marketing of gambling to underage students as the point at which it crosses the line, when really the whole thing is gross whether the students are underage or not.

Also, using DEI initiatives as a shield, gross

I'm not a prude about gambling, mostly I think it should be legal, but also we know from like millennia of experience that mostly what it does is separate poor people from their money. I don't know what the right level of regulation should be, but not having it advertised everywhere all the time seems like a start.

Our society and economy is designed to suck money upward gambling is more honest about it.

I think gambling should be legal in all 50 states but no apps, no online betting (aside from poker, I guess) and cash only. You should have to get your ass down to a bookie shop to place a parlay and not do it from your couch tied to a 24.99% credit card.

Love Calz' betting shop memories

It seems unsavory to me, but then so does prohibition (which, as we have seen, just pushes the behavior into back alleys). I have no idea how to square that circle.

As a gambler that has lost thousands at times doing stupid shit over the years, i do think it should be legal, but some of the scummy things books do to entice bettors should not be (promising bonuses that require a certain number of bets, so you can lose back any winnings quickly).

I kind of like Milo's idea as that does strip away some of the impulse betting (though hardcore gamblers would scream about it).

There's a post about sports betting which people may not have seen on the Albert Brooks thread:

In view of all the disgusting "we care that you play responsibly" betting ads that are part of every baseball broadcast now--and not even just ads; the gambling industry is now incorporated right into the broadcasts themselves--Lost in America is looking weirdly prescient: "The Desert Inn has heart!"

(My dad had a gambling problem, so this is a real sore spot for me. We complain about lots of things on ILB, but baseball getting into bed with the gambling industry is far and away the game's most serious problem now--which I know it shares with every other sport.)

― clemenza, Friday, November 18, 2022 8:45 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don't worry, we have safeguards in place, gambling definitely won't corrupt sports this time.

I hate how the NFL's partnership with DraftKings has sportscasters actually giving predictions on random things like over/under on how many yards specific players will have to drum up betting