The Off Topic Topic

[The Brain]

"Why are you Gates?"

[Tonitrus]

Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing.

Didn't see that coming.

I'm surprised it hadn't happened long ago.

[Sheilbh]

Just discovered that the English instinct for the twee applied even to Anderson shelters during the war

[Oexmelin]

Black man enslaved by South Carolina restaurant manager is owed $546,000, court rules

A former restaurant manager serving 10 years in prison for effectively enslaving a man, forcing him to work more than 100 hours a week without pay, must double the restitution he pays to his former employee – to more than half a million dollars, a court ruled.

Bobby Paul Edwards, a 56-year-old white man who ran a restaurant in Conway, South Carolina, has now been ordered to pay John Christopher Smith, a Black man with intellectual disabilities, $546,000.

A recent appellate court ruling declared that Smith should receive double the $273,000 he was initially awarded in restitution after being enslaved and physically abused for five years.

Edwards pleaded guilty to a forced labor charge in 2019, after failing to pay Smith any wages from 2009 to 2014 when he was working as a buffet cook, and was sentenced to 10 years.

"When an employer fails to pay those amounts (regular and overtime pay), the employee suffers losses, which includes the loss of the use of that money during the period of delay," the court of appeals for the fourth circuit recently ruled.

Smith first began working at J&J Cafeteria when he was 12, the Post and Courier reported.

Edwards eventually took over the business from relatives in 2009 and forced Smith to work 100 hours a week with no days off.

Smith was kept from his family, called racial slurs, whipped with belts and kitchen pans, and burned with metal tongs that had been dipped in hot grease during what court documents called a "reign of terror", the Washington Post reported.

"Most of the time I felt unsafe, like Bobby could kill me if he wanted," Smith said, according to court records. "I wanted to get out of that place so bad but couldn't think about how I could without being hurt."

A woman named Geneane Caines had a daughter-in-law who worked at the restaurant and had knowledge of Edwards' treatment of Smith. Caines reported the restaurant owner in 2014, NBC reported.

"For stealing his victim's freedom and wages, Mr Edwards has earned every day of his sentence," Sherri Lydon, US attorney for the district of South Carolina, said when Edwards was convicted.

"The US attorney's office will not tolerate forced or exploitative labor in South Carolina, and we are grateful to the watchful citizen and our partners in law enforcement who put a stop to this particularly cruel violence."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/03/south-carolina-restaurant-manager-black-man-enslaved-double-restitution-court?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1oowuW3uOto0_xEh7nGFjF3MxkooVVM-MHc9isa8aQV_khnVE0SNtMDu4#Echobox=1620095024

[Valmy]

Yeah I hear of similar stories regarding immigrants in California and Texas from time to time. People are just awful.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crSScL0XmOk

More footage of the Seattle security guard.

[ulmont]

Yeah I hear of similar stories regarding immigrants in California and Texas from time to time. People are just awful.

immigrants, you say.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/437573/blacks-were-enslaved-well-into-the-1960s

[Syt]

Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing.

[Josquius]

It all makes sense now.

[Maladict]

It's Liberation Day again. Breaking with tradition, Angela Merkel was invited to give the annual speech on the occasion.
She is also gamely answering the characteristically blunt questions by students in the Q&A afterwards, which turns the otherwise formulaic and almost ristualistic day into a fascinating discussion on matters of guilt, responsibility, freedom and the weight of history. We need more of this.

[Syt]

I feel Dutch-German relations have improved considerably following the Dutch win of the Euro Cup 1988 in Germany. 

[The Brain]

How are their feelings on the term Pennsylvania Dutch?

[Maladict]

I feel Dutch-German relations have improved considerably following the Dutch win of the Euro Cup 1988 in Germany. 

Yes, that too 

[Maladict]

How are their feelings on the term Pennsylvania Dutch?

I'm sure they are doing well. But they weren't asked any questions.

[Sheilbh]

It's the 200th anniversary of the first edition of the Guardian. They've released a great annotated version of their first ever front page:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/ng-interactive/2021/may/05/guardian-200-first-ever-edition-annotated?CMP=share_btn_tw

As their Media Editor noted, the first ever front page included an advert for a vegetarian cookbook


Is there a more enduring cariacature than 200 years of the Guardian reader?

Edit: Also lovely front page: