Outrageous Food Stories

You have got to be kidding me, big business has gone stupid.

Target shifts Muslims who won’t ring up pork

Department stores in Minn. reassign some cashiers over religious conflict

MINNEAPOLIS - Muslim cashiers at some local Target stores who object to ringing up products that contain pork are being shifted to other positions where they don’t need to, the discount retailer said Saturday.

Some Muslim cashiers at local Targets had declined to scan pork products such as bacon because doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs. They would ask other cashiers to ring up such purchases, or sometimes customers would scan those items themselves.

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has now offered its local Muslim cashiers who object to handling pork the option of wearing gloves while cashiering, shifting to other positions or transferring to other nearby stores.

“We are confident that this is a reasonable solution for our guests and team members,” Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press on Saturday.

Greear said it was a localized problem and that it would be handled on a case-by-case basis.

“It is not an issue in most of our stores in the Twin Cities,” she said in separate comments via e-mail. “There is also no indication that this is an issue in the Minnesota market overall or nationwide.”

Islam teaches that pigs are unclean and eating pork is a sin, and some Muslims feel selling or handling pork is also forbidden because it would make them complicit in the sins of others.

Collision of work and faith
As the local Muslim population grows, fueled by immigration from East African countries such as Somalia, efforts by Muslims to live by the rules of their faith often come into conflict with the realities of the American workplace.

Disputes over how employers should accommodate prayer times surface from time to time, and there’s an ongoing dispute involving cab drivers who serve Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport—many of whom are Muslim—who refuse to take passengers who are carrying alcohol.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission is expected to vote in April on a proposal that would hand out 30-day license suspensions to cabbies who refuse service for any reason, with a second refusal leading to a two-year revocation.

Suhara Robla, who works at the SuperTarget in St. Louis Park, told the Star Tribune that more than a dozen Muslim cashiers were asked Thursday to do other jobs.

“They told all of us who don’t touch pork to go to the sales floor,” she told the newspaper. “They really didn’t say why. They just said it was a new policy.”

Worker walks over issue
Muse Dahir told the AP this past week he quit his job at the Sam’s Club in Bloomington after he was transferred from another position to cashiering and was ordered to ring up pork purchases.

Several times on his first day as a cashier, Dahir said, said customers brought pork products to his register. He asked them to take their goods to another register, and a customer complained to management.

“They told me, you have to check this,” Dahir said. “I told them, I can’t do this. You want me to do something that’s against my religion.”

Dahir said a manager told him that was part of the job, so “I just put down my uniform and I left.”

He said it doesn’t matter if the pork product is packaged. “Even if you just sell it to someone, you break a promise to Allah,” he said.

Jama Omar, a clerk at Otanga Grocery in Minneapolis, told the AP his store caters mostly to East African immigrants and doesn’t carry pork products, so it’s not an issue for him personally. But Omar also said Muslims shouldn’t expect special treatment.

“If it causes a big problem for your employer, they have to make the decision that’s best for them,” Omar said. “It’s not something to go on strike or file a civil suit. Go somewhere else that will accept your beliefs. There’s millions of jobs.”

Omar seems like a smart guy. When you hire on at a job you know what is expected and I wonder why Target has no backbone!!

Good job Sam's club for forcing the issue, and as far as the cabbies go, let them find other work as well.

Why do we in the United States change our way of business for these people?

If they don't like the rules, get another job or get your asses out of this country!!!!

My religon says I should not work, just party, so I need to receive a paycheck for that. I wonder who's hiring?






Men Arrested After Fleeing Waffle House

RICHMOND, Ky. - A bizarre incident at a Waffle House led to four Lexington men being cited by police following a high-speed chase. Devin Chenault, 21, Shawn Caldwell, 18, Robert Greer, 19, and Marcus Graves, 18, were sitting at the counter in the restaurant early Friday morning when a fight between two girls broke out.

A restaurant employee flagged down nearby police officers to help break up the fight, and when the officers entered the restaurant the four men took off without paying their nearly $100 tab.

OK OK I've eaten at a Waffle House and I cannot understand how they could run up a $100 tab. The most expensive thing on the menu is 10 bucks.

But then again, if they ate at the one I did maybe their food was as bad as mine so they kept trying things waiting for the perfect waffle.





More stealing:

Catfish Assault Reported at Diner

BULLS GAP, Tenn. - The folks at Di's Diner were assaulted with a catfish dinner of their own making.

Employee Tina Henry and owner Dwight Jenkins told authorities a "blond, heavy-frame female" tried to slip out of their Bulls Gap eatery, about 60 miles northeast of Knoxville, with a pilfered catfish meal Friday night.

"Tina states that as the suspect was paying, they told her she would have to pay for the dinner in her purse.

"She then became mad, throwing money at the cash register. The suspect then walked outside, and Tina and Dwight followed," the report said.

"The suspect then threw the fish out of her purse at Tina, hitting her in the back." Henry wasn't hurt, but the $7.99 catfish dinner was ruined.

Good job Tina, way to call her out!!

I know a woman that fills her purse at the buffet and takes it home under the pretext that since she paid she should be able to take what she wants!!

Then again she is on disability and more healthy than most, so it is no surprise that she thinks it OK!!





Speaking of food, do you think this guy really ordered liver?

Body parts meant for lab sent to Michigan home — and there may be more

CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Two packages containing human body parts — including a liver and part of a head — meant for a medical research lab instead were delivered to a home.

The body parts, sent from China, were mistakenly dropped off Thursday at Franck and Ludivine Larmande's home by a DHL express driver who believed the bubble-wrapped items were pieces to a table.

"My husband started to unwrap one and said, 'This is strange, it looks like a liver,'" Ludivine Larmande said. "He started the second one but stopped as soon as we saw the ear.

"Something wasn't right. It was scary, and I'm glad I didn't open them."

The couple called Kent County sheriff's deputies, who determined the preserved body parts were for medical research, Lt. Roger Parent said.

Authorities believe 28 more bubble-wrapped human organs and body parts could be dispersed across the country, The Grand Rapids Press reported. Two of five packages headed to the northern Michigan lab broke open, scattering their contents.

"There will definitely be a shock to people if they see these things, but there is no hazard to health," Parent said.

DHL is investigating whether it should have shipped the body parts and how the packages were distributed, spokesman Robert Mints said.

It doesn't surprise me, I used DHL once and never again. They are the worst!!

Good thing Mike Tyson wasn't there. He would have thought the ear was gourmet!!

"But there is no hazard to health," Parent said. Ha, there would be at my house if I opened that. It would be a heart attack that was a hazard to my health!!!



And there you go for today. Be back tomorrow for more of my rants!!!!!!!