America... Land of the Lawsuits

There seem to be a lot of body parts making it into the foodstuff of our nation's eateries lately. Sometimes it's not even a hoax. But why is the immediate reaction to sue? "Ooooh, I found a tiny tip of a finger in my Monte Cristo, let's see if I can get $100,000 out of it." I mean, yes, it's gross. But come on. Have these people really suffered this much? I personally have a bit more sympathy for the person whose finger got lopped off!!

The latest entry in this parade of foolishness is some guy in North Carolina. The first line in this article says, "A man who ordered a pint of frozen chocolate custard in a dessert shop got a nasty surprise inside..." It should finish with, "and is now looking to turn it into a financial windfall for himself." It mentions in the article, to no one's surprise, that the traumatized man ("I just started screaming," he cries) is planning on contacting a lawyer. I'm sure a dozen of them are camped out in his front yard by now; he won't have to go far.

Why have we become such a litigious society? It really only serves to stifle innovation and progress. So many new things never go to market -- or go at a snail's pace -- because of the fear of lawsuits should something go wrong. And the courts don't seem to help. Everyone knows about the woman who sued McDonalds because she dropped a scalding cup of coffee in her stupid lap. And won. But quite a few years ago, a couple of men tried using a fucking lawnmower to trim their row of hedges and, naturally, fingers got removed (they each held a side of the mower up under the deck and tried to pass the thing over the bushes). Well, not only did a victorious lawsuit actually result from that (the manufacturer was clearly negligent in not putting stickers on the mower warning people to not stick their hands under the deck while the blade was spinning), but now, all mowers have those clever "kill switch" bars attached that have to be engaged for starting and running the engine.

So I guess my point is, yeah, finding a tip of a finger in your food or whatever is supremely gross, and deserves an apology and perhaps even a nominal bit of compensation. But the restaurant will clearly pay the price because their sales will plummet like a plane with no wings. Witness the recent Wendy's saga, in which the chain as a whole lost millions of dollars in sales over this "finger in the chili" hoax. Even if it had been true, why would the woman who found the offending digit be entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's just greedy and opportunistic and it's a shameful part of our culture.

In other news, I'm really starting the get the itch to upgrade to a large (probably 50" or so) widescreen high-defintion TV. I don't think I'll do this anytime in the immediate future, but potentially before the year is out. I really like the DLP sets quite a lot. They're not as sexy as plasmas, but they're reasonably priced (relatively speaking) and getting cheaper every month, and they have terrific image quality. We'll see... six months from now, it will likely be an entirely different playing field.