surely Urban Outfitters can come up with a t-shirt for this

[sisyphusshrugged]

from Lean Left

Some staff at the London office of the US/British law firm Dewey Ballantine complained about an e-mail a firm partner had sent to all employees, offering puppies for adoption and urging “[d]on't let them go to a Chinese restaurant.”

Charmingly, it was the second such incident in a matter of months:

The firm had already put its lawyers through sensitivity training in the wake of a skit performed at a dinner last year when lawyers mocked stereotypical Asian accents to the tune of "Hello, Dolly," singing that they were "so solly" that the firm was closing its Hong Kong office. . . .

The firm will hold a special round of sensitivity training in its London office, in addition to its twice-yearly firmwide training, Mr. Pierce said.

So, the firm already holds sensitivity trainings twice a year, and some staff stage a racist skit at a company party (in the apparent belief that this would be well received). In response, the company performs a special sensitivity training, after which a partner sends out a global e-mail with a racist joke about eating dogs. The company plans to counter this by scheduling another training...

Fortunately, reporters were able to get input from someone who is apparently a sensitivity expert

There is no defense in these situations," said Roger Cramton, a law professor at Cornell. . . . "This is such a politically correct world."

So. Maybe you've noticed, if you ever glance at Google News or Yahoo or the AP feed running up the side of Salon, a story about dead cocklers. To be honest, I've been going right past it for a few days, because I'm cynical enough to figure that the reason it was getting so much play was that some midlevel editorial monkey thought people would read a story with cockler in the headline. Nonetheless, I saw the word cocklepicker in a link, and it was so dickensy I just had to click on it.

It turns out that there was a little more to it than I thought.

British police investigating the deaths of 19 mainly Chinese migrants who drowned on a beach gathering shellfish have arrested five people on suspicion of unlawful killing.

They are being quizzed about their part in organizing the cockle harvesting expedition by low-wage workers who were caught by fast-rising tides in Morecambe Bay, northwest England.

"Five people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, three are men and two are women," a Lancashire police spokesman told CNN.

"They are being questioned about any involvement they may have had in organizing the cockle trip that lead to the tragedy."

Police said that their investigation -- manslaughter is defined as unlawful killing without malice or through negligence, one below a murder charge -- could become a global inquiry.

Detectives seized computers, cell phones and other documents in house raids in the Merseyside area of northwest England on Saturday.

Lancashire police's Deputy Chief Constable Steve Finnigan said the inquiry would be "truly massive."

Ministers said they suspected gangs of "snakeheads" -- Chinese people-traffickers -- were responsible for providing the group at Morecambe Bay.

The deaths have focused attention on gang labor, where so-called gangmasters farm out migrant laborers, often illegally, to do poorly paid jobs in agriculture and unskilled industrial work like construction.

It's not, apparently, an isolated problem

When a Chinese illegal immigrant had an arm sawn off in a factory accident, his boss took him to hospital, registered him under a false name and dumped him.

Without a job or money, the man sought compensation but his employer ignored his pleas, treating him like a stranger.

Mr Jabez Lam, of the British-based civil rights organisation Min Quan, told The Straits Times that exploitation of Chinese migrant workers is increasing. 'At least one a day,' he said, when asked how many cases he saw.

Police say so-called gangmasters - unofficial labour recruiters offering desperate migrants low wages - are behind last week's drowning of 19, mainly Chinese, workers gathering shellfish in the north-west of England. These hapless workers, said to have been earning £1 (S$3.10) for nine hours' work, have been dubbed 'cockle slaves' by the British media.

Of course, cocklepicking seems to be dangerous work

Morecambe Bay is notoriously dangerous, with fast rising tides and quicksands.

Stewart Rushton and his nine-year-old son, Adam, died in the flats two years ago after becoming disorientated in fog and trapped by the rapidly-incoming tide.

Two RAF helicopters and lifeboats were scrambled last night after a 999 call from a mobile phone.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman described the race to rescue the shellfish pickers from the tide.

She said: “They were out collecting cockles and appear to have become trapped, possibly by mud, and are being threatened by what is being described to me as being a fairly strong incoming tide so they are at serious risk of drowning.”

The locals, at least, seem to realize that.

Margaret Owen is an auxiliary coastguard who was involved in the rescue and also collects cockles.

She said 40 cockle pickers arrived early in the morning a week ago and drove to the beach in a van.

Ms Owen told BBC Radio 4: "No one could believe it. They came off and there was a lot of trouble, a huge fight and the police were down.

"We've seen them come and go and everyone has just waited for this disaster.

"The sands are deadly - it's bad enough for people who know what they're doing."

So, let's see. You see vans roll up and drop off crowds of people to wade into dangerous waters and gather these cockles. You being an auxiliary coastguard whose charge is to protect the public safety on the waters. It does sound as if it wasn't precisely a secret that there was something seriously wrong going on.

The townspeople, though, responded in that concerned and proactive way that is the hallmark of the Silent Majority when roused.

"You can see up to 500 tourists on this beach at Easter weekend, but with so many people working here it's just a mess," he said.

"It's littered with cockle bags, coke cans, just general rubbish."

And these scenes are definitely not good for business.

Gareth Lymer, manager of the Hest Bank pub, said his customers do not want the cocklers in the area.

He said: "They're not generally our clientele. We did have a few in last week but had to ask them to leave.

"People feel they take away from the local fishing trade."

Tony Singleton, who lives in the area, says the main problem is the trade is not properly regulated.

"I would say they should close the beds down," he said.

"They (the cockle pickers) just don't give anything back to the community."

Apparently, though, at least according to the BBC, the number of daily "tourists" up to their asses in the freezing water and tidal muds seems to be closer to 300, and many of those "are thought to be chinese."

Well, at least the locals didn't imply their approval by serving the scurvy funseekers.

There are, of course, (at least) two ways of looking at this: either Hest Bank is a refreshing lacuna in the swelling global tide of political correctness, or Roger Cramton is just slightly overestimating the power than not being a gleefully ignorant racist has over the world's imagination.

Your call.

What nineteen people died for

Comments

[twistingflame.livejournal.com]

Well, I can always count on you to inform me about theimportant things. *g* There go my dreams of being a cockle picker. Damn.

In all seriousness though, that's just odd, and kind of freaky. And so not worth dying for.

(Yay! Urban Outfitters is like porn for t-shirts!)