For some reason I'm tumbling back into an old obsession today

If you wanna try, If you wanna try

there's no worse you could do (oh oh oh)

I know you lie (I know you lie)

I'm still in love with you (oh oh oh)

"I didn't tell you to put the balm on"

As someone who has definitely sniffed a bit about the famous hot coffee case (and snorted at the Seinfeld parody) I found this bit of background, via Rainbow Rowell, eye-opening and appropriately guilt-inducing.

A few things you need to know about this hot coffee case:

1. It wasn’t an issue of the coffee being because no fucking shit coffee is hot, but McDonald’s had over heated their water to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 121C. Not just hot, but really FUCKING hot. Your fancy Starbucks lattes are brewed to 150 degrees.
2. The 79 year old woman had this cup of 250F (121C) coffee between her legs when it spilled so 250F (121C) coffee spilled on her genitals
3. She got third degree burns…on her genitals. THIRD DEGREE.
4. She had to have skin grafts to repair the damage
5. When she sued McDonald’s, it wasn’t for millions of dollars, it was for $20,000 to cover hospital costs and court fees. 20-fucking-thousand.
6. It was the courts that awarded her the amount of money she got. Again, she only wanted hospital bills and court costs
7. McDonald’s changed their heating policy, but not beforemaking her sign a gag order keeping her from talking about this case
8. So she had to live on hearing little shits like you call her stupid and money-grubbing, and other horrendous stuff because she dared ask the company in the wrong to fix what they fucked up.

MORE FUN FACTS:

9. The woman who was burned was not driving the car, she was a passenger.

10. The car was not in motion when she was burned. The car was parked so she could add cream and sugar.

The coffee case is one of the biggest examples of a carefully-crafted smear campaign by a company that is in the wrong trying to hide that.

Additionally, several people had been badly burned by McDonald’s coffee prior to that case, both employees and customers, and McDonald’s had been fined and told to lower the heat of their coffee. They refused to lower the coffee’s heat, continuing to serve a product they KNEW from EXPERIENCE was dangerous, because they could.

When she was burned, she reached out to McDonald’s for them to cover her medical expenses. They sent her a coupon booklet as a big eff yuu.

She required skin grafts not just on her genitals but on her thighs, buttocks, and I think stomach. Like, it was a lot of skin grafts! And did you know that skin grafts don’t always take? She was very severely hurt by a product that McDonald’s knew for a FACT was dangerous.

But nah, go on talking about how she was just foolish and greedy, that’s obviously the case, big corporations have all of our best interest in heart, really they do.

Her name was Stella Liebeck. She has since passed away but I think it’s important to name the victim in this story. Her name was Stella Liebeck and the coffee was so hot that it fused her labia together. It melted her genitals closed. But it’s all just a giant joke, huh?

By the way?

Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused. 

At that point, she had medical bills of over $11,000. She was anticipating more. She didn’t have much money.She just wanted McDonald’s to pay for the damage their coffee had done so that she could get medical treatment. Seems reasonable, right?

McDonald’s countered with an offer of $800, then turned down repeated requests to settle.  

And there weren’t several people who were burned before Liebeck. It was a LOT worse than that.

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck[’]s. This history documented McDonalds’ knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. 

So McDonald’s knew that their coffee was burning people–in some cases, causing third-degree burns. They knew it for TEN YEARS. And they did nothing about it.

Oh, and the jury award?

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds’ coffee sales. 

:::

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 – or three times compensatory damages – even though the judge called McDonalds’ conduct reckless, callous and willful. 

So all of the jokes about how rich Liebeck got off the settlement? Nope. McDonald’s ended up not even having to pay most of it.

Nancy Tiano says her mother was “never happy about the incident” and that “the burns and court proceedings took their toll.” During her final years, Tiano says, her mother had no quality of life. The good news is that the settlement helped to ease the end of her life by paying for a live-in nurse. 

That’s where the money went. For medical care. 

Don’t forget that the REASON that they serve their coffee at DANGEROUSLY high temperatures (Injuring literally thousands of customers) is because coffee brewed and kept at those DANGEROUSLY HIGH temperatures tastes fresher longer, so less undrunk coffee has to be thrown out throughout the day, so McDonalds can MAKE MORE PROFIT on their damn coffee sales. 

Everything you need to know about this article

Is in the title:

The Married Woman Who Kept Her Lover in the Attic

"But you wanted tea last night..."

This British video equating tea and sexual consent is... really quite good.

"You're playing a very dangerous game of chicken with the head fucking hen, 'cause if I don't win the White House, O'Brien is gonna sink your stupid boats and you're gonna look like a hair-sprayed asshole in your 1980s mother-of-the-bride dress. And if I do win, I will have my administration come to your shitty little district and shake it to death like a Guatemalan nanny. And then I'm gonna have the IRS crawl so far up your husband's colon, he's gonna wish the only thing they find is more cancer."

"Good God."

"So can I count on your vote? Or do I need to shove a box of White House M&Ms up your stretched-out six-baby vag?"

Why aren't you watching, Veep, exactly?

Lately I've been...

Reading: Bellweather Rhapsody, which I am absolutely loving. Also The Whites, which I know is supposed to be THE GREATEST crime novel for years but which I am seriously struggling to get into. Prolly 'cos I'm stupid.

Listening to: The Hamilton soundtrack. Yes, still, and I know that's sad. For some reason I just haven't been listening to much music lately and I'm not sure why.

Watching:  Silicon Valley (funny and charming), Veep (ditto) and... okay I wasn't going to admit this but I started watching some Netflix trash called Good Witch on the weekend while I was cooking and I... can't stop. It's not even slightly good. I can't recommend it to ANYONE. And the lead actress has had so much plastic surgery her face is simultaneously mesmerising and terrifying. And yet...

Spending my money: Almost exclusively on going out for breakfasts and dinners. In all other areas of my life I am pinching pennies and cutting back but life without a Sayers muffin or a burger from Flipside is no life at all.

Spending my time: Reading (I'm on a real jag of good books at the moment, long may it continue), getting fat (well...), running (not that fat) and trying to write a new terrible novel in the month of June (so far so good in that it is indeed terrible).

Looking forward to: A two week holiday at home with absolutely nothing planned. Also: moving house... at some point in the near future, I'm assured.

"20 minutes of action" or as some people like to call it "rape"

If you're wondering why my blood is boiling over this particular rape case when, you know, there are lots of horrible rape cases that happen all the time, the answer is basically: this.

Also, am I a gross perv for thinking that one of the guys who came to the victim's aid that night is, um, kinda hot? I'm sorry, I'll show myself out.

The FB post below comes via Rainbow Rowell and, yeah: word.

How old are you? How much do you weigh? What did you eat that day? Well what did you have for dinner? Who made dinner? Did you drink with dinner? No, not even water? When did you drink? How much did you drink? What container did you drink out of?

I am not a weeper and I'm particularly not a weeper at work but JESUS this victim's statement from the girl who was raped behind a dumpster by a 19-year-old she'd never met had me speedwalking to the bathroom. If that sounds like super grim stuff you don't want to hear I'd urge you to read the whole thing here anyway:

Your Honor, if it is all right, for the majority of this statement I would like to address the defendant directly. You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today. On January 17th, 2015, it was a quiet Saturday night at home. My dad made some dinner and I sat at the table with my younger sister who was visiting for the weekend. I was working full time and it was approaching my bed time. I planned to stay at home by myself, watch some TV and read, while she went to a party with her friends. Then, I decided it was my only night with her, I had nothing better to do, so why not, there’s a dumb party ten minutes from my house, I would go, dance like a fool, and embarrass my younger sister. On the way there, I joked that undergrad guys would have braces. My sister teased me for wearing a beige cardigan to a frat party like a librarian. I called myself “big mama”, because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college.