From all four corners of the US

Calories lawsuit Ever since US teenager sued McDonald's because of their obesity a few months ago, the entire fast food sector is shaking. Now they can calm down again for now - a US federal judge has dismissed a case like this on January 21, 2003. According to Judge Robert Sweet, the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence that customers had not known the potential health risks of the food served at McDonald's. The lawsuit had been filed in the name of obese children who had been eating in two of the fast food restaurants in the Bronx in New York on a regular basis and were suffering form diabetes, heart conditions and high blood pressure. Among the plaintiffs is a 14-year old girl of 1.47 meters (4ft 8), weighing 77 kilos. Judge Sweet said that customers who knew the possible health risks could not accuse McDonald's if they were still eating there and enjoying it at a regular basis. However, the lawyers could file the lawsuit again if they found other, widely unknown health risks of McDonald's Big Macs or fries.

The judge showed concern that if the lawsuit was successful, the consequence might be thousands of similar lawsuits against restaurants. More than 110 billion Dollars were spent on fast food in the US every year, Sweet explained. According to a study, every day, one out of four adults visited a fast food restaurant. The company called the judge's decision a victory of common sense. One of the lawyers of the plaintiffs announced to re-file the lawsuit within 30 days.

Student job game tester Playing computer games until you're bleeding from the eyes - apparently a dream job for some US students. Often, the payment doesn't even matter to the testers, they are just so enthused - after a long day in the test lab they meet up for gaming sessions. Others are hoping to get a foot in the door in the sector. Between eight and ten hours a day the students are testing the new developments for errors and check the functions. Some even drop out of college completely for this. Because frequently the job as a tester is the stepping stone in the direction of big companies such as Electronic Arts, Universal Interactive, Sega, Konami or Microsoft for the future graphic designers, computer scientists, musicians or dramatic advisors. With titles such as "Final Fantasy," "Quake" or "Everquest," the US games sector has become quite glamorous and by now even generates a bigger turnover than the movie industry in the US. Some students are so entranced by the gaming wave that they are offering their services for free. Often they are rewarded with free hardware or software.

From their dorm room on campus they are testing web-enabled Xbox games up to two and a half hours a day, among them the multiplayer game "MotoGP" in which up to 16 different players from all over the country can participate. However, it is still a long way to the desired job as a game developer, with many more jobs as interns and testers. Many companies are being overrun with game fanatics who want to make a living of their hobby - among them the most bizarre applicants: priests, scientists, senior citizens and elementary school students. Some gamers already have worked their way up from the test department. Even someone as important in the sector as Ed Fries, vice president for games publishing at Microsoft, has made his first steps as an intern in Redmond and proved his first programmer's skills at the times of classic games such as "Frogger" or "Space War."

Many also stay in the test labs. While their colleagues stayed at college and later found jobs with the companies of the renowned Star Wars creator George Lucas or with the Xbox team, others kept working as testers for companies such as Sega, Konami, 3DO, Namco, Crystal Dynamics or Digital Pictures for years. And life isn't so much fun for the testers right before big releases. Working hours of 10, 12, even 16 hours a day are quite normal. Sega is said to have rented hotel rooms to have the testers available 24/7 right before an important game is being released. The unpleasant side-effects of this excessive gaming are bloodshot eyes, blisters, tendonitis - and nightmares. However, it doesn't stop at the excessive amount of stress. The testers also have to cope with a lot of humiliation. And despite the test stress they keep playing in their time off.

Germany's best employer is from Seattle In the context of an EU competition, Germany's best employers have been elected for the first time. The best of them is a branch of a big US corporation. Germany's best employer of 2003 is no other than US software company Microsoft. In the category of medium-sized companies, the winner was IT consulting firm Skytech from Munich, reports economy magazine "Capital," media partner of the competition that had been held for the first time ever. This study is part of the European competition "Best Employer of the EU 2003" initiated by the EU Commission.

The study, based on surveys among employees, shows that Germany's employees are, for the most part, quite content with their employers. Approximately 75 percent of the respondents described their management and executives as competent. Only half of them said, however, that the management would include employees in their decisions. Approx. 60 percent said that the management was clearly stating its expectations. 70 percent of employees thought they were being paid appropriately, most satisfied with their wages were the employees of Ford, Schering and Allianz. Every German company with more than 50 employees could participate in the competition. The 118 participants were subdivided into large firms with more than 500 employees and medium-sized companies with less than 500 employees. The evaluation, apart from the survey, also included concepts, measures and programs for the human resources area. The winner Microsoft was also suggested for the all-European special award in the category "lifelong learning." The Ford AG has been nominated for "promoting diversity," Schering and Allianz are competing for the "equal opportunities for both sexes" award.

The idea for the competition is from the US, where the best 100 employers are selected every year in the "Great Place To Work" program since 1998. With this study the EU Commission wants to call attention to outstanding and progressive employers. The goal is to raise the standards for jobs inside Europe.

Binge drinking in the US At US universities, more and more people seem to be majoring in "drunken stupor." According to a Harvard study, every second student ignores his maximum filling level on a regular basis and is a heavy drinker. With life-threatening consequences - that might end in a hospital bed. There are weird drinking cultures at universities throughout the world. The young academics at the British elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge regularly drink each other under the table, and also the welcome rituals for new students at French universities don't seem to work without massive amounts of alcohol.

However, at the American universities, things are even worse - 44 percent (!) of the 12 million young academics in the US are "excessive drinkers." This was the result of a study conducted by Harvard University for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. According to this study, approximately 1,400 US students die in a drunken stupor each year. 1,100 of them die in traffic accidents, the others fall out of windows, drown, or just don't wake up anymore after drinking all night. Half a million college/university students are hospitalized due to alcohol abuse. Every fourth student sees a connection between his excessive drinking and bad grades at college/university. Shocking numbers - the German paper "Zeit" asked for the reasons of the binge drinking at universities. Experts are stating lax discipline during the upbringing, but also the colleges' apparent disinterest in their students drinking excesses. Part of the problem also seems to be that the legal age for alcohol consumption is 21 I the US. And that the students - who have just come of age - now want to party more than ever.

The heaviest drinkers are the freshmen, boys still more than girls, maybe to compensate the feeling of insecurity in their new environment. Among the heaviest drinkers are the athletes, of all people. More civilized, on the other hand, are the students at religious universities and colleges attended mostly by African-Americans.

Too white for college? In the US, ethnic minorities have been receiving bonuses for the evaluation of their college applications for years. Now, three white students have filed a lawsuit because they were rejected. The Supreme Court has to decide whether race should play in a role for college admission. The US are waiting for one of the most explosive civil rights decisions for decades. Jennifer Gratz had ambitious plans. She wanted to study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and obtain her PhD. But the university rejected her and Gratz had to give up her academic dreams. And this defeat was something she couldn't shake off - even though the rejected application was seven years ago, the 25-year old is now going to court - to the US Supreme Court. Because Gratz feels discriminated. According to her, the place she should have gotten at the renowned university was given to less qualified African-American or Hispanic students who had only been admitted due to the school's "Affirmative Action" program - i.e. due to their ethnicity. Gratz rants that universities who are using this indirect quota regulation are discriminating students because of their skin color.

It's all in the mix, say the universities. The history of "Affirmative Action" dates far back. Already in the 70s numerous private and public universities decided to take ethnicity into consideration apart from only grade point averages and the results of admissions tests. With this program, they wanted to give disadvantaged groups better access to education and establish an ethnic mix at the universities that had been mostly white for decades. In the total population of the US, white people make up for 69 percent, the African-American and Hispanic groups have 12.5 percent each. Meanwhile, the portion of students from ethnic minorities indeed rose from 20 to almost 30 percent over the past ten years - however, especially at the elite universities, the picture is quite different. And at those universities that had canceled the "Affirmative Action" program, the percentage of minorities plummeted.

The US government's behavior confirms the explosiveness of the issue - up to now, the Bush administration has not given a statement concerning the lawsuit. In December, even Trent Lott, then Republican majority leader in the Senate and by now kicked out for racist comments, had spoken out for "Affirmative Action," even if he was probably only trying to save his own skin. After all, the conservatives have always opposed the action. Also George W. Bush, who has proved himself an opponent of Affirmative Action a few times already. The argument is that Affirmative Action was a kind of backwards discrimination of majorities, i.e. whites. And according to civil rights activists like those of the conservative Center for Individual Rights (CIR) in Washington, this is unconstitutional.

In California, a referendum has recently even completely abolished the "Affirmative Action." By the way, the referendum had been initiated by a black entrepreneur who was sick of hearing that stupid black people were at the universities only because of this law. He believed that all people should prove that they deserved a place at university for their achievements and not their skin color.

SUVs under suspicion The "Sports Utility Vehicle" SUV, an American icon of the 90s, is on trial. While the massive gas guzzlers have been a status symbol for the white middle class up to now, the SUV drivers are now being attacked for polluting the environment and supporting
international terrorism. When Arianna Huffington is angry, she becomes aggressive. That's her job. The woman from Los Angeles is a nation-wide known columnist and talk show guest. For months now the sharp-tongued author has been cultivating her resentment of the oversized SUVs. It all started off so innocently, in October, when Huffington published her column about "a commercial that George Bush is going to love." There she polemically ranted against the SUV boom and the Bush administration's inaction against the increasing waste of gas.

Half joking, she suggested an awareness raising campaign, SUV drivers should be branded as indirect supporters of terrorism - according to the Bush administration's example of a TV commercial that accuses drug users of supporting terrorism. Is someone willing to pay for a public campaign, was her question at the end. To her surprise, Huffington received thousands of emails. The people asked her where to send the money. She published the account number of a donations account and the name of the new movement: "The Detroit Project." Friends of hers who happened to be Hollywood producers made two TV commercials. For one week now the commercials have been on TV in different cities throughout the US - and America is debating the right size for their cars. "What would Jesus drive?" The American media is evaluating this as a sign of a newly forming anti-SUV movement. The Wall Street Journal quotes a Chrysler manager who said the growing aversion of young car buyers towards gas guzzler was a real problem.

Due to the continuing sales boom, the car manufacturers can classify their critics as minorities. And yet the great car manufacturers have a lot to lose - their profits are entirely from SUV sales. But at least one of them is not so sure about whether there isn't a change in the wind after all. Chrysler recently aired a commercial that compared the lower gas consumption of a minivan to that of a SUV - up to now an absolute taboo in the sector. And as it always is with protest movements, there already is an anti-anti-SUV movement as well. After the news of the new year's attacks on pickups in Pennsylvania had spread, affected car dealer Bob Ferrando received an abundance of phone calls and emails. "One guy wanted to come from Mississippi to buy an SUV here," he told USA Today. Also Marcie Brown, executive of a Detroit advertising agency, couldn't stand the moralizing attitude of the Detroit Project and sent out 800 emails to everyone she knew. Attached was a photo of herself with her two Hummers. Be careful, Ms Huffington!

The "look at our flight attendants" airline The owner of the US restaurant chain Hooters, well known for its big burgers and scantily-clad waitresses, has just invested a few spare millions and bought himself an airline. Even the usually so number-fixated moderators of US stock market channel CNBC couldn't hold back a dirty grin. The fact that Bob Brooks, major stockholder and head of the supervisory board of Hooters has just bought Pace Airlines gives cause for wild speculations and locker-room jokes. Some frequent flyers are probably hoping that the restaurant chain (slogan: delightfully tacky yet unrefined) for mainly male customers will now expand their business concept to the sky. And that while specific information is still as sparse as the salads on the 310 restaurants' menus. It is only known that the investor is planning to use some of the 17 Pace jets for the new airline "Hooters Air." One of their main destinations is supposed to be Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, a tourist destination not only popular among golf players. Exactly how much Brooks has spent on his new toy remains unknown. It also remains to be seen when exactly Hooters Air is going to take off, and with how many planes.

And one question that really interests the people is still completely open, according to one Hooters manager - the question of whether or not the famous Hooters Girls with their orange shorts, their owl-tops and usually curvaceous bodies will soon be starting careers as flight attendants. That is not a very far-fetched thought. Southwest Airlines, for example, by now one of the biggest low-cost airlines in the US, had initially dressed their flight attendants in hot pants and drawn a lot of attention with this. Hooters Airlines, anyway, will be a charter airline for tourists - and they would probably appreciate the nice view even before arriving at the beach. Furthermore, Pace Airlines already has a mainly male clientele - the airline is, among other things, specialized in transporting football and basketball teams such as the Dallas Mavericks and the Atlanta Hawks to their games. For Bob Brooks, the airline business itself - regardless of the flight attendants - seems to possess a certain sex appeal. He has tried before to acquire an airline for himself and his company. He is said to have spent half a million on having the books checked and preparing the takeover of Vanguard Airlines from Kansas City. And even though the airline had to file a bankruptcy petition last summer, the would-be investor apparently was to airy even for the airline - at least the sale never happened.

Link: http://www.hooters.com

Illegal entry - border control arrests surfing Santa Remember our Christmas newsletter? Here is the end of our story from the real world!

Not with a sleigh, but surfing a Canadian Santa had started on his donation collecting tour. However, New York's border police was less than thrilled when the Christmassy surfer sped across the US border. Surfing Santa John Fulton admitted that he had actually entered the US illegally. According to CNN, the businessman from Ontario, Canada had surfed from cada to the US for the 18th time already. Dressed up as Santa Claus he surfed the Niagara River from Canadian Fort Erie to Buffalo in the US state of New York, where he was stopped by the border police. He had to lose the Santa costume, was searched, and taken to the station in a police car. But 42-year old Fulton stayed calm. He explained that the policemen wanted to make sure to observe the new security regulations. He understood. A lot had changed after September 11, he continued, and for the US this is a great advertising joke, like "we don't even allow Santa to enter illegally." However, the border police were not very sensitive in their treatment of Fulton. "They had really good manners," the 5'9" tall and 191 lbs Fulton said ironically. "They took me to the station, photographed me and took my fingerprints. I felt like an illegal alien. Most of all I would have liked to put on my Santa suit again."

However, Fulton was released quickly and returned to Canada. Before that, he had to sign a statement that he had entered the US illegally. Since he didn't have a passport on him, he showed the officers his homepage to confirm his identity. Fulton said on one of the documents the officer had noted that ‘the subject had entered the US by mistake while doing his job as a surfing Santa.' The Santa Claus traveling on a surf board instead of a sleigh had been on tour to collect donations for "Out of the Cold," a volunteer organization providing help for homeless people in Ontario.

Good news for opponents of the death penalty After we have already reported recently that most death sentences in the US are being checked twice, the outgoing Republican governor of Illinois has made an even clearer statement on his last day in office - he pardoned all prisoners on death row in Illinois and changed their sentences to lifelong imprisonment. Now, the entire death row in the state is completely empty for the first time ever. Governor George Ryan said he had changed his mind about the death penalty - he had been very much in favor of it when he had run for office - because too many rulings are proved to be unjust after the execution.

Good news for opponents of war Not even the population of the US is so in favor of the war in Iraq as it might seem right now. According to a survey of US media group Knight Rider, two thirds of Americans oppose a war without UNO resolution. Only a quarter sees Iraq as a real threat to the US. Has the Bush administration heard of this survey already?