22 Nov 2008

Canadian Court Rules That Obese Have "Right" to Two Airline Tickets

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Nope, it’s not from The Onion. And no, it doesn’t mean that obese people have the right to buy two adjacent seats if they want:

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are “functionally disabled by obesity” deserve to have two seats for one fare.

It’s still wrong, but I can at least understand the motivation to force “public” buildings to be wheelchair-accessible, etc. But this is just crazy. Should obese people be able to go to a steakhouse and get two entrees for the price of one? Why not?

If you go to the story, you’ll see they have a photo of an obese woman. That kinda bummed me out. Do you think they told the woman, “Hi, we need a photo of an overweight person, mind if we snap yours?”

This reminds me of a Saved By the Bell episode. (My younger brother would watch them when we were latchkey kids. I quite possibly have seen each episode three times.) I forget why, but Zach had to take some homely girl to the dance. But the thing was, the whole “joke” was how ugly this girl was. And this was some 15-year-old actress! What the heck, does her agent go looking for scripts calling for girls who can (perhaps with help from makeup) be made to look so ugly that it can motivate the plot?

And as far as I remember, this wasn’t a typical she-starts-out-ugly-but-you-change-her-hair-and-give-her-contacts-and-then-realize-she’s-hot thing. I was mad at that girl’s parents for letting her do the episode.

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