David McElroy

A New Jersey woman was offended at something a CVS Pharmacy employee did on her recent visit to the store, but she’s agreed to quit being offended if CVS will hand over a million dollars.

Hyun Lee placed an order with the pharmacy by phone. When she came to pick it up, the receipt was in the name of “Ching Chong Lee.” (The term “Ching Chong” has long been used as an insult for Asians, although mostly for ethnic Chinese.) Lee complained to CVS management, who told her that the employee responsible would be “counseled and trained.”

But that’s not good enough for Lee, who is of Korean descent. She wants a million dollars to go away.

Let’s be clear. The employee’s action was racist and completely unacceptable. If I were store management, I’d fire whoever did it. Period. No questions asked. It’d make it clear that it’s not the way I want my employees to treat customers. There’s no excuse for what the employee did.

But with that said, why should it be illegal? Why should Lee be entitled to financial damages? Why should lousy customer service be against the law? When did we get the legal right not to be offended?

Keep Reading

There are a lot of people who want you to be scared and obsessed with public safety right now. I’d like to suggest that it’s in your best interest — and the best interest of everyone around you — to turn your television off and quit obsessively following the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

If you live in Boston or if you have family there or if you somehow have such a personal tie, I understand that you want to keep up with it more than the rest of us. That’s understandable. It’s a local story for you, and it affects you in a personal way. But for the rest of us — the vast majority — it’s worse than a waste of time. It’s creating exactly what terrorists want. (I’m calling the perpetrator of the bombing a terrorist on the assumption that creating terror was his intent. I’m not implying anything about who it might have been or what the person’s cause might be. Because I don’t know.)

Terrorists want you to be scared. Pure and simple. They want you to be looking over your shoulder and wondering when something bad might happen again. They want you to wonder whether it might be in your city next time. They want you to eventually feel that you’re willing to do anything to convince them to leave you alone.

Keep Reading

An explosion went off in Boston Monday. Three people were killed. Close to 200 more were hurt or maimed. That’s about the extent of what we can factually say about what happened toward the end of the Boston Marathon.

As soon as the news of the explosion came out Monday, people across the country started wildly speculating and making ugly accusations. On Facebook, I unfriended and blocked several people because of such nastiness. One faction claimed the entire thing was a “false flag” operation by the U.S. government. (Multiple Facebook groups were set up to make the claim, including this one.) Many people pointed to Middle Eastern terrorists. Still others, including an analyst on CNN, warned of “right wing extremists.”

It seemed that everyone had a political point to make — an accusation to hurl based on the political positions they already held. They were all looking at a virtual ink blot, but each one saw something based on the lens through which he was looking, not based on what was really there.

Back in 1996, there was a bombing in Atlanta during the summer Olympics. A security guard named Richard Jewell was treated as a suspect. He was first called a hero, but police came to suspect him. Media hounded him like hungry wolves. Jewell’s life was destroyed. Eventually, he was cleared. He had had nothing to do with the attacks, but police and media couldn’t take back the ugly and baseless accusations. They couldn’t give Jewell his life back.

Keep Reading