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Ben Baldanza, Blogs, Jake Leg of the Week Award, Jerry Meekins, Spirit Airlines, Static in the Airwaves, Tanning Mom, Tim L O'Brien
Welcome and thank you for stopping by this week’s award ceremony where we all gather in bated breath for the unveiling of the Jake Leg of the Week, as we hand out another “Mooning Troll” trophy.
And what a week it was! While news from the sports and celebrity world was rather tame this past week, rest easy, we had no trouble finding candidates. In fact, after tallying all the votes, I may demand a recount. I’m searching my Rolodex for Al Gore’s attorney. While our winner is a true champion in the Jake Leg fashion, I really wanted to give the award to our other candidate, but being a bizarre nut job does not earn enough votes to move past a true lame brain.
So without further adieu, cue the curtains and lets take a look at our two well deserving candidates this week.
Ben Baldanza, Spirit Airlines CEO
I’m never amazed anymore with the stupidity of some people, or their ability to keep their high paying job. Television meteorologists are a perfect example. The weather predictors are over paid and never right. I vote to abolish the seven-day forecast. The next day forecast is never accurate, so what’s the point in predicting seven days incorrectly?
But I digress. The point in this rant is how in the world does Mr. Baldanza keep his job? If the Facebook protests have any effect, he may be standing in the unemployment lines soon.
Its been a rough week for the airline boss. Hey, if you’re going to play the fool, you might as well go all out and buy the best new, shiny dunce cap, drop your drawers and show what a real a** you are.
Baldanza first made headlines when he defended his airlines stance to refuse a refund to Jerry Meekins, a 76-year-old, former marine and Vietnam Veteran.
Meekins had purchased a $197 flight ticket to go visit his daughter who was having surgery. However, Meekins doctor advised against him flying due to his medical condition. Meekins has terminal esophageal cancer. He sought a cash refund for the ticket but was refused because he hadn’t bought flight insurance. He then asked to have the ticket transferred to his daughter so she could come visit him. This too was denied.
“It’s fair and reasonable for us to hold our customers to be accountable to the choices and decisions and promises they essentially make when they buy a ticket,” Baldanza stated in a Fox New interview. “He actively chose not to purchase the $14 insurance, but then after his situation changed, he wants the benefit of that. There just wasn’t a way we could do that without essentially cheating all the other customers at the airline.”
Huh? Really?
During the television interview, Baldanza was asked about his airlines industry-leading rate of customer complaints. Spirit Airlines has racked up almost double the amount of complaints to the nearest competitor. Baldanza’s reply? “That’s an irrelevant statistic.”
If you’re building a firestorm in public relations you might as well pour more gasoline on the fire. Spirit Airlines then announced that fliers who pay for a carry-on bag at the boarding gate will now be charged $100. I’m not making this up! Throwing that carry-on bag in the overhead bin will now cost you one hundred bucks!
I sense Marketing and Public Relations 101 teachers across the nation shaking their heads in disgust.
Our next candidate comes from the strange but true category, and when I say strange, I mean the truly bizarre section of the nut house.
Patricia Krentcil aka The Tanning Mom
You probably saw the Tanning Mom all over the news this week. The over-baked mom has been charged by police with child endangerment for allegedly bringing her six year-old daughter inside a tanning both. The allegation, if true, is a pretty sick and cruel thing for a parent to do to a child, but that is not the most disgusting thing to be revealed in this story. What this woman has done to herself is shocking and very disturbing.
When I first saw Krentcil on the nightly news my first thought was she looked like one of Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompa’s.
Several networks brought out experts who claimed she may be tanorexic. Sounds like another made up illness for someone whose only sufferable disease comes from a lack of intelligence.
Years from now when she arrives at the doctor’s office to treat her skin cancer, her insurance company will refuse payment on the claim, stating that ignorance is not a treatable disease.
Now that you have had a chance to learn a little about our two candidates it’s time to raise our glasses in a toast to this week’s biggest dumb a**
And the winner is….Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza!! Hooray for you bud. You are a Jake Leg in the truest sense.
All weekly winners are automatically eligible for the Jake Leg of the Year Award announced in late December.
A few disclaimers about this award: First, this in not a forum for the writer to vent or push his own political viewpoints on the readers. Everyone and anyone is fair game in this contest. I would prefer to choose a winner from the sporting world where prima dona’s are a premium, or the celebrity world, where entitlement seems to be part of the DNA makeup. Actors and sports stars are more fun to poke fun at, and there will always be an abundant supply of stupidity. Politicians are not exempt from this award, however, it must be noted that by allowing them to participate, they could potentially dominate the award, thus making it unfair to others. And as our president continues to insist to us: it must be fair for everyone!
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Tim L O'Brien's Blog - Static In The Airwaves 