It seems the quest to squeeze consumers of every last dollar by airlines doesn’t exclude military personnel returning from the fight in Afghanistan.

American soldiers who risk life and limb so Delta can continue to rake in profits were displeased with a policy that had them shelling out nearly $3,000 in fees to check baggage. The frustrated servicemen took to YouTube to vent about the situation, and the tale of poor treatment unsurprisingly went viral almost immediately.

Delta seemed to be fine enforcing the policy until the practice pissed off everyone on YouTube and other social media sites. As soon as their actions were highlighted, the company quickly tried to mitigate the damage via a press release- but didn’t state any policy amendment other than what the soldiers originally believed to be true:

After careful consideration, effective immediately, U.S. military personnel traveling on orders in First and Business Class can check up to five bags at no charge and 4 bags in economy class. This change also adds dependents traveling with active military on orders. Each bag may weigh up to 70 lbs. (32 kg) and measure up to 80 linear inches (203 cm), which offers added flexibility over the standard 50 lbs. and 62 linear inches (157 cm) allotment. Because of weight, balance and space constraints, Delta Connection carriers will accept up to four bags at no charge. You can read the updates to the travel policy on delta.com.

Delta continues that they “hope these changes to our policies reflect the true respect we hold for our service men and women and again demonstrate our appreciation as both a company and as individuals who benefit from the freedom our troops defend.” Do you think our troops deserve more of a concession from commercial airlines when flying back from duty?

Delta Charges Soldiers $2800 For Checked Bags, Hastily Cobbles PR Release When Caught is a post from: The Inquisitr

Making use of unrelated trending topics on Twitter to promote your business or personal tweets is behavior anyone with any Twitter courtesy knows to be spammy.

Using Twitter to shamelessly self-promote? That’s not really too looked down upon, depending on the proportion of plugging to other content. Using a catastrophic event where people have died, and hashtags are even being used to coordinate locals involved in unrest or in the midst of a disaster? That’s a bit more… gross.

Kenneth Cole, both a designer and a brand, is probably looking for a new social media coordinator after the above tweet appeared in their timeline a few hours back. (Habitat UK, a home furnishings brand, fell into the same trap in the summer of 2009.)

The tweet reads:

Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC

If you’re not a Twitter user, what makes the practice so offensive is that it’s not just a tone deaf crack about current events, nor an insensitive joke about world politics. It’s an attempt to piggyback off the popularity of an event in which people have died and gotten injured, Anderson Goddamn Cooper has gotten hit in the face and shit has essentially gotten very real, merely because it is one of the hashtags or terms displayed on everyone’s main page.

The part where everyone is mad at Kenneth Cole, or Kenneth Cole’s social media person, is pretty much over- Twitter has moved on to satirizing the poor taste of the Kenneth Cole Cairo tweet with the account- of course- @KennethColePR.

Kenneth Cole’s social media person gives inadvertent lesson on how to suck at Twitter is a post from: The Inquisitr

Picking a clever women’s magazine is kind of like selecting the classiest member of the cast of Jersey Shore.

Still, Marie Claire kind of hovered a bit above rags like Cosmo with some pieces on women’s issues around the world and a less trashy style focus. Like many former glossy readers (I consumed most of them voraciously in my college days at FIT) I can’t recall the last time I’ve flipped through the pages of one, but I seem to recall Marie Claire being slightly less focused on blowjobs, stilettos and lipgloss. In a time when magazines are desperately clinging to readers and trying to convert the techie ones to blog subscribers, the magazine with the motto “More Than a Pretty Face” has managed to fritter away a lot of that lingering esteem with one single, poorly written blog post by writer Maura Kelly.

Kelly, an admitted recovering anorexic, posted at length about her disgust at a new show that dares to depict fat people making out. She describes her horror at a new CBS sitcom about fatties, called Mike & Molly, in terms that have sparked widespread outrage in the blogosphere:

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

(Is a “heroine addict” someone who is dependent on romance novels?) Kelly goes on to insist she’s not a “size-ist jerk” despite the prior two paragraphs proving the opposite without a shadow of a doubt, even dusting off the “I have fat friends” argument. Then she lays down the icing on the fat-hating cake- the condescending advice to fat folks that may be tempted to walk across a room in her line of sight, people who clearly don’t know Kelly’s secret formula to being not repulsive:

(I’m happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you’re getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more. I admit that there’s plenty that makes slimming down tough, but YOU CAN DO IT! Trust me. It will take some time, but you’ll also feel so good, physically and emotionally. A nutritionist or personal trainer will help — and if you can’t afford one, visit your local YMCA for some advice.)

Kelly tacked on a majorly half-assed apology to offended fatties, but judging by the comments, it has done nothing to improve goodwill toward the magazine in the wake of the post’s publication. (Marie Claire is also currently a trending topic on Twitter.) Does Marie Claire need to re-evaluate its online editorial policies? Do you find this piece horribly offensive, or just sadly truthful? And is it just me, or is Kelly way too horsey-faced to complain about having to look at fat people in public?

‘Marie Claire’ loses ‘thinking women’s’ distinction with anti-fatty blog post is a post from: The Inquisitr

Daily Fail Mail writer Jan Moir’s article, originally titled Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death, has taken over Twitter, spawned a Facebook group and crashed a website that handles press complaints.

The piece, now titled A strange, lonely and troubling death…, has spawned the Twitter hashtag #thedailymailisgay and angry tweets about the article’s implications are coming at the rate of hundreds a minute. Moir’s conclusions are cringe-worthy, embarrassing to read and brings to mind the feeling one gets when an off-color remark is overheard at a party.

The general tone permeating the piece implies that Gately died, essentially, of his gayness. That homosexuality is somehow an inherent moral disease that eats away at a person, making the sudden death of an otherwise apparently healthy 33-year-old man not necessarily shocking. The fact that Gately was found by a man other than his partner (who stayed the night!!!) and that he’d >gasp< smoked cannabis sometime that evening are held up as proof that his death was not only to be expected, but it’s implicit that it was somehow deserved. What does one expect, hosting strange gay men for sleepovers and puffing the magic dragon? Nevermind that the UK as a whole is booze-soaked and marijuana has no recorded fatalities, he was a pot-smoking homo!

Reaction to the piece was quick and painful across the blogosphere. Twitter big shot Stephen Fry opined, “I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane. . . .” and Brit news parody site satirized Moir’s angle with a similar hateful dismissal of her career:

One Mail reader told us, “All she did was speak the truth about Stephen Gately’s unusual death, because every Daily Mail reader knows that the gays can only die if you drive a wooden stake through their heart.”

“His death is very suspicious, maybe someone should think about interviewing all the immigrants, eh?”

Should you doubt Moir’s homophobia or want to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, pay close attention to this portion. While Moir’s implications are hateful and hurtful, she wraps it all up in a discriminatory bow at the end. Overlooking the much more plentiful instances of straight on straight violence, Moir doesn’t pass up the opportunity to cast aspersions on the many happy gay couples both in the UK and abroad:

Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Daily Mail article on Gately’s death sparks social media outrage is a post from: The Inquisitr