Nshima & Curry

UPS driver having too much fun

We don't know his name, but there's apparently a UPS driver in California who's having a little too much fun on the job. No, he's not opening all the Victoria's Secret packages and trying on the lingerie inside the brown van. He's making up nasty names for his customers. Well, at least one of them.

Balbir Singh, a turbaned Sikh, signed for a package for his son Anant, who was at work at the time. He didn't think the incident was terribly remarkable, describing it as "business as usual."

"I came and opened the door. He gave me the package and I signed. No other talking. Nothing," Singh, said.

A few days later, his son, Anant was expecting another package so he logged onto the UPS delivery tracking website to check on its status. He accidentally entered the tracking number of the package his father had signed for earlier in the week; that was when he found the derogatory term marked in the "signed by" portion of the tracking slip.

"I was amazed," Anant recounted, "I printed the paper and read it again, and it said signed by a "'terrorist.'" [Link]

If the UPS driver actually believed that Balbir Singh was a terrorist, then he ought to be taken to court. Isn't there a federal law against delivering packages to terrorists?

The Singh family has lived in Bakersfield for many years and are disgusted with insensitivity of the comment, deeming it "totally uncalled for."

"All of my community who wears a turban and belongs to the Sikh faith are not terrorists," Anant stated, "We are a peace-loving people and are part of the community."

Anant's father, Blbar Sing responded by saying, "Terrorist is a bad word. People should be educated. Sikh's are not terrorists, not every Muslim is a terrorist." [Link]

I think Balbir Singh (aka Blbar Sing) could have phrased that last line better. How about this: "The vast majority of Sikhs and Muslims are not terrorists, just as the vast majority of UPS drivers are not racist pigs."

Fred Phelps, Bonehead of the Week

The Bonehead of the Week Award (a new feature of this blog) goes to the well-deserving Rev. Fred Phelps, whose church, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, announced that it planned to stage protests at the funerals of the victims of the Minneapolis bridge collapse to send the message that God caused the disaster because ... what else? ... he hates homosexuals and Minnesota's support of them.

The church and its pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps, have become notorious over recent years for their claim that the attack of 9/11 was an act of God's vengeance and their determination to make that case at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq.  ...

Reached at the church, Shirley Phelps Roper, who is both the daughter of the pastor and one of the attorneys for the church, said that America, and Minnesota especially, have alienated God by its tolerance for homosexuality, and that the bridge collapse was an act of God's vengeance. She said:

"The bridge stood in place by the word of God and it fell by the word of God...Each of these little events is just a harbinger of the coming destruction of this American experiment. We are delivering the final call of the doomed nation." [Link]

Members of the church often hold signs that say, "Thank God for 9/11," "America is doomed," and "God hates (gays)." (They use an epithet for homosexual that's also part of their website's domain name.)

The surprising thing is that Phelps and his followers don't appear to be under the influence of any drugs, though you have to wonder what's in those Communion cups.

The good thing about belonging to such a group, if you ever happen to commit a crime, your lawyer will have no trouble proving insanity.

Phelps believes he's going to heaven one day. But if people who act like him are in heaven, it really can't be called "heaven" anymore, can it?