Eric Foner, a professor of history at Columbia University, argues in an Op-Ed piece that it was in fact this early shaping of the US slave-based economy that helped prevent an even more disastrous human rights scenario by the time the Civil War erupted:

[Without the ban,] it is plausible to assume that hundreds of thousands if not millions of Africans would have been brought into the country.

This most likely would have resulted in the "democratization" of slavery as prices fell and more and more whites could afford to purchase slaves, along with a further increase in Southern political power thanks to the Constitution's three-fifths clause. These were the very reasons advanced by South Carolina's political leaders when they tried, unsuccessfully, to reopen the African slave trade in the 1850s.

More slaves would also have meant heightened fear of revolt and ever more stringent controls on the slave population. It would have reinforced Southerners' demands to annex to the United States areas suitable for plantation slavery in the Caribbean and Central America. Had the importation of slaves continued unchecked, the United States could well have become the hemispheric slave-based empire of which many Southerners dreamed.

"Forgotten Step Toward Freedom" [New York Times]
(Photo: Getty)

The manager at T.G.I. Friday's in Wheeling told the Arlington Heights family on Saturday that the restaurant couldn't accommodate Dawn even after Greenberg showed him her Public Access card, which explains the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Greenberg said they were told that since Laura already had someone to help her, the dog couldn't be allowed in.

The restaurant issued a statement apologizing for the incident:

"We are very sorry for the terrible mistake our restaurant made. We absolutely should have accommodated our guest and her companion dog. We have contacted the guest to offer our sincerest apologies and we have re-educated restaurant management on proper procedures to ensure a similar situation does not occur."

Amy Freshwater, spokeswoman for T.G.I. Friday's, said Tuesday the manager had been replaced and the company will be re-educating management on the importance of ADA guidelines.

"We're absolutely appalled with the situation in the first place," she said. "This is something we're taking seriously."

Hey, what do you know? They're taking it seriously.

Greenberg said she did not want the employee to be fired, but would like he and his coworkers to receive training, says the Daily Herald.

"He needs sensitivity training," she said. "He needs more than just telling him, 'You did a bad thing.'"

No kidding. What a jerk!

Wheeling restaurant apologizes after refusing service to disabled teen [Daily Herald]
(Photo:Mark Welsh )

Soon after the dust-up, Mayor Bloomberg urged a boycott of the shady Chinese restaurant. "It's unconscionable to use race on any of these things, in terms of what kind of service, or how you charge, or whatever," Bloomberg told the Daily News. "Go patronize a different [restaurant.] Let capitalism work."

The lawyer for the restaurant says that the pricing difference was due to a "miscommunication," and that the Chinese menu was just an older version of the English one, with higher prices for some things and lower ones for others. The Human Rights Commission dropped the charges after the guy from Wisconsin settled with the restaurant for an undisclosed sum and, "a promise to change its menu - by "listing identical prices in English and Chinese for the same dishes," said Commissioner Patricia Gatling. " The HRC claims that they will continue to monitor the restaurant to make sure the promise is carried out. —MEGHANN MARCO

PANEL WOKS AWAY [NYP] (Thanks, Dork Esquire!)
(Photo: Harris Graber)

PREVIOUSLY:NYC Mayor Bloomberg Calls For Boycott Of Shady Chinese Restaurant
Charged Extra For Not Speaking Chinese?

Apple issued an official reply to allegations that Chinese iPod factories, or iPod cities, are churning out iPods at the hands of workers paid only $50 a month, work 15 hours a day and are housed in dorms where visitors are not permitted. Workers are also made to pay for their room and board, which takes up half their salaries, according to a report by The Mail on Sunday.

Apple says they're, "currently investigating the allegations regarding working conditions in the iPod manufacturing plant in China."

Increasingly Apple is behaving like the companies it was supposed to be usurping. And thus the click-wheel turns.

"Apple responds to iPod factory claims" [Macworld]

According to the Mail on Sunday, the average Chinese worker who puts together that sleek, reflective black iPod 5G for you works fifteen hours a day in a dirty factory surrounded by police and makes only 27 a month. We don't know how many iPods you can make in a fifteen hour shift, but no matter how you slice it, that translates to pennies per iPod.

All employees live on the factory grounds. Long hours and lack of money practically cut them off from the rest of the world. How many people live in these iPod cities? One factory supposedly houses two hundred thousand workers: "This iPod City has a population bigger than Newcastle's."

If this report is true, this certainly makes me love my new iPod less. Oh, who am I kidding? It could be made with human flesh and only play mp3s of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis for all I care. I am a sucker for sex appeal.

comment on this post

Inside Apple's iPod factories [Macworld UK]

Exxon's unhappy with the ruling, claiming that it sets a bad precedent that allows American companies to be held responsible for the actions of foreign governments. But the International Rights And Labor Fund says Exxon's involvement goes further than being coerced into giving up their premises for human-rights abuses: there seems to be strong indication that Exxon was actually paying the Indonesian Military for security during this time, making the Indonesian soldiers responsible Exxon contractors.

But even if that isn't true, is it truly a bad precedent, to hold American companies that operate and comply with regimes that torture, rape and murder their own people responsible for their complicity? No. Lip service to the dignity of people is cheap and meaningless when a company is unwilling to actually make sacrifices to help achieve that goal.

Exxon had a say in the matter: aware of Indonesia's human rights abuses, they could have opted to move their business elsewhere. They didn't — they paid the Indonesian military for security and allowed their premises to be used for torture. Exxon may have kept their hands technically free of blood, but that doesn't change the fact that they implicitly condoned it and paid for it.

Link: Exxon: Torture Suit Sets Bad Precedent