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Last week's NewsNews article for the week of 7/7/08. Richard Simmons in Slavery Scandal By Grey News Famous over the top diet and pear shaped exercise guru Richard Simmons has been charged with slavery today with the announcement that he has been linked as one of the primary financial backers of the recently discovered Oompa Loompa sweatshops. Discovery of Oompa Loompas locked away in a Tampa basement producing cheap knock off vitamin C tablets made from pressed peanut sweepings sparked outrage. Packed in at a rate of nine per square meter they worked under conditions that battery chickens would find consider disgusting enough to strike over. Within days seven more such factories were uncovered in the state of Florida alone, with dozens more being found as far away as Michigan, with evidence that even Canada may possess a few slave shops. Canada was quick to blame Celine Dion, but ever since her cover of the AC DC classic they could blame her for velour and no one would notice, it’s hard to hate someone like this more. To make matters worse these were not domesticated Oompa Loompas such as those found in the Wonka factory, who work under legal contract, with health benefits and all the coco beans they could possibly want. These were free range Oompa Loompas who had never known walls (but did know roves and doors owing to unique Oompa Loompa architecture), stolen from their native habitat and forced to perform vile, degrading tasks for the enrichment of, uh, men(?) like Richard Simmons. As for the fitness expert who has claimed to have been personally responsible for helping the late Mother Teresa regain her bikini body in the last years of her life he has been oddly silent. Normally drawn to cameras and microphones like a moth to a flame the silence is rather incriminating. Speculation is running rampant over how someone who has turned boundless and blind enthusiasm into a trademark could possibly be involved with slavery and this silence is only fuelling speculation. A number of human rights groups have stood up to denounce what has happened, calling on the US government to take a stronger stand lest slavering, overt, covert or even tacit, becomes the norm once more. At the same time a number of animal rights groups have stood up to do much the same. Some confusion exists over whether Oompa Loompas count as humans or animals. The genetic tests have so far been inconclusive but what lobby group would let that stop them. Ethnic minorities are unsurprised. “We should have expected something like this from the second freakiest white guy after Prince Charles!” is a common reaction. At the same time no one really seems to care about the Oompa Loompas themselves. Generally silent and prone to antagonistic, if highly accurate and honest, song they have not endeared themselves to the general public, who are already tired of special interest status being assigned willy nilly, such as the recent declaration that elephants were people too, a move that has confused and insulted elephants everywhere. |
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