Paper knows its audience

Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:33 pm

The New York Times is concerned about the reckless availability of Hardee’s Thickburger:

If restaurants want to serve food like this, they should print the calories and fat content on the overhead menus.

That�s fine, so far as it goes. But if the NYT�s audience actually requires a fat warning over something called a “thickburger”—there�s a clue in the name—then the paper should campaign for other warnings to be posted throughout the city:

Danger! This taxi cab weighs many thousands of pounds, and may cause injury if it rolls over you.

The administration of the Empire State Building wishes to advise that the observation deck is for observing. Not for the construction of towering 150-man human pyramids.

Do not attempt to mate with the grizzly bears. Repeat: Do NOT attempt to mate with the grizzly bears.

Attention, citizen! Are you walking around Times Square in a Bush/Cheney T-shirt? Do you WANT to be killed?

1. Warning!  Doing X and going home with a stranger could result in an STD or other bodily harm!

   Yeah, I’d like to see that posted in front of all the clubs.

   Posted by ushie on 2004 12 12 at 09:00 PM • permalink

1. My favourite ever real-life stupid warning was on a box of sleepiness pills:

   “Warning – this product may cause drowsiness”.

   I kid you not.

   Posted by PJ on 2004 12 12 at 09:10 PM • permalink

1. Honestly, there are just a lot of people in the world who shouldn’t set foot outside their doors without a keeper.  Most of them are leftists, and a lot of them live in New York.

   Posted by RebeccaH on 2004 12 13 at 04:17 PM • permalink

1. What’s next? Labels on genitalia?

   ‘Warning. Contents may cause pregnancy”

   Posted by Quentin George on 2004 12 13 at 05:16 PM • permalink

1. Warning – breathing increases CO2 emissions.

   Posted by noir on 2004 12 13 at 05:27 PM • permalink

1. In a City Park restroom in Champaign IL (home of the University of Illinois and Chief Illiniwek), there was a sign on the cloth towel dispenser (you know—the kind that rolls the towel out one slot and in another):

   “Warning!  Do not stick head in towel and roll up.  Doing so may cause damage.”

   HONEST TO GOD.  I don’t even _want_ to know the impetus for the sign.

   Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2004 12 13 at 06:35 PM • permalink

1. “Warning! Do not stick head in towel and roll up. Doing so may cause damage.”

   Were they talking about damaging one’s cranium or the dispenser?

   Posted by PW on 2004 12 13 at 09:49 PM • permalink

1. Of course the NYT would never suggest that Goose Confit in Bernaise Sauce, followed by Double Cream Chocolate Profiteroles and Half a wheel of Double Brie, all washed down with 2 bottles of Claret and three glasses of Cognac would constitute a requirement to display a calorie count.

   Then again, some fat is probably more equal than others.

   Posted by murph on 2004 12 14 at 12:06 AM • permalink

1. Hey! It’s not about the fat in the burger, it’s about the carbs in the bun. 😉

   Posted by Franklin on 2004 12 14 at 10:57 AM • permalink

1. If it’s a good thing for Hardee’s to do, it should be up to the Times to lead by example:

   WARNING: The contents of this “newspaper” only occassionally intersect with anything as mundane as “the facts.”

   Posted by Darth VAda on 2004 12 14 at 04:05 PM • permalink

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