Kevin Smith Deemed Too Fat to Fly by Southwest Airlines

Kevin Smith boarded a Southwest Airlines flight last night from Oakland to Burbank. After his bag was up and he was seated (with the arm rests down), he was deemed a “safety risk” and thrown off the flight. While he did end up on another Southwest flight, he turned to Twitter to express his (reasonable and totally justified, in my opinion) anger.

The Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines fire storm began with one Tweet from @ThatKevinSmith:

“Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

And that was just the beginning. He went on to Tweet, “Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”"

But that wasn’t all Southwest Airlines would hear from Silent Bob Kevin Smith. He got really, really pissed off and went on to tweet, “So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir. Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.”

Even though he was deemed a “safety risk,” he did end up boarding another flight with Southwest Airlines, completely disproving that whole “you’re a safety risk” sentiment, Kevin Smith still didn’t stop tweeting about his horrendous experience with Southwest Airlines and even took a picture of himself sitting on his later flight.

“Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw”

“The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!”

“Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.”

Southwest Airlines did eventually start tweeting back to Kevin Smith apologizing and wanting to make it up to him in some way:

“@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!”

And here is where my love for Kevin Smith goes much, much, much deeper. In fact, my heart could just about explode from Smith’s next tweet:

“Hey @SouthwestAir? Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buying an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…”

Regardless of the jokes Kevin Smith made in the bulk of his tweets, such as saying the plane was opened and he was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised, the real core issue here is a size-ist policy that is enforced not just by Southwest Airlines, but by all airlines. There is also a little thing we like to call fat phobia that exists and is the product of an increasing amount of ignorance, not just by corporations and businesses, but by the people behind them and the people who use them.

Just because a person is big, fat, plus size or any other words commonly used to describe people who do not fit within the body image standards set forth by media and advertising companies directed at all people–women, girls and men alike, does not mean that it is okay to treat them any differently than you would treat someone who does, in fact, mirror corporate beauty. What we saw go down through Twitter between Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines was not a safety risk in the least and it was not a policy being enforced due to him compromising the comfort, safety or well-being of the fellow passengers. It was a series of Southwest Airlines employees demonstrating fat phobia and casting one person on the flight out and embarrassing and fat shaming that person for no reason. This is not a one-time case; stuff like this is happening to bigger people every single day and on all flights from all airlines. If anything, Kevin Smith spoke the truth for every single big person who has ever been singled out on an airline for no reason.

Progresso Souper You Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered our Progresso Souper You giveaway! We are so thrilled to be able to share the Progresso love, being huge fans of the brand ourselves and even bigger fans of a way to manage our weight and calorie intake in a very, very delicious way. The winner of this giveaway will receive the Progresso prize pack which has been provided by Progresso through MyBlogSpark, pictured above–2 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups, a Progresso soup mug and a digital jump rope that keeps track of your jumps and also of calories burned.

So, without further ado, the lucky winner is…

Congratulations, Jennifer T!

3/365 Days: Progresso

I recently had the opportunity to try 15 out of the 40 new flavors of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups, thanks to Progresso and their new Souper You Debut contest, and MyBlogSpark. They are so delicious and like I mentioned in the full-length review of Progresso Light soups, I have recently been going through a great deal of physical pain because of my crowded, impacted wisdom teeth that I have not been able to get pulled and having Periodontal Disease, which also attributes to that major cheek-swelling you can’t help but notice in the above picture, so needless to say, soup is one of the major items on my extremely limited list of food items my mouth has been able to handle lately.

Progresso, you couldn’t have come at a better time.

We are also giving away a Progresso Prize Pack which consists of 2 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups, a Progresso mug (which you see in the above picture,) and a digital jump rope that keeps track of jumps and calories burned over time. Enter for your chance to win! The giveaway ends February 10th at 11:59PM EST.

Progresso Souper You Review and Giveaway

This giveaway has closed.

At the start of every new year, most of the women I know and connect with regularly openly talk about how their New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and/or to eat healthier. These are some great resolutions, especially the eating healthy one because while losing weight is a perk for a great deal of women, I whole-heartedly believe that crash dieting and the diet industry as a whole is a multi-billion dollar business for a reason, so if you do truly want to lose weight, it should be for purely health reasons, which is why eating healthy and choosing foods that will nourish you instead of just fill you is really important.

Now that we are more than a month into the new year, (by the way, can you believe that? I know I can’t!) a lot of women have been reporting on their progress with their New Year’s resolutions and if they have been able to stick to what they had planned before January 1st. I have noticed that a lot of women are increasingly strong-willed this year in the commitments they have made to themselves, nearly everyone I’ve checked up on who I had read on their blogs had made a New Year’s resolution has been sticking to it pretty phenomenally. So, for those of you who made the resolution to eat healthier and who are still on the fast-track to healthy eating, I have something really great to share with you!

I am a big, big, big fan of soup. I have been not-so blessed in the teeth department, having been diagnosed with Periodontal Disease and rapid tooth decay a few years ago after my wisdom teeth had started to push their way in. Because I am a professional blogger and also a freelance writer and web designer and developer who works from home, I have a very modest monthly income. I can pretty much cover my expenses month-to-month and that’s about it. That, coupled with the fact that I also live with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and major depressive disorder, (which I have blogged about here before,) makes it impossible for me to hold a job outside of the home, it isn’t a possibility for me to go out and get a part time job to help pay dental bills. Needless to say, this causes me a great deal of excruciating physical pain where for days at a time, I am unable to open my mouth wide enough to get most foods in it. That is when soup saves my life and the sanity I would not have after getting insanely frustrated with how big bite-sized food is.

Progresso has always been a great source of delicious and nutritious soup and they have made it even healthier than before by offering an entire product line of light soups that are all 100 calories or less! It is officially super easy to get a great and satisfying meal in your belly and help manage your weight at the same time. To celebrate their line of light soups, Progresso has launched the Souper You Debut–a contest where you can enter for the chance to win a full makeover in New York City!

To enter the Progresso Souper You Debut contest, all you have to do is go to www.Progresso.com/SouperYou and submit an essay (200 characters or less) telling Progresso why you love Progresso Light or 100 calorie soups and why you would like a full makeover. You will also need to submit a photo of yourself that visually reinforces the theme of your essay. Three grand prize winners will be awarded a trip for two to New York City from May 21st-23rd and includes roundtrip airfare, a two-night stay in a NYC hotel, a full makeover, a $1000 wardrobe shopping spree and personal consultation at a New York department store. Pretty fabulous if you ask me!

Review & Giveaway

To get the good word out about new Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups, I had the opportunity to try them out for myself and thanks to Progresso and MyBlogSpark, received 15 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups in a variety of different flavors, along with a Progresso soup mug and a digital jump rope that keeps track of jumps and calories burned to help you start working out more, in addition to utilizing soup to help manage your weight.

The variety of soups I received is absolutely insane; I was completely blown away by the amount of different flavors offered and there is definitely something for everyone’s specific tastes. My partner, who usually despises soup and will not eat it regardless of what you bribe him with, loved the Italian-Style Meatball with Penne and I cannot get enough of the Chicken and Dumpling. I love, love, love the Progresso soup mug and now refuse to eat my soup out of anything else. It has a great little thumb indentation at the top of the handle to make carrying it from the kitchen to my computer desk very comfortable.

And we want to share the Progresso love!

Because Progresso is awesome like that and MyBlogSpark is always all about extending the opportunity to try awesome products to others, we have the opportunity to give one lucky Woman Tribune reader 2 cans of Progresso Light soup, a Progresso soup mug and a digital jump rope.

To win the Progresso Prize Pack, all you have to do is visit ProgressoSoup.com and tell us what flavor of Progresso Light soup you would love to try. [REQUIRED]

Additional Entries: [Leave a separate comment for each additional entry.]

• Tell us what steps you take to manage your weight.
• Subscribe to Woman Tribune
• Follow Woman Tribune on Twitter
• Become a fan of Woman Tribune on Facebook
• Subscribe to our videos on YouTube
• Tweet about this giveaway. Feel free to use the following tweet or write your own: [Can be done once per day.]
  

  Win 2 cans of Progresso Light soup, soup mug and digital jump rope from @WomanTribune: http://tinyurl.com/yf24hmk #giveaway

• Blog about this giveaway. [2 entries, so leave 2 comments.]

This giveaway ends Wednesday, February 10th at 11:59PM EST. This giveaway is open to all US residents over the age of 18. The winner will be contacted by email and has 48 hours to respond with their necessary information. If no action is taken, another winner will be picked.

Full Contest Disclaimer

Disclosure: I was given the opportunity to spread the word about Progresso’s Souper You Debut and new line of Light and 100 calorie soups from Progresso and MyBlogSpark. For this post, I received the factual information, 15 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soup, a Progresso soup mug and digital jump rope from Progresso and MyBlogSpark. They have also provided me with the opportunity to give away two cans of Progresso soup, soup mug and digital jump rope to one lucky Woman Tribune reader. All opinions throughout this post are 100% mine.

Pelosi Takes a Jab at President Obama

During a press conference following a meeting between House leaders and health care principals, Nancy Pelosi as well as other members publicly took note of the differences that must be resolved before we will see a final reform package signed in to law. When asked by a reporter whether C-SPAN cameras would be permitted to film the negotiations of the final bill between the House and Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a little jab at President Obama saying, “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” without addressing the reporter’s question.

And I am pretty much inclined to agree! We did hear a lot of great talk from Obama when he was lobbying us all to vote for him–and we more or less pulled through, hence his presidency status, but we are seeing a lot from home that we have been disappointed in. I remember distinctly the great amount of respect and pride I had for the country as a whole when it was announced late election night that he was the next president of the United States, but now that pride has dwindled a great deal, especially when we start hearing him make statements such as he “didn’t campaign on the public option,” which we know that he did. In fact, when visiting my partner’s parents one night before the election and while discussing why I would be voting for Barack Obama (and being berated the entire time I was there for it) I did bring up the point that I had faith in him to pull through with a public option. I mean, a Republican president brought us into two wars, how hard would it be for a Democratic president to ensure that every American has the right to health care?

Well, we all know the answer to that question.

Seriously, Don’t Vote

Don’t vote if you don’t care about the recession or the financial crisis or the recently passed $800 billion financial bailout. Don’t vote if you don’t care about health care or the education of your children. Don’t vote if you don’t care about women’s rights or human rights. Don’t vote if you just don’t care–About America, about yourself, about your children, about the rights we all depend on every day.

Where I live, the deadline to get your voter registration in is today. While you’re out running errands, stop by the post office and drop off your voter registration. What’s the worst that can happen, you’ll have a say in this election?

This is the most crucial election you will probably vote for you in your lifetime, don’t let your voice not be heard. If you aren’t registered to vote, go to Vote for Change and register right now. If you don’t know if you’re registered, you can find out if you are and even where your closest polling place is.

Hemorrhoid Treatment

It isn’t something that many people talk about or are comfortable talking about, but it happens. Considering the amount of women who are pregnant or who have experienced hemorrhoids while pregnant or those who have office jobs or who work at home on their computers for several hours a day, people frequently get hemorrhoids but not many people know the specific causes or ways to go about making sure that their bodies are in good health and treating it effectively.

While pregnant women and people who hold jobs that involve a lot of sitting do make up a great amount of people who get hemorrhoids, the number one cause is constipation and the number one cause of constipation is your diet. When it comes to your health, one thing directly affects another and so on and because of that, we really must start at the root of a problem. In this case, your diet is extremely important. It is best to eat foods that contain a good amount of fiber and if that isn’t possible, there are a great deal of different fiber supplements that are available and make it easier to have regular bowel movements. It is also very important to drink at least 6 glasses of water per day to keep you regular and in good health.

It is important not to wait to get this condition treated since they can become more and more painful over time and ultimately, if not treated, could result in surgery. There are several ways to go about treatment; because everyone’s body is a little different, it is important to do a little research and see what type and brand of hemorrhoids treatment is right for you.

Rated by hemorrhoid sufferers and professionals, the number one rated treatment for hemorrhoids is Venapro. Venapro is safe to use, works the fastest with a 97% success rate, is highly recommended by doctors and has no side-effects. Best of all, with Venapro you have the security of a money-back guarantee if it doesn’t work for you. To find out more about the number one rated hemorrhoid treatment, just check out the Venapro reviews.

Good for Your Vagina, Good for the Environment

Yep, I said it–Your vagina! Most women don’t think twice about using store-bought pads and tampons. In most cases, this is what most women were taught to use when they first got their period and so the cycle continues, in a matter of speaking. A lot of women aren’t aware that we do have choices when it comes to what period protection we use.

We all know about pads and tampons, but what a lot of people don’t know about them is that the biggest companies producing these products for women are run by men. It’s true! Men! What do men know about what really goes on in there? Well, apparently not too much since standard pads and tampons contain synthetic fibers and bleach; yes that’s right, bleach. If you look at a container of bleach it will tell you several times throughout the container that you should not drink it and if you do, to contact a poison control center. Bleach is made up of very harsh chemicals that if you drink it, it could very well be fatal, so why are we putting it up inside of ourselves? Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? So dangerous that tampons also have a little warning you never paid much attention to that tells you about Toxic Shock Syndrome, which women under 21 years of age are most prone to getting.

When it comes to pads, we’re talking about the same ingredients here–Synthetic fibers and bleach. While we’re not shoving pads up inside of ourselves, the synthetic fibers and bleach that are in pads are rubbing up against us all day which is not good for our skin, especially considering that the skin ‘down there’ is very sensitive and makes up the beginning of our entire reproductive area. Women think that pads and tampons have been sterilized, when in fact, no feminine hygiene product has ever been sterilized; meaning we’re more than likely putting dirty synthetic fibers and bleach inside of us. So to recap, synthetic fibers and bleach are bad for us!

Moving on to the environment. There are approximately 85 million women in North America who are menstruating. After pads and tampons are used once, they are disposed of and add to environmental pollution.

According to the March-April article in E Magazine, 6.5 billion tampons and 13.5 billion pads and their packaging end up in landfills and even in sewer systems. That is a whole lot of waste that is clogging up the planet that could be avoided.

Avoided? How!?

If you are a woman who feels most comfortable using pads, Lunapads are reusable pads. With a life expectancy of 5 years, Lunapads is a pad alternative that is great for the environment. Made with a dual layer of 100% cotton flannel and an additional layer of ultra-thin, breathable nylon. They come in an array of different sizes, sure to fit any woman, if you’re a teen, in your 20s, 30s, or even middle-aged with five children under you belt. Best of all, they work with any type of menstrual flow and they are made of something that will not harm you or your reproductive organs in any way. To make it even better, Lunapads are amazingly cute and come in a myriad of different patterns.

If you are a woman who feels most comfortable using tampons, Lunapads also offers the Diva Cup, made of medical-grade silicone.

Both Lunapads and the Diva Cup are great alternatives to pads and tampons that are good for you to use and great for the environment.

Ditch the Disposables Challenge

Every month or so the Crunchy Domestic Goddess issues a challenge to all of us who want to make a better effort at going green. For the months of September and October, she is asking us all to ditch the disposables.

This challenge focuses on every day items that we use and then mindlessly throw in the garbage. Every week when we take out or garbage, it is picked up by the garbage truck and hauled off to a landfill or whatever method your community uses to get rid of its population’s trash. As we all are aware of, the Earth needs our help as global warming is upon us and our Earth is suffocating, shriveling up and dying at rapid speeds. It will continue to do this is we, the people of this planet, do not make conscious efforts each and every day to reduce the amount of waste we put out there.

Think of the every day items you use that you could easily do away with and start using the reusable alternatives. You could ditch your paper napkins and towels to cloth napkins and towels, tissues to handkerchiefs, disposable water bottles (think of how much bottled water a household or person can go through) for reusable bottles or cups with lids; on that same note, you can reuse the same water bottle, thus eliminating the amount of your waste long-term. You could also ditch your plastic sandwich bags and paper bags for reusable containers and bags. If you’re using disposable diapers you could switch to cloth diapers; a lot of different companies have started making excellent cloth diapers.

Another great reusable alternative women should seek out are reusable menstrual products. I have personally done away with disposable pads and tampons and started using reusable products. The reason for this is because I have had minor kidney infections that have caused frequent urinary tract and yeast infections. All the women out there know that this is not fun! After doing some research on minor things I should be doing to keep my reproductive organs the healthiest they can be I found some very troubling information about disposable menstrual products. Standard pads and tampons (made by men, I should point out) contain synthetic fibers and bleach, both of which can cause infections. I then did some research on reusable alternatives and found quite a few great alternatives. For women who use pads, I could not recommend Lunapads enough. I have been using their pads for about a year now and couldn’t be happier. They are made with fleece and cotton, they use cute fabrics so even while you have your period you can feel cute and match your outfit with your pad and they are oh so comfortable. Just a simple machine wash (or hand wash, I hand wash mine and have found it to be a great way to bond with my body during my menstrual cycle and further understand the functions of my body) and an air dry and they’re ready to go again! Lunapads also makes the Diva Cup, a reusable tampon alternative. Other pad and tampon alternatives you could check out are The Keeper and The Moon Cup, Glad Rags, Pretty Pads and New Moon Pads.

So what disposables do you think you could live without for the next two months? Have you already eliminated disposables from your household? Tell us about them!

Actor/Comedian Bernie Mac Dies of Pneumonia

It has been confirmed and reported by TMZ, CNN and MSNBC that actor and comedian Bernie Mac passed away yesterday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago due to complications with pneumonia.

Mac, who also had inflammatory lung disease and was hospitalized for pneumonia earlier this month, was said to be responding well to treatments and in stable condition just the day before he passed away.

Rest in peace.

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