The Daily Moth 5-17-2019
Top News Briefs: Missouri legislature passes strict abortion law; architect I.M. Pei passes away; internet star Grumpy Cat dies; Deaf McDonald’s customers call police after being denied service at drive-thru; Deaf Canadian father and son tell jokes in Hershey’s commercial; Lexington Deaf students teach Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez some ASL
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Friday, May 17. Ready for news?
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Top News Briefs: Missouri legislature passes strict abortion law; architect I.M. Pei passes away; internet star Grumpy Cat dies
Here are three top news briefs.
The first — Missouri is now the latest state to pass strict abortion laws. Both the Senate and the House approved a bill that would prohibit abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, which is when is when a heartbeat can be detected. The bill has exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest. The state governor is expected to sign the bill.
The second news — famous architect I.M. Pei, best known for his glass pyramid at the Louvre, passed away yesterday at 102 years old. He was born in China and went to the U.S. to attend college. He has designed many unique and beautiful buildings in the U.S. and around the world.
The third news — the famous cat, Grumpy Cat, who’s real name is Tardar Sauce, has passed away on Tuesday. She was 7. Her grumpy face become a beloved meme. She had a form of dwarfism and was less than 5 pounds.
Missouri Abortion: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/missouri-abortion-bill/h_805142e963d74796636966d876b3d65a
IM Pei: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/arts/design/im-pei-buildings.html
Grumpy Cat: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2019/05/17/grumpy-cat-dies-remembering-the-time-we-hung-out/3705029002/
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Deaf McDonald’s customers call police after being denied service at drive-thru
Last night a group of young Deaf people in Delaware called the police after they were denied service at a McDonald’s drive-thru.
The Daily Moth was in touch with Harsh Shah, who showed me video clips that showed what happened. Shah can use his voice to speak and there is one clip where it shows a spoken confrontation with a McDonald’s employee. Convo provided interpretation for it.
TYLEE THOMAS:
What happened was, since it was nighttime, McDonald’s was closed from the inside, so we had to order using a drive-thru.
Since we’re deaf and… I can hear a bit, but I couldn’t 100% hear them. So we didn’t want to be patient so we decided to go up to the window so we could place an order.
I asked nicely if I could order there. The woman there was really rude and insisted that we couldn’t order at that point. She was really rude to us.
DOM HECKER: The woman told us the reason why she couldn’t let us do that was because this wasn’t fair for hearing people.
Even then, deaf people have a reason for doing this. We can’t speak. How could we place an order that way? We simply wanted to drive up to the window so we could talk face to face when we want to order some food. But she would not let us.
HARSH SHAH: And the manager just stood there and didn’t intervene.
DOM: That manager just walked away and didn’t say anything.
I was like, “WTF?”
SHAH: I got out of the car, I was mad, and I wanted to speak to her directly. We argued that we were deaf and what they were doing wasn’t fair to us. I was really mad.
INTERPRETER: *Music in background*
*Sound of a door opening*
Are you having a hard time hearing?
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. You need to talk, right?
Yes.
Can you hear too? Okay.
You know, we have a policy where everyone has to order through the box.
Right.
Even if it takes you an hour and a half to say your order, that’s fine. It’s not fair to everyone who’s ordered. We can’t accept anyone’s order when they’ve skipped the box.
But it’s because I can’t hear. You need to understand.
*Beeping sounds
*Beeping sounds*
*Sighing in background*
*Beeping sounds*
Okay…
SHAH: We called the police.
(video clip of police car at McDonald’s parking lot)
SHAH: They came here. We are grateful to the officers and appreciate it.
TYLEE: The cops understood how we felt so they were nice enough to place an order for us. We thanked them for understanding that this is what deaf people often feel.
(Image of deaf customers standing with police officers, holding ice cream)
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Alex: Wow, it’s a happy ending for the Deaf customers — having ice cream with police officers.
I’ve reported about Deaf customers having police called on them by the store, but the tables are turned with the customers calling police.
I’ve reached out to McDonald’s press office, but did not get an immediate response. When I do, I will add it in the comments section.
Shah said McDonald’s has not yet reached out to them to apologize.
https://www.facebook.com/dom.hecker.1/posts/687699475007004
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Deaf Canadian father and son tell jokes in Hershey’s commercial
A Deaf father and son from Ontario, Canada, Chris and Braden Kenopic, were featured in a Hershey Canada commercial that was posted last week and has over a million views. Here it is.
[Video clip of Hershey’s commercial]
Nice commercial! Dad and grandpa jokes. The Daily Moth reached out to them to share more on what happened behind the scenes.
BRADEN: The overall experience has been good. The crew has been amazing. Really, everything we’ve experienced has been great. It’s been a good time.
CHRIS: The crew was really awesome and it’s cool because we’re actually father and son while most of them were random actors. We’re the real thing and they felt we had that great chemistry and communicated well and everything.
CHRIS: The company didn’t want to hire interpreters because of the money. They didn’t want to pay for it. They had an interesting attitude, but though this experience, they were able to understand that, in the future, it’s important to bring in a professional interpreter instead of relying on someone like a volunteer to facilitate the communication between us.
CHRIS: The Hershey commercial, wow, actually had over 1.3 million views. It’s really shocking to me. It’s true. It means that the message we’re sending is really positive and it means companies out there will see that deaf people can act and encourage more of this.
BRADEN: Yes, also with us young people, it’s important to get involved with filming because eventually others might need that talent and that’ll help us succeed in life.
Alex: I asked them if they could finish the grandpa joke.
BRADEN: Really, there’s no ending to the joke, but you can use your imagination.
Alex: Okay, I’ll use my imagination. Here are more remarks from the two.
CHRIS: Thank you.
BRADEN: Ta da!
Alex: Thanks for the choco-LATE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhJS6zrklr0
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Lexington Deaf students teach Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez some ASL
Three Deaf students from the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, New York City met with well-known Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) while on a trip to Washington, D.C. for Close-Up last week.
Here is an Instagram video posted by AOC.
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Student: How are you.
Interpreter: Can you slow down?
Student: Okay, sure. How… are… you?
AOC: How are you?
Student: I’m fine!
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Alex: AOC represents New York’s 14th congressional district, which is where the Lexington School for the Deaf is in.
The Daily Moth reached out to the students’ teacher, Debra Cole, to get students to explain their experiences. Here they are!
SWAPNIL PATEL: The Close Up was hosted in Washington, D.C. for high school students who come from all over the United States. This went on for a week, from Sunday through Friday. Each day, there were different activities we did.
JORDAN LAIKRAM: Often the Senators don’t have the time to meet because they’re so busy and it’s same for House Representatives also. Instead, you can meet the staff that work for them. But we were lucky enough to meet a House Representative, AOC herself.
AHSANUR RASHID: We enjoyed talking about her views on federal issues and I was happy to teach her basic sign language. She was supportive of the deaf community and makes sure they have access to information on her Instagram page. That’s why we’re proud that she’s a House Representative of New York!
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Alex: Thank you for sharing. I hope you three learned a lot on your trip.
So, if you ever bump into AOC someday, you can say, “How are you?”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxNeKrslfHu/?utm_source=ig_web_button_native_share
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That is all for this week. Thank you for watching “The Daily Moth!” Have a wonderful weekend and stay with the light!