Fergus Falls "Fat-Shaming" columnist get fired and a taste of what it feels like to be the one judged and alientated

Below is a section from the New York Post - Found here 

Columnist gets canned for fat-shaming airline passenger

By Joshua Rhett Miller

February 21, 2017

"A newspaper in Minnesota has parted ways with a fat-shaming columnist who detailed his recent experience flying next to an overweight passenger — saying airlines should consider selling “tickets by the pound.”

Alan Linda, an unpaid columnist for the Fargus Falls Daily Journal, has sounded off on a wide range of topics during his 30 years writing for the newspaper — politics, his children, telephone companies and appliances, to name a few — but his cringe-worthy Feb. 10 column, on sitting next to a 300-pound Georgia man during a flight, will be his last."

You may have heard of the Trojan Horse 

but have you ever seen a "Trojan Jack-Ass"?

I read the column and I felt it was very mean spirited and also quite cowardly. Making fun of someone because of the way they look is pathetic, but if you’re going to do it, at least have the guts to do it to their face. It’s worse thinking that this “300-plus guy” had no idea of how mean Alan Linda was and probably even thought he was a nice guy. Maybe even a new buddy. Then he finds out his “new buddy” was only nice to him so he could make fun of him in his column.
I’ve experienced several levels of cruel in this world but when someone is laughing inside at someone while being “fake-nice” is one of the lowest of the low. I call people like him a “Trojan Jack-Ass”. When you first meet them you think, “Hey a friend! This is a nice surprise” But once you let your guard down the “ass-door” opens, painfully revealing their true and nasty intentions. I kind of feel bad for Alan Linda for losing his column. It’s harsh to lose something after one mistake, but perhaps this wasn’t a one-time issue. Besides losing his column, he is also taking a lot of heat from the press and social media. He’s being ridiculed, mocked, alienated and judged. With a bit of poetic justice, Alan Linda is getting a taste of what it feels like to be 300 lbs. Well, at least they didn’t “Trojan Jack-Ass” him.


Here's the article if you' like to read it;

Taking notice of the size of people in today’s world

By Alan Linda

Have you noticed the size of people lately? Of course, none of us from the post World War II era can help but notice that kids are a lot taller these days. But people in general are bigger. Wider. Thicker. Got huge belts. No holes left in them. Okay, I give up. I’m trying real hard here not to use the F word.

Fat! Not that other F word. Although this one’s bad enough.

I was on an airplane not too long ago, seated on one of three seats. Guess who my seat partners were? The one on my left was so big, I couldn’t get the arm rest down. If he didn’t weigh 300-plus pounds, then I don’t weigh 165 pounds.

I tried. The arm rest. Tried to get it down. He looked at me, kind of grimaced. And when a 300-plus guy has you effectively pinned in and you can’t even run for it, when they grimace at you, your first thought is: “Oh, man. He looks hungry.”

Not too long ago, I learned that my local theater still had all the old 30s-era seats, which were removed sometime in the late 50s. I installed a couple of short rows of them in the basement. Then I took them out again. There’s a problem — hardly any of my company fit into them. Which was why the movie theater took them out. Hard to sell popcorn dripping with butter to people who already can’t squeeze their big, fat — ummmmm — self into the seat.

Mostly I haven’t had to depend on speed to handle big guys who grimace at me. The Lord gave me a mouth, and that’s usually enough to get me out of jams that my mouth got me into in the first place. So I decided I’d better talk to this guy. (Find out if he’s hungry, at least.)

It turns out he was from Georgia, and couldn’t wait to get back home to find out if the tornado that tore up that part of Georgia got his home. He did seem mostly upset about the local Walmart store getting destroyed. “Thet torndo rapped the saling raght offen the play-us.”

Huh? I’m getting deaf in my old age — or as the old folks in Iowa used to say it — “deef,” — so it was impossible with the din of the airplane in the background to know for sure what it was he just said.

So I smiled and nodded. Then I shook my head side to side, just to make sure I had the proper reaction included. He seemed to think I was sympathetic, and I seemed to think maybe he wouldn’t steal my airline peanuts if and when they ever brought any.

He then said: “Mebb’et’s true thet ol’ roooov’re go-on. I jest hop’n my tars din’t git hurt.”

Okay, I had to think on this one a while. I decided to throw out a feeler and replied: “Might they-of?” (See how quick I pick up a foreign language?)

So he proceeded to describe his pick-up truck, upon which he had just spent an undisclosed amount of money in new tars. (Tires.) He went on to muse that maybe they were almost big enough to float, should the tornado have dropped that much rain.

About then the stewardess delivered peanuts. I offered him mine, but he was so upset with his tars that he couldn’t hardly have et his own.

He got out his cell phone and showed me a picture of his tars; then he showed me a picture of his store. True enough, the ceiling was indeed gone, gone, gone.

He had to get up once to go to the bathroom. You know the size of the bathroom at the back of the plane? And the door into it ain’t hardly a foot wide. I kind of wanted to foller him back air, watch if that worked, him getting hisself in there. (You gotta love that language.)

In the meantime, I ate my peanuts afore he were back.

If airlines need to make more money, they should sell tickets by the pound.