Those crazy Nipponese

Watch out for your boss's cell phone camera

FIRED EXEC'S 'BEEF'

'HUNG' OUT TO DRY

By RODDY BOYD

JAMES BONOMO
Slings "sausage" suit.

July 23, 2007 -- A former Mitsubishi executive is suing his ex-em ployer because a co-worker allegedly took a picture of his penis after a booze-fueled karaoke bash - and his boss compared it to an "Italian sausage."

In his suit filed in Manhattan federal court last month, James Bonomo, a former paper sales manager for Mitsubishi International Corp., alleged that his career effectively ended after the humiliating incident during what should have been a routine business trip to China in April 2005.

Bonomo joined MIC's New York office in 1999, and his suit said that during his tenure, annual sales grew tenfold, from $3.5 million to $39 million.

The suit also says that during a trip to Beijing, Bonomo and his Tokyo-based superior, Tetsuya Furuichi, and a China-based Mitsubishi exec had dinner with a potential customer.

Afterward, Furuichi took everyone to a bar for some liquor-fueled karaoke, telling Bonomo beforehand, "You will be the target tonight," the suit charges.

Later that same night, Furuichi allegedly pressured Bonomo into visiting a bathhouse for what he said would be "a non-sexual massage" with the clients. En route, Bonomo's boss regaled him with an analysis of his admiration for the purported genital size of Italian-Americans, he said.

Despite Bonomo's discomfort, Furuichi continued on in that vein, allegedly saying, "Italian men have penises 'down to here,' gesturing to his knees." The suit noted that Bonomo is both Italian-American and gay.

At the bathhouse, a colleague from Mitsubishi's Beijing office, Yue Zhibo, took a picture of Bonomo's penis on his cellphone and then "refused to delete the picture" when Bonomo demanded he do so, the suit states.

After the incident, Bonomo's boss, Furuichi, compared Bonomo's penis to an "Italian sausage," the plaintiff said.

Not long after the trip, Bonomo's suit claims, his work environment became abusive and hostile. Also, the suit says, his sales targets were "set unreasonably high" in an effort to force him out of his job.

The suit asks for the court to assign compensatory damages and lawyers' fees.

Mitsubishi denied all of the charges to The Post.

"We investigated these claims and found them to be baseless," a Mitsubishi spokeswoman said. "No one involved in Bonomo's [Beijing trip] said that anything like what is alleged in his suit occurred."

She added that at no point before he left the company did Bonomo ever file a complaint, mention it to his supervisors or call the company's anonymous tip line.

Bonomo told The Post that he stands by his story but referred all other questions to his lawyer, Jeffrey Liddle of Liddle & Robinson, who declined to comment.

roddy.boyd@nypost.com

Did Walt approve this?

This poster is for sale at http://www.hakes.com/item.asp?Auction=191&ItemNo=54954

Looks like he got the leg spread right

A Rosie Explanation

Lesbians twice as likely to be obese

From correspondents in the US

April 28, 2007 12:00
Article from: Reuters



LESBIANS are twice as likely as heterosexual women to be overweight or obese, which puts them at greater risk for obesity-related health problems and death, US researchers said.

The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first large studies to look at obesity among lesbians.

Ulrike Boehmer of the Boston University School of Public Health and colleagues looked at a 2002 national survey of almost 6000 women, and found that lesbians were 2.69 times more likely to be overweight and 2.47 times more likely to be obese.

“Lesbians have more than twice the odds of (being) overweight,” the authors wrote.

This would put them at a higher risk for diabetes and heart disease, among other ailments.

“Our findings indicate that lesbian sexual identity is linked to a greater prevalence of overweight and obesity,” the authors wrote in the study, released this week.

They reviewed smaller studies that have suggested a higher prevalence of obesity among lesbians and the possible reasons why.

“The results of these studies indicate that lesbian women have a better body image than do heterosexual women,” they wrote.

But the authors said they placed little confidence in the idea that lesbians were more muscular than straight women, and thus were more likely to have a high body mass index, or BMI, while having little body fat.

High muscle mass is “unlikely to lead to classification as obese,” the researchers said.

“We reported greater odds of both overweight and obesity in lesbians and we feel confident in asserting that these differences are a result of increased adiposity,” the researchers wrote.