Just read it yourself. Leaves me speechless. Well, not quite: If the books were THAT fucking dangerous, kids like me wouldn't be alive, right? Because, ya know, I would have ingested all that lead from all those thousands (literally) of books I ate, er, read, as a child.
This is so astounding, that I can't even think how to respond (other than sit with my mouth hanging open). So I'm turning this over to Tony Comstock, who isn't having a problem responding, thank god. Full disclosure and for what it's worth: Tony sent me a copy of the film he refers to (ya know; the one with the old guy...)
I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much I even commented about it on Amazon, which I don't generally do. But again -- that's not relevant. What is relevant is such a horrifying example of the nanny stateism. Ugh.
Back in December, I wrote a piece for US News about the long shadow of Prohibition. In it, I noted that today's destructive alcohol culture stems in large part from the repeal of Prohibition: When Americans repealed the 18th Amendment, lawmakers at all levels built a cumbersom legal fence between Americans and alcohol, all but guaranteeing that generations to come would demonize drink.
Great example of what I meant is unfolding now in Iowa (where I live). Iowa guy owns winery. Decides he'd like to use his talents to make beer as well. Sorry, the state says. No can do. Back in 1933, state lawmakers "protected" Iowans from the evils of alcohol by forbidding residents from working in more than one alcohol-related industry at a time.
Those controls are so strict . . . that they have been interpreted to mean that if a husband drives a beer truck for a distributor, his wife can't work in a grocery store or tavern where beer is sold at retail.
In this specific case, the director of Iowa's Alcoholic Beverage Division says that
The fear . . . is that cross ownership would lead to excessive promotion, creating too much public intoxication. The bans were extended to family ties and to employment situations, he said, to make it clear that even indirect ties would not be allowed.
You can read the entire article here. Read it and, ya know, weep......... Got any dumbass laws you'd like to publicize? Send 'em my way.
Wow, this is creepy! Especially this:
Art Brown, president of the Salt Lake County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said he would like to see the card scans with the central database on top of the existing private club laws.
To which I repeat what I've said before: groups like MADD aren't the solution; they're the problem. Tip o' the mug to our man-on-the-nanny-state-beat, Jacob Grier.
This "research" from the World Cancer Research Fund (a British group) (and via the weekly newsletter [subscription only] edited by Pete Reid of Modern Brewery Age).
To which I say: Oh, for fuck's sake. Give it up. How much anyone wanna bet that the World Cancer Research Fund is interested in cancer research in the same way that the Center for Science in the Public Interest is interested in science? (As far as CSPI is concerned, the only "real" science is the stuff that supports its nearly fascist, nanny-state agenda....)
Besides which, this drinking-and-cancer thing has been around for decades and warnings show up, clockwork-like, every decade or so. To say nothing of that fact that humans drink less alcohol now than they have in millennia past, and if cancer were really so lethal and risky, well, the human race would have died out, ya know, millennia ago.
It's a prohibitionist plot, is what it is.....
(Kidding.) (Sort of.)
Those Google boys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have once again, and inadvertently, demonstrated the virtues of a good liberal arts education, which they obviously missed out because they were busy learning to be computer engineering geniuses. (And I say that will all due respect.)
Backstory (brief version): I use and admire google. It's an incredibly useful tool. I also appreciate that Brin and Page want to scan the world’s books so that the information in them will be accessible to everyone. (This is a controversial project that prompted a lawsuit by the Authors Guild, which was recently settled, and, in my opinion, well-settled.)
Anyway, my complaint about the scanning project was the motivation behind it: The idea that scanning the world’s books would somehow capture the world's "information."
It won't. Archives, for example, contain millions of pages of unpublished manuscript material: letters and diaries, for example, are the mainstay of many historians’ work. So, too, old magazines and newspapers, whether published in 1790, 1890, or 1990.
Many of those are available on microfilm, and many are being digitized. But the number of digitized pages, whether of manuscripts or newspapers, is minute relative to the total.
Anyway, the point is that the world’s “knowledge” isn’t now and never will be confined to books.
But apparently the notion that “books” might be, ya know, useful, is still a novel (no pun intended) concept for our googleaders. Consider this quote from Sergey in a report in today’s New York Times.
There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site.
Damn! Ya think? Wow. I had no idea. Must ponder this insight from Sergey -- in between working on my next book, which, like the previous one, will take five years of my life because it will require me to conduct substantive primary research using material that can’t be found in books. And the finished product will itself be a book that will contain "fantastic information" that is "miles ahead" of something found on the internet.
No question about today's winner: Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Not only did he try to sell Almost-President Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, -- but he talked about it during a telephone call.
HelloooOOOoooo........ Plan to commit a crime? Already aware that the feds are already investigating you? Rule Number One of smart criminals: Don't talk about it over the phone!
Oh. Okay. I guess Blagojevich isn't one of the "smart" criminals. Instead, he's our Dumbass of the Day.
Back in February, I posted an entry about a particularly inane liquor-related law in New York.
I just got a follow-up about that episode from the person featured in it, Ralph Erenzo of Tuthilltown Spirits Distillery in Gardiner, New York. He posted his comment at the original post, but I re-post it here for the edification of all:
Update: After we managed to get Gov. Spitzer to sign the Farm Distillers law, the State Liquor Authority interpreted the law strictly and required holders of the A-1 micro distiller's license to give up that license to acquire the Farm Distillers license (which for us would have meant dropping half our product for the right to have a tasting room and direct sale to consumers). The SLA insisted we must start another company, in a different building, build a new distillery to acquire the Farm Distillery license. It took another round of legislation to amend the law to include the specific words permitting the holding of both an A-1 and a Farm Distillers license concurrently. Gov. Paterson signed S2075 into law recently which specifically permits distillers to hold various licenses at the same time (the way wineries and breweries have been able to do for years).
Sooooo...... something for which to be thankful on this day of thanks. Now, if only various other dumbass liquor laws could or would be changed so that I could buy some of Tuthilltown's products and have them delivered to me here in Iowa.
Sigh. That day may never come............
I'll have to wait till next time I'm in NYC and then, gee, make a trip to Gotham Bar or MOMA restaurant or one of those other dens of iniquity that sell exquisite fabulous food and drink so I can taste some of Ralph's wares and won't THAT be a hardship??
Guy-drinking-beer-on-his-own-stoop fights charge and will have his day in court. Truly one of the dumbass alcohol laws. On December 11, let's all meet in front of the courthouse and hold a rally to support him.
Ted McClelland is back at Salon with another look at American beer. Worth reading, especially to learn what Dick Yuengling has to say. HUGE relief to know that he's keeping his cool (and his common sense) in the face of all this "last American beer" hooha. (I weighed in on that a few weeks ago here.)
By the way, Ted's earlier Salon piece is here. For a contrarian view of Ted's piece, see Jay's take. Another reason why I love the guy! (Jay, not Ted.) (Although Ted is a nice guy, too.)
All of this, of course, brings to mind Pabst's most recent effort, namely a revival of Schlitz.
My quick take on that is this: Ooooh, boy.......... Are these people serious? ("These people," in this case, is the folks at the company known as Pabst Brewing Company. See my note *1 below.)
Okay, sure, I understand the logic behind the revival of the Pabst brand -- an "anti-marketing" campaign aimed at hipsters. (*2)
But marketing Schlitz as "the beer you remembered in your youth"?? Using the slogan "Your Schlitz is back"? Are they NUTS? Anyone who actually remembers Schlitz is, well, old. And statistically speaking, old people (and I'm one of them) don't drink much. (You can read about that here and here.)
Plus, I remember Schlitz from the 1970s -- and I remember it because it was foul, skunky crap. (*3) Second, anyone who remembers Schlitz from the 1960s (before the company screwed up the beer) is REALLY old. And drinks even less.
This is surely one of the great exercises in pointlessness. Although I guess it's a great example of precisely the kind of pointless exercise that make capitalism go 'round. (You know. Like altering the recipe for Cheez-Its or the ingredients of Tide so they can be marketed as "new.")
Anyway, my prediction? The new "old" Schlitz is doomed.
Okay, back to work. (Again, I'm laying low because I'm working on a new book.)
________________________________
*1: By "Pabst," I mean the holding company (Kalmanovitz Family Trust) that owns and markets a bunch of old beer brands. It's not a brewing company; it's a marketing company that, well, markets beer. You can see the list by going here. After you've assured the website you're legal age, click on "Our Portfolio."
*2: By the way, Neal Stewart, the guy who concocted that now-legendary Pabst campaign, maintains a blog. He's currently working his magic at Flying Dog Brewery in Denver. (Although I gather he's also about to go to grad school.) (But wait. It's an MBA program. Shouldn't he be teaching MBA students, rather than being one of them?)
*3: Turns out I wasn't imagining it. As I explain in my book, in the 1970s, the brains at Schlitz tried to increase profits by slashing operating costs. Among other measures, they changed the beer's ingredients and altered the brewing process. The beer was undrinkable. The company imploded.
File this under "the incessant infantalization of drinking" and "dumbass liquor laws." Thanks, Jay, for the providing the coverage and links.
This story broke yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. That's a for-pay site, so I can't send you there, but here's a free although shorter and skimpier version of this tale of dumbassness in action.
In brief: Wal-mart hires small company named Flagler Productions to videotape in-house functions: sales meetings, annual meetings, gatherings of company honchos, etc. These are "unscripted" moments: male Wal-Mart execs dressed as women, singing and dancing on-stage to rally the company troops. Wal-Mart execs joking about unsafe gas cans sold at the stores. A Wal-Mart exec introducing Hillary Clinton as "one of us." (No doubt many of these tapes are already up and running at someplace like YouTube.) There are lots of such meetings and Wal-Mart becomes Flagler's main source of revenue. But in 2006, Wal-Mart dumps Flagler.
No surprise, the production company, having lost its main customer, nearly goes under. Until the owners realize something: Wal-Mart and Flagler never signed a contract stating the terms of their relationship. So Flagler owns the tapes. They can do whatever they want with them. Like sell copies to lawyers representing a family that is suing Wal-Mart for selling a particular kind of unsafe gas can. The same can that company execs made jokes about because it was, ya know, so unsafe.
All I gotta say is: This is truly THE dumbass move of the day, week, month. Hell, of the millenium. Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh, man. I mean, I'm not a lawyer. Not even in the ballpark. But even I would know enough to (a) sign a contract if I entered into a business relationship; and (b) create a contract guaranteeing from now to eternity Wal-Mart's ownership of said tapes. It'll be awhile before I find a dumbass move to top this one. Well, okay. Maybe not. After all, there's a presidential campaign going on and George Bush is still in the White House.......
Meantime, Wal-Mart, I hereby offer my services as a contract reader. My fee? A mere one-tenth of what you paid the company honcho that hired Flagler. And I guarantee my work. You know where to find me.
I often think that someone could devote an entire blog to the topic of Stupid Liquor Laws, said laws being a good indicator of this country's screwball attitudes toward alcohol. (Well, okay, now that I think about it, Jay comes pretty close to doing just that.)
Anyway, file this under Stupid Liquor Laws: Today's Wall Street Journal features a piece about a guy named Ralph Erenzo. (I can't provide a link to the piece because the WSJ doesn't provide free content.) Erenzo lives in upstate New York, a mostly rural area with a mostly depressed economy. He's doing his bit for creating a locally based, "green" economy by operating a small distillery, where he makes vodka, bourbon, rye, rum, and other spirits. He hires local labor, and relies as much as possible on local crops.
So what's the problem? New York laws forbid him from selling his stuff directly to customers. So he can't operate a California-type tasting room where you can sip the goods and then buy a case. A hundred people a day might drive by during summer tourist season, but they can't buy his goods.
Erenzo and his business partner lobbied the state legislature to change the law, much as micro-brewers did in California twenty-five years ago so that they could operate brewpubs and sell their beer to consumers. After four years of lobbying, the legislature finally passed and the governor finally signed a law that created a new category of liquor license.
So where's the dumbass part? The law requires such small distillers to use ONLY ingredients found in New York. Nothing else.
Sooooooooo, as the columnist at the Journal (Brendan Miniter) points out, that lets out rum (sugar cane doesn't grow in New York), and Erenzo uses Candian rye. Which means he can't sell the stuff direct to customers. So here's a guy who's trying to revive New York agriculture and support the local economy -- stymied by yet another example of dumbass liquor laws.
There's no moral to this story. Just more head-shaking and eye-rolling on my part. When when when are we Americans gonna grow up and stop infantilzing the making and consuming of alcohol?
Okay, there are trans fats and there are trans fats. Some are made in factories by mixing various oils with chemicals and food coloring. They’re not exactly found in nature and they’re sure as hell not something you want to stick in your mouth. Then there’s the kind of trans fat found in meat, butter, and other “real" foods.
There’s evidence (albeit limited) that the human body needs those kinds of trans fats. According to a recent piece in the New York Times, trans fats that occur in nature help the body “can be used by the body to synthesize conjugated linoleic acid, a good fatty acid that could help prevent diseases like cancer." (From Kim Severson, “Trans Fat Fight Claims Butter As a Victim," NYT, March 7, 2007).
The amount of trans fat in a tablespoon of butter is minuscule. But it’s there and it’s probably useful.
Too bad, says the FDA, which has pronounced all trans fats equal and equally bad.
The result? Big companies like Starbucks are requiring their food vendors to eliminate ALL trans fats, even the ones from butter. No more real croissants, at least not at Starbucks. Just another example of the cult of victimization run wild. Another example of various bureaucrats believing that Americans don’t have enough sense to think for themselves.
Another example of common sense tossed right out the window.
Common sense? What, you ask, does that have to do with trans fats? In my opinion, everything. If Americans would eat REAL food, we’d all be healthier and happier. People who try to “diet" by eating fat-free cookies and cheese are missing the point -- to say nothing of missing out on honest nutrients that the human body needs and wants.
You want to eat “healthy"? Fine. Eat a balanced diet of proteins and fats. Vitamins and minerals. That means eat REAL food, not the fake shit being passed off by manufacturers and the government as “good" food. But here’s the scary part. Know what else contains trans fat? Meat.
So what’s the next stop on this slippery slope of irrationality? A ban on meat? No more burgers? No more chicken nuggets? Or worse yet, the introduction of “fake" meat that contains no trans fat -- and no nutritional value? Who knows. But stayed tuned for the next episode in The Decline of Civilization As We Know It. Meanwhile, I probably can’t persuade people to stop drinking Starbucks coffee, but I hope they’ll think twice before they shell out big bucks for the “food" being sold there.
Better yet, track down a copy of Michael Pollan’s piece titled “Unhappy Meals," in the January 28, 2007, New York Times Magazine. It’s a well-reasoned plea to eat real food. Here’s to ya.
I'm a long-time reader of obituaries. (No, I have no idea why I'm so fascinated by them. I'm sure the psychiatrists in the audience would be glad to offer some explanations). Anyway, I've read obits for years and years -- decades, in fact.
Back in the old days (which are increasingly seeming like the GOOD old days), the families of the deceased might suggest memorial contributions to a favorite non-profit. Great idea, because after all, does anyone really need all those flowers?
But in the past two years, I've noticed a truly disturbing trend in the American Way of Death: the family suggests that memorial contributions be made to -- the family.
Now, okay, if the deceased is the sole breadwinner and leaves behind a spouse and seven kids, I can certainly understand that the survivors might need some financial assistance. Or if a child is suddenly orphaned by the death of both parents But that's rarely the case in the "give us money" obits. Sometimes the deceased is a child. Sometimes it's an elderly person. Sometimes it's an unmarried, unparenting adult.
But the survivors want MONEY.
What the HELL is the deal with this? It's bad enough that soon-to-be-marrieds now routinely ask wedding guests for dough (the lastest wrinkle in that nasty fad is posting a house plan at a website and asking people to pay for a window, door, or floor covering. But survivors of the recently deceased asking for money? Ewwwwwwwwww! I truly don't understand this.
So if anyone can explain it to me, well, I'd be thrilled to bits. Just don't expect me to endorse this new "custom."
