Great Example Of Ahistorical [Beer] Reporting

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It's been sort of hot news lately (hot, at least, among beer people): China's Snow beer is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest selling beer, elbowing Current King Beer -- Bud Light -- of the throne it's held since 2003. So today's Guardian (a British newspaper) has an article about this moment in beer history.

But -- oy -- could the reporter have done a little research first? A little historical research? Case in point: the reporter's claim that the Chinese "have been developing a taste for home-grown" beer. Oh? They "developed" that taste many years ago.

When I first visited China in 1987, the place was awash in local beers. My husband and I found a bit of Heinken and Busweiser in two major cities; we found Tsingtao in a few upscale, urban eateries. Otherwise, it was local beer all the time. (Great beer, too. Most of it was unpasteurized and each one tasted different.)

So I don't think the Chinese are only now discovering "local" beer. The reporter also says that Snow's success is due to China's "the growing thirst of Chinese drinkers for beer."

Again: Huh? The Chinese have been downing bazillions of gallons (or liters) of beer for a long time, if only because there aren't that many hydration options. Potable water, for example, was (and still is) hard to come by. (Indeed, in 1987, I had a tough time figuring out how to fill the water bottle I'd brought with me. I developed a system, using the boiled water our hotel rooms always had on hand for tea. In 1999, I was able to find bottled water in a few cities.)

So until fairly recently, people's choices in the People's Republic have been tea, local soft drinks, or beer. In recent years, soft drinks have become more ubiquitous, as has bottled water, meaning that, if anything, the Chinese may be drinking less beer rather than more.

So: I'm not buying the explanation for Snow's ascent.

On a different note: it's also not clear that Snow has killed the King. Numbers in the beer industry vary, because it matters who is counting what. For example, those numbers for Snow may include all the Snow products, rather than just one label. Eg, the numbers may include Snow, Snow Light, Snow Whatever.

Put another way, the counters may be counting all versions of Snow against just one Anheuser-Busch brand, Bud Light. Obviously, if someone counted all Snow products and all A-B products, the numbers would come out differently.

Top o' the mug to Hunter at Sybeeritic for the link to the Guardian article. (By the way, he gets my vote for having the most creative blog name. Terrific play on words...)

Historical Significance And The Election Of 2008. Part 2.

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Part One --- Part Two

As was true a century ago, so, too, in the past thirty years, we Americans have lived through a period of exceptionally intense social, cultural, and economic upheaval.

Our "manufacturing" sector now rests more on ideas than on machines, but our educational system has not kept pace. Immigration, legal and otherwise, continues to change the face of America. Computers, regarded as an egghead novelty in the 1980s, are fundamental to daily life in 2008. So, too, are internet-based communications. Globalization isn't just a word, and the "flat world" not just a concept. Those are the realities of daily life. Economic turmoil in Iceland, pollution in China, African drought and famine: they affect our economy; our levels of smog; our foreign policy (for which we pay taxes).

The pace of this tumult can rattle the most focused and open-minded among us, and make us long for some imagined or real "good old days," when everyone looked like us and we knew where we would work for the next thirty years. When our neighbors all spoke English, and our home lives were distinct from our work lives. When no one pondered the cost of oil, and blackberries and computers were the stuff of science fiction.

It's normal to want things to stay the same. It's normal to feel anxious when change forces itself into every crevice of our lives. It's normal, too, to react to upheaval with fear and loathing. Whether he intended it or not, Senator McCain exploited these undercurrents of nostalgic fear and anxiety.

His running mate, Governor Palin, touted the virtues of "real" Americans (translation: white, Christian, middle-class) as more valuable that an apparently "unreal" America (apparently non-white, non-Christian, and some undefined "class.") She pitched her appeal to a culture that would look inward; to fear, hostility and division. In her America, citizens would ignore the realities of globalization and global politics (except, presumably, to launch attacks on "terrorists," which she defined as anyone who isn't white, small-town, and American.)

Barack Obama, on the other hand, urged voters to recognize the realities of global politics; to acknowledge that "Americans" are white, black, Asian, and "other"; are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Bahai and, god forbid (no pun intended), even atheist. He recognized that the "future" is already here, and it's our job to figure out how to live in and with it. He reminded us that that the United States is the shining city on the hill and that it's our moral obligation to engage with the rest of the planet.

In short, during the election campaign of 2008, we faced two clear paths. Not between two different tax policies, or between different versions of national health care. Not between those who do and do not wear lapel pins. Not between those who use blackberries and those who barely understand "the google."

Rather, we faced two different visions about how we see ourselves, our nation, our nation's relations with the rest of the planet, and the future. And on election day, we chose.

The historical significance of Obama's election is this: At a moment when the entire planet faces multiple crises -- environmental, political, economic -- millions of Americans voted to explore, rather than ignore, uncertainty. Rather than ignore globalization, millions chose to acknowledge it so we can figure out how to live with it. Chose engagement rather than isolation. Chose unity rather than division. We chose to embrace the realities of the present so that we could plan a better future. We chose courage -- and, yes, hope -- over fear. That is the significance of the election of 2008.

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Sidenote: Last week, I read a terrific op-ed piece about the historical implications of this election, one that echoed what I was already thinking about. So here's a short essay by Samuel Freedman, who is far more eloquent than I am.

Historical Significance And The Election Of 2008. Part 1.

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Part One --- Part Two

In the hours and days after the election, there was much talk about the fact that American elected a multi-racial man who identifies himself as "African-American." According to most commentators, that was the historical significance of the election of 2008.

As a historian, I agree that this election was historically significant, but not because of Obama's race (although obviously, that was itself momentous.) (*1) Rather, at a pivotal moment in the history of our nation, two candidates offered two distinct alternatives for confronting cultural, social, and economic upheaval. One wanted to circle the wagons; the other wanted to confront the upheaval. One offered a retreat into a mythic nostalgia; the other offered an embrace of the future.

It's not the first time we've mulled such distinct alternatives. One hundred years ago, for example, Americans faced a similar choice at a similar moment of economic, cultural, and social upheaval. In the early 20th century, the United States was in the (rapid) process of leaving behind a rural, non-industrialized society in favor of one that was mostly urban and manufacturing-based. (The 1920 census confirmed the transformation: half of Americans lived in an urban place. Today, something like 75% do.)

During this period, from about 1880 to 1920, industrialization in the form of mechanization and huge factories had become the mainstay of the economy. Electricity, the telephone, and movies changed the way Americans viewed the world around them. So did inexpensive printing processes that made newspapers, magazines, and books more accessible than ever before.

For the first time, average Americans were attending (mostly public) school for anywhere from eight to twelve years. The automobile and rapid travel become commonplace. (Americans acquired roughly nine million cars between 1900 and 1920.) We take those things for granted now, but a century ago, they were Americans' equivalent of our switch to a "wired" world.

Immigration soared, too. Between 1880 and 1920, some 24 million people entered the U.S. legally.(*2) For the first time, however, most of the new arrivals were not from northern Europe or the British isles. Instead, they were Hispanic or Asian, or came from Eastern and Southern Europe. Millions were Jewish and Catholic.

U. S. engagement with the rest of the world increased as well. Some of those episodes are ugly (think Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War), but good or bad, Americans acknowledged and engaged with people and places beyond their own borders.

Put another way, between 1880 and 1920, the United States became a nation different than it was in, say, 1870. That tumult, which filtered deep into daily life, fostered a powerful political movement that rested on an inward-looking politics of fear. Leaders of this movement portrayed small-town and rural Americans as "good." They painted urban dwellers as decadent and immoral. People who embraced this political culture were hostile toward non-whites and non-Christians; were hostile toward "the other." (*3)

The era also fostered the emergence of what we now call "fundamentalist" Christianity. It inspired a new kind of race-based science (aimed at proving the superiority of the "white" and "European" race). Those same political forces also nurtured the prohibition movement. The Anti-Saloon League's crusade rested on a worldview that pitted small-town and rural America against the decadence and immorality of "big" cities. In the minds of prohibitionists, abstinence from alcohol symbolized a particular way of life (small-town and rural) and a kind of morality (abstinence = god-fearing righteousness, the god, in this question, being a Protestant one). (*4)

Next: What this has to do with the election of 2008.

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*1: As a voter, I was delighted that Obama's father was "black" and his mother "white." That he lived in Indonesia and Hawaii (which is a racially diverse culture). That he has a Kenyan grandmother. But as far as I was concerned, his multi-racial makeup was the icing on an already magnificent cake.

*2: U.S. population in 1900 was 75.9 million; in 1920 it was 105.7 million.

*3: Anti-semitism and anti-Catholicism were not new in early 20th century America; what was different was the idea of seeing Catholics and Jews specifically as "city folks" and therefore suspect. There was also enormous racial conflict. Lynchings were common, as were urban race riots.

*4: It is a measure of the powerful appeal of this particular form of politics that as early as 1909, half of Americans already lived under some form of dry laws, either local or state. The 18th Amendment, however, did not take effect until 1920.

History And The American Economy: Where Have We Been? Where Should We Go? Part 5 of 5

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Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five The "wired" economy is dwindling. So what's next? Where do we find the next foundation for the American economy?

Answer: Re-imagining, re-inventing, and re-shaping our daily infrastructure to create a "greener" world. Which brings me back to where I started: Thomas Friedman and that piece in the New York Times about the "greening" of venture capital.

Our economic future lies in an investment in the ideas and technology of a "green" economy. We can repair our economy by repairing the planet. Imagining a new infrastructure will require two basic activities:

First, intellectual activity in the form of research and development. Someone has to work out the details of the ideas that will provide the solutions to the climate crisis. Someone has to figure out how to mass produce hydrogen fuel cells, for example, or create wind turbines scaled to single homes. (I'm making up these examples.) (*1)

Second, it will require things: solar panels, hydrogen cells, wind turbines, and a ton of stuff that hasn't been developed yet. Both activities will generate jobs. Lots and lots of jobs.

But only if we get off our asses and start mobilizing what's left of our intellectual infrastructure and begin investing in this new economy. It won't be easy because we Americans are (a) masters of the short-term solution and it's easier to create bailout plans than it is to change the way we think about our daily lives; and (b) no doubt we'll spend years arguing about whether government should or should not take the lead.

But as I noted in an earlier post, democracies are slow. You want it done fast? Call 1-800-DictatorsRUs. But if we don't do it, I guarantee that some other country will. So. Time for us to get busy. Time for us to start electing leaders who understand that the world has changed and we MUST change with it.

As a side, but related note, the historian in me realizes that this might be the historical moment that launches a new political party. The last time a "third" party succeeded was in the 1850s, when a broad cross-section of Americans dedicated to stopping and/or eliminating slavery joined forces under the umbrella of the new Republican party. The structure of our system makes it all but impossible for a third party system to function, so the Republican party survived only by draining support from the old Whig party.

That was the last time an upstart has managed that feat. But if ever there was a historical moment when a new party could elbow either the Democrats or the Republicans off stage, this is it.

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*1: But as noted in the NY Times article with which I started all this, someone also has to fund that activity. I can see it now: In twenty years, Wall Street will collapse again because investment houses will have sold debt-swaps based on green R&D.