Let Us Now Praise . . . Alan McLeod (Again)

As some of you realize, I'm a big fan of common sense, reason, facts, and, well, good thinking.

Which is why I'm a fan of Alan McLeod, the brains behind A Good Beer Blog. A prime example is his recent essay about blogging, "professionals," "amateurs," and a whole lotta other topics in between. No, I'm not a beer blogger or a beer writer --- but I so appreciate good writing and thinking regardless of topic. I hope you to, too.

Which is why you oughta read Alan's blog. (And, no, I didn't know that I'd inadvertently referred him, via Stan, to the piece that inspired this instance of rumination. Frankly, and as I noted a day or so ago, I'm a bit baffled that anyone reads my tweets. Who knew?)

(Yes, I know that's irrational: Presumably I bother tweeting because I assume someone's going to read the tweet. Certainly that's my hope. In my experience, however, life is chock-ablock with unrealized hopes and so, ya know....)

I Love to Stand Corrected: More Than One Black Brewing Company

Just got an email from one Denny Stephens, who read the Washington Post op-ed piece and was kind enough to correct me on an important

point: There IS another black-owned brewing company in the U.S.: Brothers Brewing, located in Oakland, California. Many thanks to Denny for alerting me to this brewery. (Denny went to college with Michael LeBlanc.)

As long as I'm here: MolsonCoors is, technically and legally, a Canadian company. SABMiller's corporate headquarters is in London. MillerCoors, the joint venture launched by these two companies, operates in North America but is just that: a joint venture owned by the two parent companies.

An Even Cooler Map!

Wow. Now THIS is cool. (Yes, this is a day when not much work is getting done. Too many reporters calling. Too many other-beer-related things.) (And no, not all of them Beer Summit-related.)

Cool Maps: Bookstores

This definitely falls into the category of cool stuff: a global map of bookstores, to which you can add your own favs.

Aha! Jobs IS On the Job (Of Creating An E-Reader)

So. It's true: When Jobs says he's not doing something, it means that he is. A few months ago, and then a few months before that, I commented on Jobs's comment that no one reads anymore, which was interpreted as meaning "We're working in secret on The Best E-Reader Ever." Well, here's more news: Apple plans to release the device next year.

Bezos, getcher game on, buddy (as if there's ever a day you don't): Stevie Boy is comin' after you.

Wal-Mart Accelerates Move Toward "Ecological Intelligence"

A few weeks ago, I wrote a series of blog entries about Daniel Goleman's new book Ecological Intelligence.  

One of his main points, and the jumping-off place for my reflections on it, was his argument that it's possible to create product barcodes that tell consumers the true "ecological" cost of any given product. Only that, he argues, will prod consumers to begin thinking and acting green on the scale necessary to change the trajectory of climate change and ecological decline.

Apparently Wal-Mart agrees. The company announced that it will begin requiring all of its suppliers to include a full ecological history/cost analysis for all of its products, and in a form that consumers can use while they're standing in the store deciding what to buy.

The full report is in today's Wall Street Journal, but it's a subscription-only report, so I found this abbreviated version from another online sources here and here.

As Thomas Friedman point out in The World Is Flat, Wal-Mart isn't a store so much as it is a goods-delivery system, the largest one in the world. If it's prepared to demand that suppliers provide point-of-sale information on ecological costs/benefits/pricing, then we've taken one giant step toward the kind of "consumer revolution" that Goleman suggests is necessary.

Hey! I finally worked (an admittedly oblique) reference to the moon landing (fortieth anniversary coming right up) into my blog.