AB InBev and Its Golden, um, Goose

I just got back from the 2011 Craft Brewers Conference in San Francisco. (Yes, had a great time; thanks for asking. Well, except for the part about the no airplane available on Sunday morning, which forced me to stay an extra day spent almost entirely in an airport hotel.....)

While I was gone, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced it had purchased a controlling share of Goose Island Brewing in Chicago and would soon buy the remaining shares. (ABIB already owned a share of the company that holds the minority share.

And the hand wringing has begun. (I'd post links, but there are too many. Just roam around the beerblogosphere and you'll find plenty.)

But: why? Why the hand wringing? And why is anyone surprised? People, were ya not payin’ attention here at the ol’ blogarooney?

I told you three years ago that you could expect to see moves like this. The only surprising fact here is that there haven’t been more of such moves.

Yes, ABIB and MillerCoors will continue to grab onto craft breweries (how many of them depends entirely on who is inclined to sell. Many craft brewers prefer to keep it small/local/beautiful/whatever). And why not? The people running those companies are not stupid. They understand that a small but affluent segment of beer drinkers is willing to pay a premium for, ya know, premimum beers. Like Goose Island.

And for a beer maker, premium is where it’s at. (Premium beers take up the same amount of space in the warehouse and on the truck, but they bringer a higher profit per bottle than “regular” beers.)

So. Of course ABIB is interested. What will the company do with its new acquisition? I haven’t a clue, although it has two obvious options.

One, it can leave the beermakers alone to keep making what they make (premium beers). Or two, it can tell the beermakers to cease and desist and start making Budweiser knock-offs.

Smart money says they opt for Door Number One. Why? Because ABIB isn’t looking for Bud knockoffs. It’s hunting for premium beers. (Remember those: the ones that yield more profit per bottle than Bud?) Why screw with the goose that’s laying the golden egg? (No pun intended until I realized that, heee heeeee!, I’d just made a pun!) (I’m not so good at puns.)

Leaving Goose Island alone to do what it does best is a win-win for ABIB: It earns profit and it can start loading GI products on its trucks and selling them in a larger territory than was available to GI when it was on its own. 

So. Time will tell, but --- I’ve been a pretty good prognosticator up to now.

When The High Road Isn't; Or, Yet Another Reason Why Zealots Makes Me Queasy

I'm moderate in my politics --- or centrist or whatever the term is for people who tend to take a balanced view of politics, government, the "process," and so forth. 

It's my view that in a democracy, compromise greases the wheels, which means that most of the time, every "side" gets a little bit of what it wants. (And, heh, it takes forever to get anything done. But hey! You stuff to happen fast? Go live in a dicatorship.)

Which is why I'm skeptical of zealots on both ends of the political spectrum. I'm dead certain people like Glenn Beck twist the facts at every opportunity and are consistently careless with words, not just in choice but in use. 

That carelessness, I assume, is intentional. "Spin" a situation ever so slightly with just the right word and just a little twist of the facts, and voila! You've revved up your followers and convinced them yet again that the "other side" is evil.

But the "right" doesn't have a lockhold on fact-twisting and intentional carelessness. The "left" can be just as manipulative. 

Consider this example. Below is tweet posted a week or so ago by a woman I'll call Madam Food Warrior. She's a Very Big Shot in the "real-and-pure" food movement. A Very Big Shot. She's holds a prestigious position. She's written several books on "food politics." When she speaks, people interested in the food movement listen. 

She's responding to news of a USDA decision to allow unregulated use of genetically modified alfalfa. (That specific context is irrelevant to my point.)

Uh oh. FSN says White House forced USDA to OK GM alfalfa so it would look business friendly. http://tinyurl.com/4h66dao 

Wow. Sounds bad, eh? The White House forced Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack to issue a decision and apparently did so to appease Big Business (which is enemy number one to people in the "real-and-pure" food movement.)  

So I clicked on the link to learn more about this pressure-from-the-top. The link led to an article at Food Safety News that contained more details about the decision about "deregulating" GE alfalfa. 

The report also contained a sentence to which Madam Food Warrior was obviously responding. Here it is:

Sources familiar with the negotiations at USDA, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Food Safety News they believe the White House asked Vilsack to drop proposed regulations so the administration would appear more friendly to big business.

My reaction?: Uh, what? 

I re-read the original tweet. As you can see, it asserts that the WH "forced" USDA to make a decision. 

Now look again at the quotation from the news report itself. According to that sentence, anonymous sources "familiar" with the negotions said that they BELIEVE the White House "asked" Vilsack to issue a particular ruling.

Did I just fall into a parallel universe?

A report from "anonymous sources" "familiar" with the situation who said they "believed" X happened is a loooooooog way from offering evidence that would have enabled Madam Food Crusader to ASSERT that the White House FORCED the USDA to act in a particular way. 

Sources "familiar" could mean janitors cleaning the hallway who overheard part of a conversation. It could mean lower level flunkies who heard something from someone who heard something from someone who heard something from someone who was there. 

The fact that these sources "believe" X happened doesn't mean they KNOW X happened. I can "believe" that Glenn Beck means well, but it doesn't follow that I know for a fact that he means well.

So what's point? 

This: Madam Food Crusader has almost 48,000 followers on Twitter. It's safe to assume that at least half are spammers, marketers, and the like who aren't interested in what she has to say.  (I took a quick look at her followers list. It's full of the usual scammers, spammers, marketers, etc. She obviously doesn't cull her list. I do cull spammers from my list and that amounts to half the people who follow me.) 

So let's say she's got 24,000 legitimate followers. Suppose all of them read that tweet. And suppose, oh, a quarter of them -- six thousand -- retweeted the tweet.

See where I'm going? Her careless (and presumably intentional) use of words created a false impression of a government decision, and thanks to the power of Twitter, that false impression then twisted and spun its way around the web.

If she were any old person, it might not matter. But she's not just any old person. She's a major figure in this movement. When she speaks, people listen. So when she speaks, she oughta be more careful about how she uses language to convey information. And so should the rest of us.

Moreover, the "food" movement portrays itself as traveling the moral high road. A large part of its thrust is that its adherents care about the planet, about poor people, about human health, and so forth, and care more than the nasty farmers and corporations who are only into food for the money. Their embrace of the moral high ground is a crucial part of their message.

But when I read stuff like this, I wonder if they've fallen off the road and into a gutter.

I know, I know: zealots are zealots because they care less about "facts" than they do about their cause. I get that. I know that. 

But in the age of the world wide web, information travels faster than ever, reaches more people faster, and, in the face of an onslaught of information, many people latch on to the easy, already-packaged conclusion. Because, ya know, it's easier to do that than it is to check out the situation for yourself.

But because it is so easy; because zealots on both sides are so ready and willing to manipulate their followers, well, I think I'll just stick with the center. Because I'm not sure that anyone at the spectrum poles can be trusted.

A Historian At Work: The Stuff of Which Inspiration Is Made

Coming out of the “I MUST finish this new book” cave for a moment to comment on a video I saw via Twitter. (The video clip came to me courtesy of Adam Penenberg.)

The video in question is an unintentionally hilarious clip from a 1994 edition of NBC’s “Today” show. 

My Twitter comment was “Howling”. But even as I zipped off that response, I knew it was glib and short-sighted. In fact, the clip is a historian’s dream. It’s a powerful primary source that would inspire historians interested in the social and cultural history of the internet and the worldwide web. 

Here's the clip:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUs7iG1mNjI]

(At least I hope it's still  there. Some versions of it have been removed from the web.)

[NOTE: the day after I posted this entry, L. A. Lorek posted a Twitter  link to a 1994 article she'd written about the internet. Great companion piece.]

Okay, so yes, it’s funny, right? Hilarious, in fact. “What is the internet anyway?” "Internet is, uh, that massive computer network that's becoming really big now."

But, oh boy! The possibilities for the historian! 

Think about it. The three anchors hosted what was then, and still is, one of the most “popular” news programs on television --- “popular” meaning it commands a huge audience. Every morning, people turn in to get their news from the “Today” show. 

So you’d think these three well-known, well-paid journalists, would be, ya know, clued in on that thing called the internet, the thing that was about to change every. single. thing. about human existence.

And yet --- none of then had the foggiest.

Which means that the creation of the two most powerful technological and social tools in modern history --- the internet and the web --- apparently unfolded completely unbeknownst to what we now call the “mainstream media” (aka MSM). 

(Light bulb! Is this one reason that internet- and web-saturated folks today are so dismissive of said “mainstream media.” Can this clip help historians make sense of the history of that stance?) 

From a historian’s point of view, the three anchors’ ignorance provides a ready-made starting point for a historical assessement of that moment. Certainly it inspires a host of questions a historian would want to answer:

Why were the people who created this profound moment in human history so far off the radar of mainstream journalism? And why was mainstream media so oblivious? (Those are two different questions.) 

How, if at all, did MSM’s ignorance of the “revolution shape the early history of the internet-and-web? Did MSM's obliviousness enable those pioneers to capitalize, literally and figuratively, on internet/web potential free of the influence of mainstream corporate America? Did that obliviousness shape internet/web pioneers’ “information wants to be free” paradigm? 

When, how, and why did Gumbel, Couric, and other journalist powerhouses finally catch on? Who or what tipped them off? How did they, as journalists, then “shape” the story? How did their mainstream “story” differ from the narrative put forth by the internet/web pioneers?

I could rattle off questions indefinitely, but I’m not planning to research or write about any of this, so I’ll stop. 

But you see what I mean: This is how historians work. We look back at the past; find an interesting/worthwhile “question”; ask more questions; and then try to find the answers.

The result, eventually, is a historical narrative: a recounting of “what happened.”

And inspiration comes from odd places, even a seemingly trivial-bordering-on-silly YouTube video, which in this case serves as a truly powerful primary document. 

So. There you go.

And here I go, back to the cave, where I'm reading  up on agricultural policy during the Truman era and learning why many ag experts believed that producing more meat seemed the happy answer to the otherwise vexing “agricultural problem.” See ya!

Need A New Year's Resolution? Save Money! Cook.

By way of saying farewell and adieu for another six months (at which time I surely will have written "The End" to my work-in-progress), allow me to get on my  high horse for a moment about one of my favorite subjects: food.

As food relates to money. Which, yes, it does. Consider this:

Several years ago, I was in Oregon visiting family and had dinner with my cousins at a "nice" restaurant: entrees in the $25.00 range. Good food. I enjoyed it. Drinks, dinner, wine, dessert. 

Expensive? Yes, it was. But my cousins ate there often. If I remember correctly, they'd already been there once that week. (This was, for them, a "neighborhood" restaurant.)

During the course of the conversation, one of the cousins complained about money, or the lack thereof. In his words, it was hard to "keep the wolf from the door," and if only he could earn about $10,000 a year more, he said, everything would be just dandy.

Being a polite midwesterner, I refrained from pointing out the obvious: He already HAD that "extra" $10,000 a year. Indeed, he was chowing down on part of it that moment.

Namely, all that money he spent (or threw away) every month going out to eat. I did a rough mental calculation and concluded that he and his family spent in the neighborhood of $800 a month going out to eat. By my math, which admittedly sucks, 800 times twelve equals $9,600 a year. Pretty damn close to ten thousand.

So. Looking for a new year's resolution? How about saving yourself some money (and time!) by doing some basic cooking?

That's the point of a lovely and practical essay by Mark Bittman in this week's New York Times Sunday opinion section.

Bittman writes about food for the Times and is the author of a number of cookbooks. His take on food is basic and practical: Cooking is not rocket science. Pretty much anyone can make a good meal.

EVEN WHEN YOU THINK YOU'RE 'TOO TIRED' TO DO SO. (In all caps because I want to make sure you get the point.)

He's dead right. When I'm tired at the end of the day, the last thing, and I mean the. last. thing. I want to do is drag my tired ass out to a restaurant. Get in the car or walk to a place, wait to be seated, wait to order, wait for the food, etc.

It's sooooooooooooooo much easier on my tired body, and so much more relaxing, to fix something at home. And, yes, it's cheaper!

What I especially appreciate about Bittman is his non-preachy approach to the matter: Keep some basics on hand. Learn a few (basic) skills. You're good to go!

(Unlike, in other words, the approach taken by the Food Scold In Chief [aka Michael Pollan], whose idea of cooking begins with a trip to the back yard to plant your garden. "It's not a meal, you fool! It's a political statement! Save the fucking planet first! And THEN you can eat.")

So. Do yourself a favor: read his essay, try one of the recipes. Please.

Here's my addition to his message: The smartest purchase I ever made (well, okay, the husband paid for it) was our small freezer. (If I remember correctly, it's ten cubic feet.) At any given moment, it's full of food I've cooked. Which means that at any given moment when I don't feel like cooking, well, hey, all I gotta do is trot down to the basement and pull something out, let it sit on the counter for a few hours, and voila! Dinner.

Whaddya waitin' for? Get cooking! Your brain, and your bank account, will thank you.

Bah . . .

And humbug. No, I did not finish the manuscript. Not even close. Which, okay, I knew would be the case back in October. But I gave it a good shot. 

The new deadline date (chosen by my editor, who apparently has an absurd amount of faith in me) is June 1. Now that I think I can manage.

So what does this mean? Well, alas and alack, the book won't come out in 2011. Which means, ugh, it will come out during an election year, which is precisely what I was trying to avoid.

(Because elections function as media sponges, absorbing every. last. bit. of media attention there is to be had. Leaving people like me out in the cold. Which, okay, is where I'd be anyway because I'm neither Famous nor Important so my books, which are neither Sexy, nor Groovy, and contain neither sex nor vampires, get little attention.)

But I'm one of those stupidly optimistic people for whom hope springs eternal, so hey, I'm gonna give all this my best shot. My 150%, all-in, all-out, pedal-to-the-metal shot at both a June 1 completion and a reasonably successful publishing experience. (Do me a favor: don't ask me to define a "reasonably successful" publishing experience. The reality is too damn depressing.)

So. I'm going to post some recipes (been cookin' up a stormy heaven in my new kitchen), and then create another hiatus post in which I shall bid you, dear friends, farewell for another six months.

And yes, I have missed blogging to an extent that I'm embarrassed to admit. 

On Hiatus Until I Finish the New Book

I'm well past the half-way point on the new manuscript, and still determined to finish it by December 31. I mean, okay, if I DON'T finish it, it's not like I'm gonna throw myself off the roof or anything. Still --- it would be nice.

That means I'm down to the wire. I've still got three chapters to research and write. That's a lot of work in three months.

And to that end, I'm no longer pretending that, okay, I can post the occasional blog entry. Believe me, the temptation is there. I read something that other day about doing history in the digital age that launched me straight into a diatribe. But I could tell it would turn into another of my multi-part series, so I backed away. Set it aside. Maybe later. 

The fact is that a substantive blog entry takes me several hours to write. At least. And that's several hours taken away from the main task at hand.

So. No. More. Blogging. Until I finish this manuscript. No more. Period. No "In the Kitchen." No rants. No beer-world updates. Nada.

Now if you're desperate to read my brilliant prose, please, be my guest! There are more than a thousand entries here. And three previous books. Have at it.

But nothing new until I finish the project at hand. I'm still taking my coffee/water cooler breaks at Twitter, and I peruse Facebook once or twice a day. But those are quickie breaks, just to remind myself that there's a world out there. 

Otherwise, however, I'm in the cave.