Sampler Platter

Your mind definitely isn't dirty enough (4.00 / 4)

That's a pretty suggestive ad.

I was a little chicken to ask this question before, but did anyone else find the banana pic Jay posted as an open thread last Friday to be suggestive? It's not just the enormous banana, it's the words, too.

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

---

by: wide eyed lib @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 17:31:15 PM CDT

Is that Paris Hilton? (4.00 / 3)

And do I need to get out more?

That's two questions.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

---

by: Anonymous Bosch @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 17:58:31 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hey, that bar looks familiar! (4.00 / 2)

Hee, Laurelwood on Sandy.  The video's acting really funky for me right now, I gotta go back in a few hours to try to listen to / watch it again...


"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs

---

by: JayinPortland @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 17:52:31 PM CDT

Found a cool article poking around at that site... (4.00 / 1)

Brewing Change: Why Craft Beer Makers Go Green -

But while Big Beer's mega-corporations continue to dominate the world market with slick advertising campaigns and inexpensive products, brewers of handcrafted beer stick to a more localized, or bioregional, business model that prizes quality and diversity over mass production. The brewers of America's New Beer are independent by nature, and for many, the tendency to eschew the old industry model is a decision rooted in ideology as much as economics.

In his book, Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World, author and beer activist Chris O'Brien claims that American craft brewers are the country's unlikely revolutionaries, and that their adoption of sustainable business practices helps fight globalization and break the market control of major beer companies. And whether the brewers believe it or not, he's right.

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs

---

by: JayinPortland @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 18:11:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hrrrmmmmmgggghhh... (4.00 / 1)

How would you pronounce that, btw?

Anyways, from the school lunch article -

The changes also had to do with kids' preferences. Sure, Giannini used to make her own three bean salad, her own coleslaw and her own carrot raisin salad. But her students consistently threw the homemade sides into the trash. Today, the Round Table Pizza, the popcorn chicken and the mini cheeseburgers sell well, and they actually end up in children's stomachs. "We try to do the items kids like best," Giannini said. "Part of it is just trends with what they want. They're used to all this fast food."

Yeah, but that's because it's even being reinforced in schools.  You know, "health" class (do they still have them?  It was part of our PE program, 3 quarters PE and 1 quarter classroom health classes), followed by a trip to the cafeteria where the vast majority of food available to eat is the same exact stuff the book probably just told you not to eat.

21 years ago, I'm actually amazed she did cook then.  1988 was well after "ketchup is a vegetable", and all that.  1988, I would have been in 4th grade I guess?  I wonder how much things changed while I was going to school.  But I wasn't paying much attention to changes in the operations of our school cafeteria(s) back then, heh.  

I remember high school, and NJ's wasn't that bad.  Lot of bags and packaged crap, though.  A basket with like 3 apples, and then an entire display of chips and shit.  But I've mentioned before, I really would love to see some study looking at states' school food programs compared to each other over the years in terms of nutrition, what was allowed, etc.  Because the year I did in Arizona, the cafeteria was a horror of branded fast-food and soda fountains, neither of which were allowed in NJ public schools as far as I knew.  I know soda was not allowed in NJ schools in the 80s / 90s, but it definitely was in Arizona.  I know, I drank it back there.  In cups with Coca Cola logos.  Blech...

As for the food - there maybe might not have even been much of a difference nutritionally (or it could have even been the same stuff, just w/o logos), but at least the constant (and sickening) consumerism and branding wasn't present.

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs

---

by: JayinPortland @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 19:16:58 PM CDT

Kwitch yer bitchin'... (4.00 / 1)

Free enterprise, corporate branding, selling to consumers the things that they want, and if they don't want them then advertise to make 'em want it.  Hey man, that's the American way, don't let no Frenchie tell you different. Jist ask the GOP...  ;-)

---

by: DennisP @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 20:57:18 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Lol... (4.00 / 1)

I originally read your comment as "don't let no franchisee tell you different".  That would work in its own way too, I guess...

Heh.

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs

---

by: JayinPortland @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 21:17:50 PM CDT

[ Parent ]