148 Comments

1. Neil:

The real problem is that Mackey came out of the closet. In his opinion, he refers to an Investor’s Business Daily article. No right-thinking CEO of a good, progressive, company should be reading such filth.

Who knows what else he’s been reading?

Aug 14, 2009 - 12:55 pm 2. Gordon:

Yes–amazing how having to make a profit concentrates the mind wonderfully. At the store near me the employees are always cheerful and courteous and competent and you’ll see them doing different jobs in different parts of the store at various times. Plus a great place to see tattooed women.

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:06 pm 3. always right:

Indeed! How dare he?!!??!!

For the disappointed patrons who had been enjoying Whole Foods’ past success, shouldn’t the owner of Whole Foods doing the ‘green tofu thing’ out of his own good heart, instead of running a business ‘FOR PROFITS’?

A sin!

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:06 pm 4. Roderick Reilly:

This is how a great many people who vote liberal live their lives. They work, live, and manage money in a manner consistent with common sense and sober, conservative values, and see no inherent contradiction between how they do things for themselves and their families, as opposed to the profligate embezzlers and purveyors of leftist dogma that they insist on sending back to Congress time and time again. I mean, how else do you explain Cleveland, what with its penchant for re-electing Dennis Kucinich automatically forever? Or Nevada, with Harry Reid?

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:09 pm 5. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”"Yes–amazing how having to make a profit concentrates the mind wonderfully. “”"”"

True. Just ask George McGovern, who went into the hotel business after leaving politics. Note that he did an ad against Card Check a few months ago.

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:12 pm 6. luddy barsen:

from the WSJ article:

“…Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums…for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.”

The heartless capitalist oppressor! He should go banckrupt chasing ObamaLove, and then show solidarity with his former employees by joining them on the bread line!

One wonders, how has Joshua made it to 45 years old without oh, dilating to a vanishing point?

Related (and gallows humor par excellence in Barone’s modest proposal)

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:34 pm 7. Joshua:

Roderick Reilly, #4: This is how a great many people who vote liberal live their lives. They work, live, and manage money in a manner consistent with common sense and sober, conservative values, and see no inherent contradiction between how they do things for themselves and their families, as opposed to the profligate embezzlers and purveyors of leftist dogma that they insist on sending back to Congress time and time again.

I know many people like this. Indeed, I have quite a few in my extended family.

Based on my observations of these people, I suspect this phenomenon has a lot to do with support for various liberal culture-war positions – abortion rights, gay marriage and such. I look for political candidates who will vigorously protect and defend this country and exercise fiscal responsibility; as long as they do these things I don’t really give a rat’s hindquarters what their view is on these “hot-button” culture war issues. But those of which I (and possibly Roderick) speak take the exact opposite approach – their favorite culture-war issue is their “litmus test” that a candidate must pass, and if the candidate also happen to be hawkish and fiscally responsible as well, so much the better. If not, well, at least he/she believes in a woman’s right to choose. Or a gay couple’s right to get hitched. Or whatever else floats their boat.

P.S. Not that anyone here at BC would have suspected otherwise, but no, I am not the “Joshua” referred to in the original post.

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:39 pm 8. RWE:

I have related this story here before, but it is favorite of mine:

A Soviet agent was sent to the USA in the 30’s, and as was the custom of the time he was forced to work to make a living as he spied for the USSR. He ended up being an entrepreneur and starting his own company.

When brought back to the Rodina years later he was treated as a hero, having suffered in the horrid USA on behalf of the Worker’s Paradise. At one factory he was given a tour and then asked to provide the workers with a few inspirational words.

His first few words set the tone of his speech, “If this was my factory I would fire all of you…”

No wonder Beria had all those “contaminated” spies recalled and executed!

I was also amused and surprised by a few inspirational words from Jerry Brown, former Gov Moonbeam of 80’s California, former Democratic presidential hopeful, former Mayor of Oakland, and current California Attorney General. On the subject of people’s claims of police brutality: “These people have a movie playing in their heads that bears no relation to reality.”

Welcome to our planet, Jerry!

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:49 pm 9. Paul Milenkovic:

Problem for the CEO of Whole Foods is that what he is selling the the whole liberal-left social experience. Whole Food is to a left-winger what an ammunition store is to a gun nut.

Have you ever been in a Whole Foods and looked over the shoppers along with the clerks? Read the bumper stickers out in the parking lot?

As much as anything in the world is real as opposed to some kind of social construct, to borrow some reasoning from the kind of people who might teach at an academic department with “Studies” in the title and may also shop at Whole Foods, the “real” version of Whole Foods is something like the Willys Street Coop in Madison, Wisconsin. Whole Foods is a kind of synthesis of the East Madison 1960’s hippie food coop with a kind of boutique seller of upscale, luxury foods. Whole Foods is “not real” in the sense that it is not a kind of hippie quasi-socialist coop, it is a for-profit corporate entity, and as such, it carefully crafts its corporate brand. Just as McDonalds has kitch brand-ID like Ronald McDonald and the Hamburgler, Whole Foods has its left-wing stupid “Declaration of Interdependence” plastered on the wall by the cash registers.

In a way I blame more Mackey and side with Goofy Left-wing Lady on this. I mean what is Goofy Left-wing Lady purchasing at Whole Foods? Food? No, that can be purchased for half the money down the street at a chain supermarket. What one is purchasing at Whole Foods is the Whole Liberal-Left-Wing social experience, mingling with people who share your world view. By going iconoclast on Health Care Reform, Mackey has damaged (who knows if it is that serious) the brand.

If one is truly a “man or woman of the people”, one shops at Aldi, an international chain of German ownership specializing in bare bones product selection and rock bottom prices. Among the social cross section one encounters there are a number of inter-racial couples. To be inter-racially married, even all of these years after Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier, one has to be genuinely liberal in terms of social outlook, and one has to seriously not care about what other people think about you. Such people shop at Aldi and mingle freely with the people who have to shop there on account of the low prices. I do not see inter-racial couples shopping at Whole Foods. I do not see anyone fitting the profile of a Whole Foods shopper at Aldi. People who shop at Whole Foods care a great deal what people think about them.

Another interesting matter relating to Whole Foods is a book titled “Class” by Paul Fussell. It is this short work outlining what social class you belong to based on your tastes in entertainment and housing and house decorating. One of the interesting categories in “high prole” (prole as in proletarian after Orwell’s 1984 and the mass of people who spoke thick Cockney and were not Party members). The observation is that one can be wealthy enough to be considered “rich” by any reasonable definition, but one can remain working class in one’s sense of taste and be, well, high prole.

The other interesting thing about the book, which on one hand seemed critical of the lower classes for having cheesy tastes, but on the other hand seemed critical of the middle classes for being affected in their tastes out of insecurity about their social standing, offered “The X Way Out” as a final chapter, describing a kind of middle class bohemianism as a way out of social striving and class insecurity.

Fussell’s description of “The X Way Out” describes the Whole Foods clientel to a T, and to me, it is even phonier than the kind of middle class, say, as lampooned in the movie “The Graduate.” Again, I think the only people who are not phony about social class are the professional-class inter-racial couples shopping at Aldi, because to be inter-racially married and to shop at Aldi (or especially Wal-Mart), you have to really not worry about what anyone thinks about you.

Aug 14, 2009 - 1:57 pm 10. Salt Lick:

I mean, how else do you explain Cleveland, what with its penchant for re-electing Dennis Kucinich automatically forever?

Heh. My wife grew up in Cleveland and we recently visited a progressive couple with whom she’d attended high school. At breakfast, they served us eggs from Whole Foods which were (according to the carton), “Organic eggs laid by vegetarian chickens.” I voiced relief that I’d never seen a meat-eating chicken. Nobody laughed.

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:02 pm 11. Tcobb:

I voiced relief that I’d never seen a meat-eating chicken.
Is a chicken that eats bugs still a vegetarian? If you think they don’t, you have never been around a chicken.

And when you really get down to it–is there any such thing as an inorganic egg?

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:13 pm 12. Gaffe Prices:

Thanks for the clarification, I remember a bit dimly Ivan Denisovich’s dilemma in Solzhenitsyn’s classic (I read in 1984 to be exact).
The message is- when the choices include only one survivable one, there is still the possibility that the caged bird might one day sing (again), to cop a phrase.

I worked at Whole Foods, and despite any liberal trappings, Mr. Mackey had a reputation for realizing that capitalism and market forces is the only way his model would succeed (however trite his model may seem to us).

He figured, its pointless to fail at this (his business model) pursuit if you don’t recognize and take full advantage of market forces.

whatever, we have his version of a commercialized lifestyle.

As to whole foods health plan, it (the company) offered access to an insurance company’s options, and one way to do it is to set your deductible high, and get the lowest rate in various categories (I’m fuzzy on those too) such as “basic” care, supplemental extra care, etc. and on up to catastrophic care.
My boss (team leader) elected to pay at a rate that priced lowest on all but catastrophic where he sunk his greatest expenditure.

I paid handsomely for a lower deductible and when I later got pneumonia, (viral, not bacterial, and I rode the bus at the time), There was reimbursement for my medical bills which included a sputum test, (which takes 3,4,5,6,7 days to get results back from Austin), an x-ray, and some subsequent visits.

I got no prescriptions for antibiotics and those would have accomplished nothing as the sputum test revealed I had a “viral” (and not bacterial) pneumonia a week later.

When I added what I had paid in the insurance premiums, vs. what the care cost, at the doctor visits, and my part of the deductible, it became apparent to me that what I had done was pay for the total costs of doctor visits essentially in advance.

So there was no free lunch, and there couldn’t be, nor should there be. This is not a life insurance payoff: In govt run health care, those who can be taxed will pay for it, “ours” and others who dont’ pay taxes, and the CBO has said it can’t be paid for no matter how much you raise taxes on “the rich” or anybody and everybody else for that matter.

So those who can pay for it will (through taxes) and who don’t, won’t (have to pay for it in taxes).

Meanwhile we go broke with tens of trillions adding up in deficit spending.

(Hmmm, that sounds funny: I wish I was broke; cause at least I wouldn’t owe anybody any money.

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:25 pm 13. PA Cat:

I voiced relief that I’d never seen a meat-eating chicken.

It’s them durned foul carnivorous fowl that are coming home to roost.

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:25 pm 14. Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » When good people turn bad, in today’s roundup:

[...] politics: When good people turn bad, or, what happened when Ben Chavis,”the highly unorthodox principal of Oakland, California’s [...]

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:41 pm 15. hdgreene:

The Democrats health care plan is like a really complex labyrinth. If you enter the Health Care Reform Labyrinth and feel your way through it for, oh, five to seven years, they promise you will eventually come upon a precious commodity called “Affordable High Quality Health Care.” Once you locate it you will be able to keep for the rest of your days. Now, as people wander through the Labyrinth, some fear that — should reform prove a chimera — they may not be able to find their way back out. And so these folks lay bread crumb trails so they can follow the track back out. Except the bread crumb trails become all confused by all the different people taking different turns to find that better health care. And then, and then, the forest creatures eat the bread crumbs! So now, the only choice is to go forward and find that elusive affordable, high quality health care.

But then, but then, you learn of another Malevolent Spectral presence lurking in the Health Care Reform maze. Familiar faces begin to mysteriously disappear. You hear slightly paranoid stories. For instance, that the forest creatures that ate the breadcrumbs were put there by Democrat politicians (with some help from Republicans). You hear that one fellow — a guy who read his fairy tales before they were rewritten by the education bureaucracy — had known not to use crumbs and instead cleverly laid a paper trail. This paper was shredded and vacuumed up by undocumented workers and used to cook marshmallows over at David Axlerod’s place! And they tasted good! Then the fellow with the paper trail went in for test and, and, never came back! You hear that there is a phantom hand at work, one that keeps rewriting the rules and changing the signs. And there is a Slight of Hand at work, one that rearranges the passages in the labyrinth and keeps moving the “precious commodity” away from the seekers.

Then you hear that, yes, you can keep the health care you have for the rest of your days but that your days really are numbered. No, really. There is a dot-gov website where you can go and check how many you got. So you check. And you notice that sometimes it ticks off more than one day. Sometimes three days. Sometimes a week. Sometimes a month. And you wonder: what gives — or rather takes — your remaining days? And then you discover that the phantom hand and the slight of hands belong to politicians, lawyers, special interest, unions, Big Business, the bureaucrats, the professional organizations, the politically favored, the privileged and the powerful. The system needs it inefficiencies to keep the hangers on happy. They all feed and the appetite grows with the eating. They have been eating other peoples lunch for years but now the only source of nourishment is patient care. And then it hits you: the green monster eats people!

It’s coming to a drive-in near you. Oh, wait. I mean hospital. Health Care Reform Horror.

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:46 pm 16. RWE:

Paul #9:

Relative to the “high prole” class, I think another way to say this is:

“I may be rich but I’ll never be wealthy.”

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:55 pm 17. Subotai Bahadur:

While Mackey drew more intense Red-on-Red fire in public; both he and Chavis have committed the ultimate sin in modern Socialist America. And success in what they were doing just aggravates the crime. They actually approached the problem from the point of view of what would work best for the ones they were doing the job for; rather than what would promote class consciousness and solidarity with the downtrodden and their protectors, the Vanguard of the Proletariat. [I don't know which was harder; writing that dreck or realizing that in one form or another that is settled theology for a goodly portion of those who are no longer our countrymen.]

Mackey had to be subjected to public criticism immediately and harshly, simply because his sins were so public. As noted above, writing in the Wall Street Journal and admitting to an acquaintance with Investors’ Business Daily is something not done by an icon of the counter-culture.

However, it is possible for him to recant [and maybe even change Whole Foods' health plan to Buraq's lusted for Public Option] and thus limit the damage. Chavis’ version of Rightist Deviationism strikes more at the heart of everything the Left holds dear.

Consider. The students of the American Indian Public Charter School were failing in every measure of education; Literacy, Numeracy, and socialization into the mores of the larger society. They had a future as clients of the State for the rest of their lives, solely dependence on the largesse of their political masters for their livelihoods, and of course immune from any responsibity for themselves.

What did Dr. Chavis do with his subversive; “If you act like a fool, you’ll be treated like a fool. If you act like a winner, you’ll be treated like a winner.”? Students who can read, might read improper thoughts. Students who can count may be harder to swindle. Students who understand that being an independent and responsible human being is better for your future than being a lower status pack animal, could be self-supporting and have their own ideas not sanctioned by the State or Party.

Chavis has not only ruined the lives of all those students, but has added to the burdens of the State. Instead of being supported by the State to which they would owe all, they could end up supporting themselves and resenting the impositions for the greater good. They may end up resisting, and have to be suppressed.

I am sure that somewhere, bad things are being planned for Dr. Chavis.

Subotoi Bahadur; who was only exaggerating slightly.

Aug 14, 2009 - 2:57 pm 18. JonSK:

When the Dixie Chicks announced their distain for George W. Bush and his policies, progressives embraced their courage in “speaking truth to power”, and for putting principle ahead of protecting their income. Conservative country music fans angered by the Chicks’ outburst were denounced as small-minded bigots bent on crushing this Patriotic Dissent.

Now the (natural fiber, fair trade) shoe is firmly on the other foot. Who is courageous? Who are the bigots? Who speaks truth to power? Who seeks to crush the highest form of patriotism?

Question authority! Fight the State! U.S. out of Texas! (this is fun)

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:00 pm 19. Peter Boston:

Dr. Sanity has been an island of insight and knowledge on the psychology of the Left. She certainly can speak for herself but my take away on her many writings is that people like Joshua the Blogger have lost their connection to reality. Anything that challenges the authenticity of their make-believe-world is met with anger and violence.

The idea that there are millions of people out there who live every day in a make-believe-world scares the heck out of me.

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:32 pm 20. Stephen:

“Fussell’s description of “The X Way Out” describes the Whole Foods clientel to a T, and to me, it is even phonier than the kind of middle class”

I read Fussell’s book when it was published and then re-read it a few months ago. When he described the X class I was sure he was describing the sterotypical lecherous college professor. These guys rule the world and captivate lovely young women…………………. in their dreams.

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:50 pm 21. bud:

The copywriter at the Whole Foods advertising agency has obviously never been closer to a live chicken than the poultry aisle in a supermarket.

Chicken are NOT vegitarian, they are cheerfully omnivorous. So omnivorous, in fact, that they transit smoothly to cannibal.

Any chicken keeper will tell you that you can’t leave a chicken with an open sore in the flock – the other chickens will peck at the sore. A chicken beheaded in the yard in front of other chickens does not produce a mad rush away from the man with the hatchet, instread, they will fight over who gets to eat the head which hits the ground in front of them.

Waaay too many people in this world think that Disney cartoons are documentaries.

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:52 pm 22. JJRedfan:

When Bad People Turn Worse

ABC’s website has an article titled “[headline] Fear for Obama’s Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash [followed by subhead]
Violent Signs, Gun, Standoff Latest in Emerging Anger Towards the President”

Along with the text, which seems to be based ENTIRELY on allegations without citation from Mark Potok (director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center) there are several clickable images, labeled with lurid captions claiming rightwing threats against O.

One shows a teenager with a military style rifle, with the caption, “Feds Thwart Alleged Skinhead Plot.”

When you follow the link, you find that sure enough, this is the same two idiots that were busted in For-Pete’s-Sake OCTOBER OF 2008 for their bumbling plot.

So ABC is dredging up the half-assed boasting couple of skinheads from two years ago, and deliberately MIS-REPRESENTING that as a current news item. IN FACT, there are TWO different links on the two successive pages for the article, EACH with different images and text, so that you don’t realize they are after all linked to the SAME item unless you follow both links.

THIS IS LYING. It is clearly a deliberate attempt to pad their claims of an increase in threats to the president by first using OLD news, and then by using multiple links to that one item to make it seem like several different plots.

As if we didn’t already know ABC is a bunch of cheap whores…

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:52 pm 23. luddy barsen:

U.S. out of Texas! (this is fun)

No sh*t! Really! Think about –we could draw up an alliance with Mexico and march on Castro & Chavez!
Well i guess that march on Castro would have to be at low tide.

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:56 pm 24. Mad Fiddler:

Bud, them’s fightin’ words for us animators.

>;-)

Aug 14, 2009 - 3:58 pm 25. luddy barsen:

fiddler, Foghorn Leghorn is an all time fave (speaking of ‘toon chickens).

jjred, me too, i followed the same path and had to get way down into the text before i saw a ref to ‘candidate’ Obama. Then and only then did i dig up the date at the top, Oct 2008 (which BTW ain’t quiiite two years ago but who’s counting).

ABC presented as if the three speedfreaks threatening O had done it alongside that red VW guy who DID do it in this news cycle. Cheeeeap ABC. Speaking of Foghorn Leghorn, cheap cheap cheap cocky doodle doo

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:07 pm 26. Mad Fiddler:

Of course, we will be obliged to return the Louisiana purchase to France, because we clearly took unfair advantage of their straightened circumstances to bully them into yielding up that vast territory. Let the French see if they can show a little more respect and egalité with the heirs of dispossessed native Americans than did the new U.S. republic. Maybe some eclairs or bernaise sauce recipes.

Ditto for Alaska. Back to Russia, which means we gotta restore the Tsars. Anyone know how to bring back the Romanovs from extinction maybe with some Frog DNA to fill in the gaps? (French Frog, that is…)

Hmmm. Seems like folks are looking to reverse the arrow of time as it hurtles ineluctably from the past to the future. Get the sound energy from the rung bell to scurry back to the bronze, the chick return to the egg, reassemble the shell and leap back into the cloaca of a very surprised hen, and the “ink from the poet’s pen flow back into the inkwell…”

Well, when you believe in the tooth fairy, I guess anything’s possible.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:13 pm 27. Mad Fiddler:

“Ah numbered… I say, ah numbered mah feathuhs foah jus’ such an occasion!”

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:15 pm 28. PA Cat:

Luddy–

No kind words for the San Diego Chicken, “the Godfather of Feathers himself”?

FWIW, back in the day when Mike Piazza still wore a Mets uniform and there was a rumor making the rounds that one of the Mets was gay, Mr. Met decided to clear Piazza’s name by fessing up to “a torrid affair with the San Diego Chicken many years ago. ‘It was an abusive relationship where I choked the chicken,’ he said.”

http://pages.prodigy.com/lemus/mrmet/mr_met.htm

From Whole Foods to inside baseball– only at BC.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:17 pm 29. JJRedfan:

I’ll bet their feeble-minded plot took place two years ago…

Okay, I was stretching by a few months.

Beat me, swat me, put me in the stocks.

I am as bad as ABC, don’t believe anything I say.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:18 pm 30. Mad Fiddler:

I think in the future “pulled pork” is OFF THE MENU!

-

No amount of hickory smoke BBQ sauce can salvage a once beloved southern delicacy.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:20 pm 31. Gaffe Prices:

There are, I say, THERE ARE NO meat eating chickens: insects are an exoskeleton with goo inside.

Insect eating animals include lizards and spiders and they help keep the insect population in check, so the lizards and the spiders are carnivores, and so therefore are the chickens, but you’re never gonna see a chicken at the table with a nice steaming porterhouse sitting right there in front of him, (and what’s he gonna do with it, peck it to death?) unless its in one of them ’surrealist’ movies.

It was still a funny joke, and that defecating silence that followed makes the anecdote even funnier.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:30 pm 32. Peter Boston:

Jail Time For Proposing a Praying

Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer. Washington Times

It ain’t right folks. Something is way off balance and it’s got to be straightened before we slide off the edge.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:42 pm 33. PA Cat:

Maybe Mackey can woo back Joshua and the other disaffected lefty foodies by changing the brand name to Wholier-Than-Thou Foods.

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:47 pm 34. steveH:

“I do not see inter-racial couples shopping at Whole Foods.”

You apparently don’t shop at the ones out here (SF Bay area).

Lots of inter-racial couples here.

Then again, you see them shopping the local Safeways, Raleys, Nob Hills, …

Aug 14, 2009 - 4:48 pm 35. Gaffe Prices:

Hey, when I was young I got a secret private public school education where I learned reading and writing, history and arithmetic, mathematics and science too…

You don’t suppose that’s what they’re up to at that highly unorthodox principal of Oakland, Ben Chavis’s California’s American Indian Public Charter School now do you?

If it is, They need to be forced to cut that out. And pronto. There’s and Amendment to the constitution, or a court ordered decision or something against that sort of stuff,

that’s just like drug dealers, and we gotta get tough, or else…

oooh- sorry, my bad, now we’ll get a thread going about the whole legalize education/keep it illegal/overturn ‘insert court ruling here’/etc. going here with about 200,000 posts worth of bandwidth for/against…

Again my bad, forget what you read above. Never happened.

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:02 pm 36. luddy barsen:

MF/26; time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

assorted chicken dinner commenters: all i can say is when ordering pullet make sure and use the full sentence, ouch

PB/32; try this one, search Mark Lloyd –the “new diversity czar’ at the FCC (they announced using the word ‘new’ as if there had ever been one before, dishonesty being the fundament of this admin). anyhoo this is the guy with the plan to shut down all that right wing blather on talk radio. it’s ‘in play’ friends n neighbors!

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:07 pm 37. betsybounds:

The smug Whole Foods snobs’ reaction to Mr. Mackey’s WSJ column reminded me of Michael Ledeen’s post today at NRO’s The Corner blog that made me laugh out loud. In his NRO post, Ledeen noted a Texas A&M award that is entirely appropriate to these people and their shopping preferences:

“A friend e-mails to say that Texas A & M has an annual contest for the best definition of a contemporary expression. This year it was “political correctness.” And here’s the winner:

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:10 pm 38. Gaffe Prices:

Vegetarian Chickens- now even the animals gotta be meat-free.

see ‘The Road to Wellville’ for an hilarious send up of this sort of thing.

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:14 pm 39. Thrasymachus:

You know something? Life is just full of freaking disappointment. Liberals need to get used to it. It seems society and the media, and the educational system, are entirely organized around keeping liberals from experiencing disappointment. From realizing that their ideas not simply don’t work, they are excruciatingly stupid.

Guess what! The Emperor has no clothes! And on top of that he’s a fat ugly f*** who nobody wants to see naked! Buy him some cheap polyester blend clothes at Walmart and cover his nakedness!

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:21 pm 40. Scythianeedle:

The idiots at NPR for years scheduled a weekly “new age” regurgitation titled “New Directions.”

Don’t tell me no one there ever listened to the title spoken out loud.

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:36 pm 41. Salt Lick:

A chicken beheaded … they will fight over who gets to eat the head which hits the ground in front of them.

Mea culpa, bud. I’ve seen them beheaded, but never the cannibalism.

Now, thanks to you, I shall never again read “The Little Red Hen” without hearing ominous minor chords.

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:44 pm 42. Wadeusaf:

Say it ain’t so
no the whole foods controversy was not covered by the onion however this was.

Just in case someone was wondering.

Aug 14, 2009 - 5:58 pm 43. wretchard:

“Political correctness” is the replacement for what was formerly known as established religion. Mackey is really guilty of blasphemy. It’s a real crime. The Washington Times says an athletic director and school principal are facing a jail sentence for praying at mealtime.

Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer.

There have been yard signs, T-shirts and a mass student protest during graduation ceremonies this spring on behalf of Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and school athletic director Robert Freeman, who will go on trial Sept. 17 at a federal district court in Pensacola for breaching the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Why should it matter to the ACLU? What earthly purpose is served by jailing and ruining the lives of people who will probably never commit a robbery or hurt people? It’s the principle of the thing, they’ll say. And indeed it is. Religious principle. It’s bigotry. Religious bigotry. The surprise is who the religious and the bigots are. We live in an age of faith where fanatics and sacerdotes of secret religion hide in plain sight and prosecute all rival beliefs under the pretext that they are “secular”. The problem is that the mask is slipping off.

Aug 14, 2009 - 6:12 pm 44. Lifeofthemind:

Liberals like to talk about “Stakeholders” using the word like one of those meaningless small filler words that you find in Southern German. It is supposed to denote some level of caring for empowering those with an interest but no actual stake in an enterprise in determining policy. It is an example of the substitution of politics fort economics and the denigration of property rights. Good managers like Mr Mackay, unlike Left wing poseurs, actually care about their various constituencies. If you talk to a successful businessman they will usually want to talk about their responsibility to not only the customers and the stockholders but also to the employees. At work I was talking with one of our older workers about the disappointing work ethic of the younger staff. He is a presumably gay older man and a retired interior decorator. I mentioned that I believed his political allegiances were to the left of mine but that we tended to agree on the important issues regarding personal conduct. He vigorously agreed and pointed out that he had run his own business at 21 and had employed many people. He knew what worked and how people should behave in a workplace.

Aug 14, 2009 - 6:34 pm 45. Quig:

Any body who thinks chicken are not omnivores ain’t never raised chickens!
Not only will they violate every precept of political correctness by drinking the blood of a sacrificed colleague, they will prey on weak members and peck them do death and canabilism will ensue!
They are vicious animals! definitely NOT progresive!

Aug 14, 2009 - 6:36 pm 46. Wadeusaf:

Would the ACLU have refused to support the Civil Rights movement on the basis that it was supported by religious persons who often offered up prayers at the beginning of their activities, or preached about Civil Rights during Sunday Services.

There is no excuse for such backward logic as possesses the ACLU in this case. Free expression of religion is a free speech issue, not a matter for church state separatist jack-bootery. The only crime here is the abuse of the school district by the Lawyers seeking to save them from their constitutional right to religious expression in the form of free speech.

Aug 14, 2009 - 6:47 pm 47. luddy barsen:

Sorry to link this for a third time here but there’s new people and the topic –the hidden Inquisition –is baaack. And how could it not be?

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2008/0829.html

(it opens)

The Oracle
by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 08.29.2008

At least two writers in the 19th century foresaw the advent of totalitarianism. The first was Dostoevsky and the second was Nietzsche. Both writers grasped the intellectual trend of their day. As education advanced, as the human spirit was given new opportunities for understanding, the result was intellectual radicalism. In the 18th century Edmund Burke warned his contemporaries that education without religion or aristocratic principles would turn against mankind. Burke wrote: “Learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.” Burke added, “In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but gallows.” Overwhelmed with a similar insight, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche updated Burke’s lament. In Dostoevsky’s novel, The Possessed, a radical young intellectual advocated a world in which Cicero would have his tongue cut out, Copernicus would have his eyes put out, and Shakespeare would be stoned to death – in the name of universal equality. Dostoevsky predicted that the radical mentality – emerging in the 19th century – would kill 100 million peoplein the 20th century. Those without vision, without a sense of where the world was headed, disbelieved Dostoevsky’s prophecy. Such a calamity could never happen, because the world is not a madhouse.

Enter Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Enter, as well, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and today’s politically correct mob. What characterizes them, besides their egotism and narcissism, is their false idealism and moral posturing. According to Edmund Burke: “Nothing is more certain, than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion.”

Since Burke’s time, modern intellectuals have overthrown the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. Every structure, every religious precept, every honored tradition, came under intellectual attack. God and country were targeted. Religion and patriotism were targeted. The main surviving ideals of our day are those of leveling, equalizing and taxing into penury. Envy is the Holy Grail of our intelligentsia, and the annihilation of all values is their ultimate end.

“What I relate is the history of the next two centuries,” wrote Nietzsche in The Will to Power. “I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of Nihilism. This history can be related even now; for necessity itself is at work here.” Nietzsche knew what was coming because he understood the radical intellectuals of his day. Nietzsche called them “the tarantulas,” the “secret revengeful ones,” envious preachers of equality whose ambition is tyranny. Nietzsche even foresaw the day when Marxist professors would advance his writings for the sake of their own malignant cause. “There are those who preach my doctrine of life,” Nietzsche explained, “and are at the same time preachers of equality, and tarantulas.” Do not be fooled by them, he warned. They preach life in order to harm life.
(closing snip)

Aug 14, 2009 - 7:11 pm 48. luddy barsen:

oops, forgot to hot the link –the Dostoevsky, The Possessed is online.

Aug 14, 2009 - 7:19 pm 49. Lifeofthemind:

Nietzsche is peachy. Shame some nice girl couldn’t have come along and taught him to laugh. All he needed was a sense of the absurdity of it all to get him through the day.

Aug 14, 2009 - 7:41 pm 50. luddy barsen:

The Oracle is from August 2008. One year later, today, comes what amounts to a ‘part II’: Secret Takeovers.

Aug 14, 2009 - 7:44 pm 51. CPT. Charles:

In light of the ’source’ of wretchard’s narrative, I offer this bit of visual levity:

http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=3848 [way too many good ones...]

My favs…

http://thepeoplescube.com/images/Obamacare_Flag_Poster_Socialist.gif and,

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/richedit/upload/2kdddec162b5.gif

Lord knows I can use a good laugh.

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:02 pm 52. Mad Fiddler:

Thanks for the link to the people’s cube. I almost spewed Ensure out my nostrils. I definitely need a change of Depends.

Seriously, I’ve been searching for the latest on the “Clunkers for Cash” debacle.

Has anyone come across any links to some authoritative news on what’s happening? or what’s NOT happening?

I’ve just heard some reports that the number of takers has dropped precipitously in spite of the additional funding.

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:23 pm 53. PA Cat:

49 Shame some nice girl couldn’t have come along and taught him to laugh. All he needed was a sense of the absurdity of it all to get him through the day.

Well, Nietzsche did have an absurd menage a trois in Rome with Paul Ree, a writer and compulsive gambler, and Lou Andreas-Salome, one of Freud’s trainees, between 1882 and 1884. Now I daresay Lou was not a nice girl, as she liked other girls as well as boys.

Here is a photo of Lou in a cart, wielding a whip on her two commune-mates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nietzsche_paul-ree_lou-von-salome188.jpg

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:34 pm 54. luddy barsen:

The dealers aren’t getting paid, MF –i mean, many aren’t –seems the gov’t has decided to pull various old car buyer debts to IRS out of the forty-five hunnerd –something like that –anyhoo –the bloom is off the rows of carz –

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:37 pm 55. Lifeofthemind:

Mad Fiddler,
Last I heard they were instituting vouchers. No vouchers for education but vouchers for gov’t cash that ends up with the UAW. This sounds ready made to propagate a whole new crop of shady brokers with Chicago style ethics.
Now Bub youse jest sign right heahr to show that you has owned dis fine ah means this clunker automobile for the requisite time and my cousin over at motor vehicles will adjust those records with just a few strokes of his fingers, Good now that’s alright. Wonderful things computers jest wonderful. Now here be your check for $1,000 and I will just take voucher for $4,500. Pleasure doing business with you, have a nice day and yes please do send your cousin around to see me.

Followed by:

Sal my friend of course I have the vouchers, right here in my hands. What will you give me for them? $2,000 each? That’s fine, real fine Sal. I’ll bring them right over. You say you need them today because the cars are being shipped out of the country tomorrow? No problem.

The articles expressing shock at these future events are like obituaries. They can be written in advance.

Remember, We’re all going to get rich!

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:45 pm 56. luddy barsen:

PACat/53; reckon they all three spoke Austrian?

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:49 pm 57. PA Cat:

56 luddy barsen

But of course– a disciple of St. Sigmund of Vienna wouldn’t settle for less.

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:56 pm 58. herb:

Paul said at 9:

People who shop at Whole Foods care a great deal what people think about them.

which is similar to what the Boss was saying in “Anything I own”. They are a herd, the individual components of which are incapable of independent thought and intolerant of those who are.
Really pathetic.
hdgreene: Good.

Aug 14, 2009 - 8:56 pm 59. herb:

First it offered me PA Cat’s # 57 post to edit and mine disappeared. Then, on reload, my post is visible but not editable. Arrrrggghh!

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:01 pm 60. herb:

Now I have both available to edit.

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:02 pm 61. luddy barsen:

55; Cash for Clunkers, save your public car company, Generous Mobsters: “Steal the USA…In a Chevrolet!” o heck, nobody gwan remember dat jingle

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:09 pm 62. Lifeofthemind:

PA Cat,
Thanks for the image of Salome as she did not dance. She seems such a nice girl.
Perhaps this explains Friedrich’s later compulsion to rescue an abused horse at his own breakdown?
Given a choice between a girl named Lou and Nietzche’s sister it becomes a close call.

herb,
Is this (having both to edit) a warning sign of Multiple Personality Disorder?

I’m not schizoid.
Yes I am.
No I’m not.

Definition of an Ensign. Argues with himself. Loses the argument.

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:11 pm 63. Alexis:

JJRedfan:

Please don’t insult cheap whores by comparing them to ABC News.

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:13 pm 64. Lifeofthemind:

JJRedfan and Alexis
This depends on what your definition of “cheap”is. I tried to do some quick searching on how much the news division swallows and excretes in pay. We are clearly talking about tens of millions of dollars here. You have to sell a heck of a lot of cars and insurance and whatever pays for network news (don’t ask me since I don’t watch it) to feed this baggage train and all its camp followers.

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:35 pm 65. CPT. Charles:

Someone asked about ‘Cash for Clunkers’?

Here’s ver2.0, complete with official poster:

http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=3817

http://thepeoplescube.com/images/Cash_for_Clankers_Medicare.png [luv the poster, it's a two-for-one, no less]

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:41 pm 66. Alexis:

Lifeofthemind:

It’s mostly (and almost entirely) ads for prescription drugs. So, the evening news programs for ABC, NBC, and CBS are essentially drug pushers. Of course, if new health reforms banned advertising by pharmaceutical corporations, then the mainstream media might lose much of its funding.

Aug 14, 2009 - 9:47 pm 67. pharmaguy:

#9 Paul: It’s no secret, but many folks are unaware that the same German family that owns Aldi also owns Trader Joe’s, which is in many ways siminar to Whole Foods in its careful crafting of its stores to meet the expections of its target demographics.

While in SLC last in March for the American Chemical Society meeting I picked up the local weekly entertainment/progressive free newspaper. In this article the writer was bemoaning the fact that many of the hip, feel good brands, Tom’s of Maine, Burt’s Bees, etc., were in fact part of mega-corporations. The author made a comment about Trader Joes, oblivious to the real ownership situation.

Never mind that a moments reflection would show it took the resources of a large corporation to take these “lifestyle” brands from local niche to nationally recognized brands. Orignal owners generally did well indeed.

Just another case of customers paying dearly for the sizzle when they purchase that free range, organically vegetarian fed, no antibiotic steak….

Aug 14, 2009 - 10:01 pm 68. Robohobo:

Paul @ 9:

…he is selling the the whole liberal-left social experience.

I never saw that at all and I have visited their stores all over the country. What they are selling is superior upscale food and produce to the upper middle class. I have visited the home headquarters store @ Austin and love the place. They have the best produce displayed in the best way, BBQ to die for, fresh bakery, fresh patisserie, a great sushi bar – fresh btw, a smoothie bar, raw foods bar, soup bar, seafood bar, Asian food bar and all the groceries including bulk. At super premium prices. They can afford to do well by the employees and the employees are a great sales force for the store and brand.

Whole Foods is successful and that just pisses all sorts of people off.

And again:

Again, I think the only people who are not phony about social class are the professional-class inter-racial couples shopping at Aldi, because to be inter-racially married and to shop at Aldi (or especially Wal-Mart), you have to really not worry about what anyone thinks about you.

Does this maybe say more about your own prejudices more than anything? Just askin’. Not lookin’ for a fight.

Tcobb & PACat re: chickens:

They have to get calcium or their eggshells get thin and the eggs are not so good. You can buy expensive seashell meal OR recycle their own back to them. Yup, feed them their own shells. Problem solved. I am always amazed when the city slickers talk country issues. Also, used to feed the parrots a chicken leg bone now and them. They would crack it open and snarf the marrow right down. Took the bones and fed them to the chickens. Also, the chickens got what ya’ll would call the hog slops = all the kitchen leavings. It. Would. Flat. Disappear. Tut suite. Hogs got high value corn meal (makes ‘em taste better). A breeder sow will snarf a layer hen in one gulp. Okay, enough barnyard follies.

Pragmatism is what works. Mackey is getting vilified by the right because they think he sells some kind of Lefty shtick and by the Left because he is not following their playbook. How about realizing he sells attractive groceries? Nothing more, nothing less. That he also sells over-priced vitamins and supplements is just good business. He can’t win with anyone…….but maybe his loyal customers and his employees.

Aug 14, 2009 - 10:05 pm 69. luddy barsen:

Alexis/66; FoxNews = Charles Martel (and present company da host is at least a captain!)

Aug 14, 2009 - 10:42 pm 70. luddy barsen:

robo, re race, Aldi bit, think you read it wrong –or i did –i saw it as a compliment to non-conformists. tho i can see it could be read a compliment to coping with shame attitudes.

what’s a real shame is that ‘race’ lexicon has become such a freaked-out minefield, every word loaded for bear. How did that happen to us –to can-do, forward-looking, exuberant optimistic AMERICA?

Whoever did this, oh, i guess it was me, it’s my fault, is a no good. feeeeeh.

Aug 14, 2009 - 10:58 pm 71. The Old Guy:

Robohobo @ 68:

I lived in Austin many years ago and went a couple of times to the original Whole Foods (I think it was the first one, on 183). Tiny by today’s standards, and with the then almost bizarre features of an in-store restaurant. Very organic / hippy ambiance, very narrow aisles, kind of crummy inside. Things have changed.

The Austin Whole Foods is amazing. Its an interesting hour just to walk through it. You have to give those guys credit for imagining that a grocery store could be a “destination”, and actually achieving it.

My impression is similar to yours – premium prices, premium goods. Better service. I don’t care about organic, but I go there (in Houston) occasionally for fresh fruit and veggies, and a few specialty goods.

I’d say their customer base is middle-class to upper-middle. You see upscale cars in the parking lot. But I think this is largely because these are the people who can / will pay premium prices.

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:16 pm 72. bob:

You can buy your ‘organic’ lentils Here

Mary Jane Butters–’what you really need is me’

Lots of the lentils actually come from my friend Wayne, and they aren’t ‘organic’.

She buys them from Genesee Union Warehouse, so I’ve heard, and believe it’s true, cause I don’t know where else she might get them.

Anyway, that’s what Wayne says.

But don’t laugh, she’s made a couple million bucks from her books.

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:26 pm 73. Lifeofthemind:

In my small hometown I go once a week to Fairway, they have the best chicken pot pies at a decent price and the blintzes are also very good and competitive. Everything else costs more then similar stuff elsewhere and here if you pay retail here they should deport you.

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:33 pm 74. PatriotUSA:

If Mackey had used the Obamacare model and Whole Foods tanked, the he could asked for a gov’t bailout. Maybe that would have pleased all thos disappointed shoppers who will now no longer shop there because of Mackey’s views. In his Op Ed article his views did not agree with Obamacare, GOOD for him. I do not shop at WF as it is too expensive. I
do shop at Trader Joe’s for certain items. If people like Joshua do not like Mackey’s approach then he can take his business elsewhere. Expecting a company to bend to every customer’s whims and beliefs in ludicrous. I have many friends who live their lives this way to the extent that they become hypocrites and contradictory. Yet they never see it. But that never stops them from condemning others who choose to live to
a different tune.

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:41 pm 75. toad:

Whole Foods may gain more customers than it looses. I’m cynical and believe that there is a chance the Mackey’s market research people may have figured out that crunchy cons are a bigger market than the X liberals.

I remember in the past the liberals (communists in white shirts) tried boycotting advertisers on the Rush Limbaugh show. It didn’t work out so well for the liberals.
One of the ones that dropped watched their sales really drop.

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:49 pm 76. Lifeofthemind:

Another blog has been denouncing Glenn Beck and claiming he is losing ad revenue. Anything to it?

Aug 14, 2009 - 11:53 pm 77. ledger:

Come on Wretchard, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey just needs to see the light of 0bamaCare. He is in Nancy Pelosi’s back yard. The change would be staggering.

First, Whole Foods needs to be Unionized by the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union with the proposed “card check” system. This would insure higher labor costs and lower quality – but, new voters for 0bama, Pelosi and gang.

Then, under UFCW Union those fine Whole Food employees could get ObamaCare! This would further increase the cost of doing business and may even turn Income Statement from Black to Red.

Next, the Union workers could be bused to various states where “ObamaCare Meetings” are going poorly – or any “Town Hall” meeting where some muscle could be used to keep those Tea Baggers in line.

With a little payola to 0bama and gang, the Wild Oats brand and the 13 stores that Whole Food lost in the FTC Anti-trust suit could be brought back into the fold… Unionized of course.

By this Point John Mackey will either have his head bashed in or hired a good security team. The Grocery Unions can be very brutal at times. I have seen it.

Now, for 0bama the unionization of Whole Foods would provide a larger and more powerful base. What could possible go wrong?

[Natural Specialty Foods Memo blog]

…”One of the retail chains the UFCW wants to unionize is Whole Foods Market, Inc., which is one of the largest non-union food retailing chains in the U.S. For example, Kroger Co, Safeway Stores, Inc. and Supervalu, the top three supermarket chains in the U.S., are union, as are most of the other leading big chains. Wal-Mart, Costco, Whole Foods, target, Trader Joe’s and a few other national food retailers aren’t.”

http://tinyurl.com/mlm2yv

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:13 am 78. ledger:

@ CPT, Charles

Your last link was the best.

Btw, what are you trying to do? Get us “Flagged” or put on 0bama’s hit list?

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:41 am 79. rhhardin:

Editors’ introduction to the “Sociology of Literature” issue of _Critical Inquiry_ v.14 n.3 (Spring 1988) p.428-429

“A metaphor that cannot be avoided deserves closer attention. If we examine the mirror more closely, we may find that the metaphor actually serves the sociology of literature in unexpected ways. The marvelously revealing mirror in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” offers a case in point. In this tale a demon invents a unique mirror : it does not reflect, it systematically misreflects. Andersen’s mirror shrinks and distorts every good and beautiful thing, and it magnifies everything evil or ugly. In this glass pleasant landscapes look like boiled spinach, normal people appear hideous, and kind thoughts become wicked grins.

The demon creator appears mildly amused by his invention, but his students, simple reflectionists, take it very seriously :

[quoting The Snow Queen]

All the pupils in the demon’s school – for he kept a school – reported that a miracle had taken place : now for the first time, they said, it was possible to see what the world and mankind were really like. They ran about everywhere with the mirror, till at last there was not a country or a person which had not been seen in this distorting mirror.

Eventually the mirror breaks. Shards of glass fly through the world and lodge in people’s eyes and hearts. These shards retain the peculiarities of the mirror, so that everyone sees the world through bent, distorted, and misshapen images.”

Aug 15, 2009 - 1:24 am 80. Fletcher Christian:

Actually, whether chickens are omnivorous or not given free rein (or free range!) there is a real point in saying that the chickens on display were vegetarian.

The point is that chicken feed very often contains some very dubious material derived from various animals – notably chickens (the unusable bits of them, that is.)

Making an animal a cannibal often has health implications for the humans that eat it. One might have thought that the BSE disaster might have taught agribusiness a lesson, but apparently not.

A small point about “conventional” agriculture is that it has a negative energy budget even ignoring the solar energy input. This is because of the energy used to make fertiliser and pesticides and the energy used to build and operate agricultural machinery. Which means, in effect, that if you eat conventionally produced food you are eating oil and coal. All too often, it tastes that way too.

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:05 am 81. maz2:

“The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals

Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something the critics of industrial farming never seem to understand.”

“… now we have to listen to self-appointed experts on airplanes frightening their seatmates about the profession I have practiced for more than 30 years. I’d had enough.”

By Blake Hurst

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals

Aug 15, 2009 - 3:19 am 82. herb:

Trader Joes has Three Buck Chuck, formally known as Charles something, a passable wine in 4 varieties at $3.95 per bottle. That alone justifies their existence.

What both Whole Paycheck and Trader Joe’s are doing is selling an experience that lets a certain segment of the population feel good about themselves. Its just packaged narcissism. The anger that they are encountering is the result of challenging that segment’s position in the moral center of the universe. Ever talk to a seventeen year old?

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:14 am 83. feeblemind:

This is just the latest example illustrating that entrepenuers/captains of industry should not speak out on political matters. It is bad for business. Politics being what they are, no matter what one says, at least 35% of their customer base will be alienated. The 35% representing the unwavering left/right. I have seen it in small town America. A guy runs a local business and gets elected mayor. He takes a stand on a controversial issue and a third of his business dries up. Years ago when I had a job in a rural business, we stayed non-political for this very reason.

Aug 15, 2009 - 6:47 am 84. CPT. Charles:

herb [#82] the term I use is ‘moral vanity’. In my mind, it’s one the ’signature’ traits of a Leftist [politician or other-wise]; whether they be greens, animal-rights kooks, ’social-justice’ breast-beaters [a major subdivision of the 'open borders' crowd], etc.

I put the food and life-style nazis in a whole different category [C.S. Lewis has them pegged better than anybody else...], the ‘do-gooders’.

But yeah, you’ve pretty nailed it.

Aug 15, 2009 - 6:47 am 85. Doug:

Why You Should Boycott Whole Foods – Health and Wellness AlterNet
This isn’t news and this has been mentioned before.
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Aug 14, 2009 12:21 AM

Let’s face it. Like Starbucks and Walmart, Whole Foods Market is a symptom of what’s the matter with our disaster capitalist system gone even more amuck.
I have shopped at Whole Foods too but only for a limited number of items such as hemp protein powder, stevia, and grass fed milk and buttermilk but I was lucky to finally see a new local organic grocery store open which has them too and more.
That said, I have said so many times about the consequences of any company that goes into whole-sale volume-sale mode of doing business. They become “too big too fail” and end up engaging in unethical and possibly illegal practices to desperately wipe out the competition from small businesses. There are other crooked practices of doing business that they’ll follow which are legal like it or not.

The more I see this kind of corporate madness, the more that the lessons I studied in my two introductory courses in accounting and my introductory course in finance haunt me. If that’s not bad enough, other big retailers are also following the Walmart model of doing business.
Jim Hightower would correctly call this the “Walmartization of America” !
—
When My Husband Became a Woman, I Realized I Was a Sexist
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
When my husband transitioned, it made me face all of the terrible gender stereotypes I carry around.

Aug 15, 2009 - 6:56 am 86. CPT. Charles:

ledger[#78]–I suspect we’re already ‘flagged’.

There are too many ‘free-thinkers’ in one spot for the Belmont Club NOT to be noticed.

From what I’ve seen so far from this administration, ‘non-collective’ attitudes are, counter-productive.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:04 am 87. Paul Milenkovic:

#67, #82

I don’t know if I would include Trader Joe’s in the same kind of corporate lefty-phony as Whole Foods.

Yeah, Trader Joe’s projects this image of being a benevolent employer to their “ship’s crew” of whatever they call their workers. But as #82 points out, Trader Joe’s actually delivers value to their customers.

I also see “regular people” in Trader Joe’s. The customers in a Whole Foods look like they are from a Halloween party where the costume theme is “overly earnest professional-claaa left-liberal.”

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:33 am 88. Lifeofthemind:

Doug,
Bet she takes advice from Arianna Huffington too.

bert,
Well put, the voting age should be moved back to 21 or better yet return to the original “Head of Household” franchise. No gender or other arbitrary restrictions in the law but only the self sufficient should get to vote. In the meantime we need a law that prevents a husband from entering the booth to “help” his wife. Why should some jerk from Whackystan get multiple votes by showing up with his wife(ves) and family?

Trader Joe’s does alright out of Manhattan and as I said we have Fairway here. Think I will go down to Union Square today and pick up a $2 tomato.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:35 am 89. Peter Boston:

US President Barack Obama on Friday blamed headline-hungry television networks for enflaming an ugly backlash by foes of his top priority effort to offer health care to all Americans. Breitbart.com

Serial liar Barack Obama is working overtime to polarize American society into worshipers and heretics. I suspect he’s going to get what he wants in this regard but with a parcel of unanticipated consequences.

Just as global warming was morphed into climate change so “Health Care Reform” has been morphed into Health Insurance Reform. “we are going to fix it when pass health insurances reform this year.”

Obama’s rabble rousing is pushing against the boundary of propriety. Perhaps that will become the most lasting ill effect of his administration as anybody familiar with Marius and Sulla will understand.

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:11 am 90. Anodyne:

Fletcher Christian @ 80:

“The point is that chicken feed very often contains some very dubious material derived from various animals – notably chickens (the unusable bits of them, that is.)”

Back in college I made a trip to Wales and had the bad fortune of tasting chicken that had been fed fish (the “unusable bits”, I’m guessing). I’ll never forget that.

I’ve never been to Whole Foods, but I have been to Trader Jack’s and to a “co-op” grocery several times. Whiskey’s “competition for status” – themed comments immediately spring to mind when I think back on those visits, though I also felt like I was visiting “churches” of some sort. I can’t begrudge folks for liking certain types of foods or trying to eat healthy things, but the atmosphere in boutique grocery stores is a little too uptight for my taste, especially when compared to other places where folks have an exceptionally keen interest in what’s being sold: auto parts stores, home improvement stores, gun shops, etc.

It looks like the Whole Foods CEO is looking out for his company and its employees. I think I’ll make my first visit to one of his stores this weekend.

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:28 am 91. Jay:

We shop in the north Whole Foods in Austin. I am a strong conservative and my wife is apolitical. I really liked the old smaller store just off 183. When I first went into that store to get some no salt cheese (I was on a strict low sodium diet at the time) I thought that the firm was from California. The clerk told me that it was an Austin creation.
I know a number of Austin conservatives that shop at While Foods.
I do not have any liberal friends. Many of my friends have guns and one has a concealed gun permit. His wife also has a permit.
Not all Austinites are weird.

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:58 am 92. Gary Ogletree:

Paul, and any others, please refrain from the temptation to stereotype people who shop at natural food/health food stores. Your ignorance is showing. Reagan liked his bee pollen and he didn’t get it at Safeway. Natural food stores can be a good deal if you order in bulk lots. And lots of stuff they sell taste better than the Aldi selections. Ever try almond butter? Americans should celebrate free choice, the opposite of Obamacare. The left is notorious about making assumptions and judgements about people, why follow that example?

Aug 15, 2009 - 9:42 am 93. tomw:

52. Mad Fiddler:

read Henry Payne at:
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Nzc5OWNhMmVkNGRhNWNjYjkyODYxODZiM2JhYTUwM2I=

for a little bit of how this well-tuned program is running. not very.
tom

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:04 am 94. trangbang68:

Joshua is the grown up version of the little Stepford child who questioned King O at the town hall about the bad people saying mean things about the exalted O’s brilliant health care plan. No doubt in the classroom she rats out Billy Ray for drawing a toy gun and sneers at him for eating balogna sandwiches. She’ll probably grow up to be an ax murderer.
I must confess I ate tofu at a PF Chang’s restaurant the other day and enjoyed it. I had a steak the next day. It’s all good.
I went to a Whole Foods in DC last fall and Paul’s description of the customers was on the money. Probably depends where you live.

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:05 am 95. Lifeofthemind:

As everyone knows, there are two types of people,
1) those who classify everyone into one of two types of people, and
2) those who do not.

I am in the second category.

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:06 am 96. Robohobo:

Fletcher @ 80:

…whether chickens are omnivorous or not given free rein (or free range!) …

Heh. Cute. They are omnivorous and will go cannibalistic given the chance. Free range chickens do just that. What you miss is that those chicken raised in the ‘concentration camp farms’ are fed a monocultured diet boosted with all sorts of weird stuff. The difference in free range to other is noticeable. I recommend raising your own for a while. Unsexed pullets can be had cheap. When the roosters get their useters that is the time to put them in the freezer. Takes about 3 months.

Herb @ 82:

…Trader Joe’s are doing is selling an experience that lets a certain segment of the population feel good about themselves. Its just packaged narcissism.

You are entitled to your opinion, sir. I for one like some of their products. The things that cannot be had elsewhere. I confess, we shop Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Sunflower Market each for certain unique or bargain centric items. In fact, Whole Foods has a French Boule (round loaf) for 99cents. I cannot make it that cheap! It is a great bargain and always fresh. I am limited because of certain physical issues. The few sodas I drink are purchased there because there is high fructose corn syrup in them and little added sugar to boot.

So, all this hating on purveyors of specialty foods at specialty stores is just more class envy, folks. You know, the crap you rail against the Dems for? We are so lucky to have our wide array of choices. We are truly blessed and have to work together to not allow the current crop of thieves and idiots in DC to ruin what we have.

Anodyne @ 90:

I can’t begrudge folks for liking certain types of foods or trying to eat healthy things,…

Some of us are driven to do so because of physical issues. I have to be careful what I eat. The old phrase of “you are what you eat” is true. It can have effects in the entire system.

Jay @ 91:

I know a number of Austin conservatives that shop at While Foods.
I do not have any liberal friends. Many of my friends have guns and one has a concealed gun permit. His wife also has a permit.
Not all Austinites are weird.

If you can ignore all the liberals that are around the U, yes, Austin is one of my favorite towns. I have relatives there and have VERY fond memories of Barton Springs in the summer with my cousins and MA and her sister, A. (Fishnet bikinis anyone?) Swimming with the newts. I spent two years working a contract that went between a business on Ben White and Japan starting a new factory in north central Japan. Weekends were to go to WF, get a smoothie and some BBQ for the hotel fridge. Other wholesome foods too. I used to also shop the little market on 290 and S. Lamar (a other named Wild Oats?). Do you know Austin Land and Cattle Co? On Lamar? Best steaks in Texas. My friend from Austin is a regular there.

Heh, my relative in Austin will not join the NRA. He says they are too liberal for him. He, he!

Gary @ 92:

Here! Here! Precisely! We also shop WF for their packed (365 brand) plain pumpkin in case lots (99cents a can). No additives and just pumpkin inside. I feed a small amount every day to the dogs. It helps with their digestion.

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:31 am 97. Marie Claude:

26. Mad Fiddler:

keep Louisiane now that you’ve done a mess of it

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:48 am 98. Mad Fiddler:

(With apologies to Jay – sometimes a crowd of people simply demand that any observer have no doubt about where they stand…)

Sometimes it takes a few minutes of quiet reflection to sort out an underlying thought.

It’s a commonplace that people like to shop in “exclusive” stores. The “Rodeo Drive” phenomenon exists around the world. Soviet era Nomenklatura knew where to find the restricted-access department stores, with unmarked entrances that everyone knew, but only the elite could enter. (Unmarked to avoid letting the foreign press & tourists know they existed.)

Well, anyone seriously inclined in the sinister way is required to eschew the expensive, capitalist, worker-exploiting high-fashion garment store, eh? And people who opt for Berkenstocks, organic hemp and primitive-breed woolen clothing are not going to patronize Sears for their fashions. Or much else.

Where can they shop that will show (1) their celebration of right-thinking and ethical methods of production, manufacture, and marketing? Poor things, there have been so many claims of politically-correct product wholesomeness that turned out to be lies… clothing lines revealed to depend on third-world sweatshops filled with coughing mal-nourished abused children. Computers, cell-phones, designer-label gadgets and games and toys and all manner of consumer goods that use claims of Green-ness like wicked priests once used mass-printed dispensations from the Pope to hoover up coins from the common folk who just want for a little while to feel unsordid.

Raleys in the Sacramento area, Ukrops around Richmond, VA, Krogers in Cincinnati, Harris-Teeters in the Carolinas, and I’m sure many other grocery chains have found they can enhance sales by including much more attractively merchandized organic produce, elegant prepared entrées, antibiotic-free meats, et cetera, ALONG WITH the more pedestrian brands that most of us can afford.

Living in the San Francisco Bay area I shopped occasionally at different Whole Foods stores: Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto near Stanford campus… There was also a store known as the Berkeley Bowl, which offered similar choices. The posh chain “Andronico’s” seemed much more mainstream commercial, offering conventional nutrition in shockingly expensive packaging to keep out riffraff like me. The patrons I saw in Whole Food Markets, even making allowance for the proximity of the universities, comprised almost exclusively uniformed counter-culturists, whose politics may as well have been printed on their garments. In many cases, they did wear Leftist slogans or icons blazoned across their chest or back – political short hand, but allowing no misinterpretation. The uniformity of dress, and the kinds of items that filled their carts, were almost comically definitive of the Leftward hurtling sheepflock. Wearing Dockers marked me instantly, and somebody called security on me.

No, I’m lying. But I sure felt like a bug on a plate.

Well, everybody has a right to congregate with people that think, look, and act alike, right?

Ooops.

Now I come to think of it, that’s one of the things the Left tells us is racist and bigoted and evil. What gives?

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:01 am 99. trangbang68:

My wife who lived in a tepee in the desert before we met is now a fine looking middle aged mama, matron of our home in the southside of Tucson, tax preparer and all round great helper to me, but the hippie comes out. I am not totally unsympathetic as I was a food faddist for a couple of years trying to get off drugs.
We have a gray water garden with our washing machine and dish water, occasionally eat hummous and falafels , built a chicken coop (still haven’t gotten chickens yet) and have recycled for years.
Interestingly there is here and in many places a network of mostly Christian, pro life, conservative almost neo hippies who are to different degrees self sufficient, rabidly anti government, nearly apolitical and home school.
I guess like has been said here, you can’t pigeon hole people.

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:23 am 100. Subotai Bahadur:

I think I am pretty conservative. And yet, if I find myself in Denver, and have the time and inclination; I have been known to go to Whole Foods. They have kick-ass vegetables in greater variety and higher quality than I can dream of getting at Wally World, Kroger, or Safeway. They also have specialty ethnic foods I can’t get at home. Not only Asian, but other foods [our family is full of foodies and we tend to cook international]. While the place is full of stuck up prigs driving Prius’ as a public badge of the secular equivalent of the external signs of Predestination and Unconditional Election akin to the Calvinist faith [Leftism is a religion in all but the acknowledgement of a higher power than human ... excluding possibly Gaia]; there were those of us not among the Elect there.

And in my family, it is extremely multi-racial. I am Chinese and German, my wife’s family comes from most of northern Europe with emphasis on Dutch and Scots, my kids reflect this, and I have multiple passles of neices and nephews who are black, hispanic, or Central American Indian. At work, they kept making me take courses in “diversity”. I kept pointing out that I AM diversity.

As far as the unions in the retail grocery stores; they are more Democrat thug than labor movement. Some years ago, when the Democrat governor of our state pushed through a 12 1/2% pay cut for line employees [Captains and below] in my Department in order to free up funds to create a Senior Executive Service of top brass paid above civil service scales and outside civil service rules; we protested. At that time, AFSCME was big in our Department, and we threw a picket line around the annual Labor Dinner with the Governor in Pueblo. The trades union people took one look at the picket line, and turned and walked away refusing to cross it. The Retail Clerks Union deliberately broke the picket line saying that they had to have dinner with the Governor. They would have no problem attacking anyone that was designated as the enemies of ‘Teh One’.

Subotai Bahadur

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:25 am 101. luddy barsen:

Trangbang –related.

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:45 am 102. Charles:

It looks like glen beck has had advertisers back away from his show after he called Obama a racist.

I’m not sure how long this will hold.

In radio Beck is #5 ahead of Sean Hannity and behind Rush Limbaugh.

I don’t see beck’s numbers for tv. He’s on at an odd hour on tv or about 4 or 5 oclock in the afternoon. my understanding is that he does well for a low number hour. He has mentioned on air that he’s a bit over the top at that hour because its hard to get attention at that hour.

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:00 pm 103. Mad Fiddler:

I grovel with apologies for seeming to condemn all to a common pit.

I too am a mix of contending tendencies. I’ve helped raise sheep, ducks, horses. I’ve cultivated organic gardens for my family and personally put up enough Mason jars filled with peppers, onions, tomatoes, okra, beans, and such to get us through several winters. Took a class in metal fab and arc welding, restored a bunch of fifty-year old hand and power tools, built a woodworking shop, a greenhouse, bunch of shelters for the animals, stalls, barn, footbridge, fences, and a 20-foot diameter yurt that served as bedroom and studio.

My brother came to visit me while I was on staff at Atari Games. First afternoon of his stay, he told me he’d looked in the kitchen for something to eat and couldn’t find anything that didn’t have to be washed, chopped, and cooked!

But in fact, fast food franchises are still in business that would have failed without my patronage. Growing up as a navy brat, I LIKED spinach and asparagus and tomatoes from tin cans just fine.

I’ve taught part time and full time at four different universities, but I’ve spent most of my adult life freelancing, running my own studio, or working on staff for companies ranging from a handful of folks to several thousand. Took psychomemetic pharmacologicals in my wild and heedless youth, but coming clean I later was cleared for secret government work.

I’ve been certified in wilderness emergency response, 8 types of CPR, oxygen administration, CERT (i.e., low-level) triage, building search, cribbing and stabilizing structures and vehicles, et cetera. (Certifications not current. drat.)

As a result, if there is a horrific road crash in the intersection next to me, I am now able to quickly drop to the curb and place my head down below my heart so I won’t faint.

I’ve spent enough time in some historical recreation groups to have learned a few self-sufficiency skills, but the upshot is really a much more profound appreciation for the astounding wealth and luxury we have and take so utterly for granted.

I did more reading in the first two years after college, than I did in 16 years of schooling.

I’d like to think that the most important goal of education and experience and upbringing is to be able to constantly self-correct. For that to happen, a person has to be able to acknowledge they might be WRONG.

Don’t see much evidence of that capacity in the LEFT.

Most importantly, I have come to realize we are spiritual beings in physical bodies, and that there has been at least one perfect soul to show us a path. But my idea of witnessing is not to grab anyone’s lapels, but to try to live in a way that makes someone else want to know the source of my joy and peace.

It’s a challenge for a well-known sinner.

>;-p

-

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:12 pm 104. » Daily Links - 08/15/09 NoisyRoom.net: Where liberty dwells, there is my country…:

[...] When good people turn bad [...]

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:18 pm 105. Mad Fiddler:

And while I object in principle to dividing people up by race, the race that conspicuously doesn’t seem to be part of my blood is African. Don’t know how I missed out there. Bad planning.

So what?

I’m not listed on any Tribe’s directory; not entered into the archives of any Scottish Clan; can’t trace my lineage from any of the Italian princes. Because of the practices of many native American cultures, I can’t even claim with certainty that none of my ancestors were slave-owners.

Lotta folks like me, who have to make it or fail on their own merits.

That seems fair.

Which really marks me as some sort of counter-revolutionary.

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:30 pm 106. PA Cat:

97 Marie Claude

I think there are a good many Canadians who would be happy to return Quebec to France too. (I won’t speculate as to whether France would want it).

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:33 pm 107. toad:

AS a side note:
Hmmm, just reading that there has been an increase in the sale of vegetable and herb seeds. I wonder if it is a good time to invest in companies that sell canning supplies?
I had a friend up in Iowa who told me they had to hold clinics on how to can stuff when the area got hit hard by Carter 1970’s fuel and agricultural crisis and all the farmers got in trouble. They’d concentrated on cash crops for so long that a lot them had forgotten how to can things.

Aug 15, 2009 - 12:52 pm 108. trangbang68:

Buddy,
I have been musing on the events 40 years ago today. I actually DEROSed from Viet Nam 40 years ago today. I flew into Albany, NY from the Bay area to try to re-connect with my girl who had moved on (her loss) Woodstock was only a short hop down the road, but I passed. I think I have more to reflect on today than those who wallowed in the mud on Yasgur’s farm.

Aug 15, 2009 - 1:10 pm 109. Charles:

Can anyone name five high value products you could grow on a five acre farm (within 70 miles of a city)and sell to Whole Foods–that’s not too labor intensive. My cousin has such a farm. He had the idea of growing saffron because it sells for about $10@oz but its so labor intensive to pick–that its not such a hot idea for an old guy and his mrs. looking for a part time income.

Aug 15, 2009 - 1:45 pm 110. Marie Claude:

106 Pat Cat, Quebec would be a bettter bargain, hydro-electricity, gold mine…soon when ice will melt, may-be oil !

Plus we don’t need to teach t’em french, Brits couldn’t force t’em to speak english

otherwise they are valorous warriors at times, they beat 1 US president(which one again?) when he wanted to invade Canada

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:34 pm 111. bogie wheel:

What did Dr. Chavis do with his subversive; “If you act like a fool, you’ll be treated like a fool. If you act like a winner, you’ll be treated like a winner.”? Students who can read, might read improper thoughts. Students who can count may be harder to swindle. Students who understand that being an independent and responsible human being is better for your future than being a lower status pack animal, could be self-supporting and have their own ideas not sanctioned by the State or Party.

He taught the slaves how to read.

We all know that that is verboten on the liberal plantation.

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:46 pm 112. Doug:

“We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . .

Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.”

That, it turns out, is just the beginning of the ways in which American Indian Public Charter and its two sibling schools spit in the eye of mainstream education.

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:47 pm 113. bob:

Alpacas, Charles, alpacas. Get a ma and pa alpaca and go into the breeding business on that five acres.

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:53 pm 114. PA Cat:

110 Marie Claude

You’re thinking of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, and the War of 1812.

Aug 15, 2009 - 2:55 pm 115. Doug:

Spitting in the eye of mainstream education — latimes.com
Link to original article – something got changed in the interim.

Aug 15, 2009 - 3:01 pm 116. Doug:

Don’t trust anyone over 30 except for those older guys who invented the rule 40 years ago!
Woodstock’s 40th Anniversary Official Chants and Slogans

The victory of the battle of Woodstock gave hope to all people of the world who were braving the assault of the reactionary culture. It drove a stake at the heart of imperialism by removing the need for personal hygiene and selective sex among large swathes of the young masses, replacing harmful bourgeois alcohol with beneficial, consciousness-expanding drugs.

40 years later, the epic Woodstock Revolution continues to guide us in our glorious march towards the future through the destruction of the past.

Aug 15, 2009 - 3:27 pm 117. Subotai Bahadur:

#109 Charles

Restricting yourself to what may be sold to Whole Foods, may I add two other land critters that can be raised on small acreage:

Goats: in addition to the meat [for some markets, but private meat production may have more regulatory hoops to jump through than would be worth it to you] there is goats’ milk and its products. If you make an artisanal cheese, they would buy it, and it would be a food store for you if it got hungry out [as would the meat]. Further, you could sell the milk to those who make craft soaps from it. Goats are relatively low maintainance for livestock. I would also note that it is possible to rent out the use of your goats in mobile pens to act as lawn mowers. Our recreation district hires out a herd of goats for the purpose of keeping its land cleared instead of mowing. For some breeds of goats, the hair can also be used/sold for weaving.

I would also recommend the miniature Dexter Breed of cattle. These are smaller than most American breeds, can be raised mostly on pasture if you have 2 or more acres, dress out at about 60-70% of the meat weight of the common American breeds, and give about the same milk as American dairy breeds with a high butterfat content. In England, they are being raised in the suburbs as things ARE getting hungry there. Once again, for sale, you have to meet the regulations. For cheesemaking, these are bloody wonderful.

Dealing with Whole Foods, of course you have to meet their organic standards. [We won't go into the possibilily of carnivorous cows.]

If you are not scared of them, bees are neat critters to raise, and honey and comb minimally processed should do well both for Whole Foods and elsewhere. Think artisanal stuff. [and Mead!]

———-

If we are preparing less for merchandising and more for the concept of survival after the organic waste impacts the rotating airfoil; there are certain skills that would guarantee you a place in whatever community exists:

The ability to make:

Gunpowder

Alcohol- [not only for drinking, but also for medicinal and chemical compounding purposes. although drinking is not a bad thing.]

Field Expedient Medicine- [herbal and much lower technology than at present. Kind of like after 20 years of ObamaMengeleCare (/snark)]

Pottery- Societies always need containers for storage and cooking. Glass and plastics degrade/break. Metalworking for such things will be too expensive for quite a while. Baskets also would be a helpful art.

Any form of Metalworking/blacksmithing.

There are more, but I will leave that for others. I would also recommend purusing the Foxfire book series.

Subotai Bahadur

Aug 15, 2009 - 3:57 pm 118. always right:

89. Peter Boston

He can try to only focus (or mis-inform) on ‘health insurance reform’, but the whole darn bill is still healthcare reform.

Thanks for the tip for Pat Santy, I didn’t realize she’s back.

Aug 15, 2009 - 4:12 pm 119. Tcobb:

#109

Its really hard to reply to such a request when you don’t specify the general location of the farm. What can be grown successfully depends upon the latitude and longitude, and that goes for livestock too.

Asparagus, for example, generally draws a pretty high price as far as vegetables go, but you can’t grow it in a southwestern desert.

Where is this farm?

Aug 15, 2009 - 4:19 pm 120. Doug:

“If you make an artisanal cheese, they would buy it, and it would be a food store for you if it got hungry out [as would the meat].”
—
Subotai Bahadur –
That’s how Luddy Barsen made his millions.
A Man Outstanding in his Field.

Aug 15, 2009 - 4:22 pm 121. Scythianeedle:

For someone interested in “artisanal” products from critters, primitive sheep and goat breeds have advantages. Four-horned Jacob sheep like those the Navajo raise, Icelandic sheep, and others bear some looking into.

I’m familiar with Dexter kine, and with the Icelandic breed, having known several folks who raise them. A number of European domesticated types have been in-bred to for many generations, in order to concentrate the genes for a certain type of wool that works well with factory processes. The in-breeding in some types has produced the desired sort of wool, at the expense of various deleterious effects. (Think of the noble collie dogs’ well known tendency to hip dysplasia…)

By contrast, the so-called “primitive” breeds tend to have wool that is excellent for hand carding, spinning, weaving, and more importantly for self-sufficiency, felting. They also tend to be more robust, better able to fend for themselves on wild grasses and plants. They provide excellent meat, milk, and hides.

I can testify that the fresh milk of an Icelandic sheep is like the best cream you’ve ever tasted. Right out of the teat (into a cup!) One spring, milking six ewes that had recently dropped their lambs, a friend collected four gallons of thick milk in one week. This left plenty more than that for the lambs to suck. It was given to me to make it into yogurt.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Doing that on a commercial basis is bound to involve preparation of a business-appropriate facility for collecting, processing, and packaging the milk and its products, with inspections and permits from possibly several authorities.

Take a look at prices in the store, check around for information before making the plunge. There’s ALWAYS more to a business enterprise than meets the eye.

I was shocked to find out that the salt blocks for horses have to have copper compounds, but if the sheep lick’em the copper compounds accumulate. If there’s some sudden stress – disease, a dog that chases – the copper can precipitate out of the blood and kill’em. So the sheep have to have their own salt licks, and you have to ensure they don’t have access to those of the horses.

Corrections would be welcom from other folks who may have better information.

Aug 15, 2009 - 4:40 pm 122. luddy barsen:

ach, doug, der goatencheesen toppen lines ain’t der same as der bottoms lines, Gott en Himmel.

***
BTW here’s the Smokin’ Gunman –re the big bu$t. Big time Chris Doddering Obamaman, BTW. Look at who positioned him for the blow-off –none other than Eliot Spitzer. damn if i wuz wretchard and could turn frazes like he do, i’d rite the book.

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:02 pm 123. Marie Claude:

I tell ya, feed Gooses to make “foie-gras”

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:16 pm 124. Charles:

119. Tcobb:

#109
Where is this farm?
…….

Maryland: 20 miles from Annapolis and 30 miles from washington dc and baltimore.

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:17 pm 125. Doug:

Lewis is a great writer – Liar’s Poker rather ahead of it’s time by about a decade.

Other works include Moneyball (Norton, 2003), an examination of baseball that focuses on the way markets value people; The New New Thing (Norton, 2000), about Silicon Valley during the Internet boom; Losers (Vintage, 2000), about the 1996 presidential campaign; and Liar’s Poker (Norton, 1989), based in part on Lewis’s experience working as an investment banker on Wall Street.

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:19 pm 126. luddy barsen:

trangbang, among all the Woodstock poetries and statistics floating around everywhere, the one in that VFW article is all by itself –that during the four days of Woodstock, nine thousand miles away in Vietnam, 109 Americans of about the same age as the woodstockers were KIA. that stat sort of makes a dreamlike image, as if you were up high, say on a crane, looking down at the festival, everything is like it was but at the edge of the picture way off in the distance sort of along a treeline, there’s those 109 fellers just kind of standing there watching.

it almost makes me cry. hell not almost, it does.

Aug 15, 2009 - 5:40 pm 127. Lisa Stone:

It makes me cry too.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:02 pm 128. Lifeofthemind:

luddy barsen,
The great divide coming out of Vietnam was between those who went into the military and those who went to Yasgur’s farm. Sure there were a few like Kerry who infiltrated what they already saw as the other side but they did so knowing where the line was and on which side they belonged. Forty years later the enablers of Ayers have burrowed in and control the commanding heights. Through the subversion of the educational system they have prepared their heirs to follow in their footsteps.

The lesson that everybody understood was that LBJ made his greatest error when he attempted to fight a war while feeding The Great Society. Not just because the policies were wrong but because they promoted a sense of normalcy and relativism in which domestic experiments were equated with national security in demanding the Federal government’s attention. Indeed they soon surpassed the scope of the traditional sectors of government. In so doing they gave employment and power to an entire army that existed not only separate from the agents of the traditional government in the internationally focused departments of DoD, DoS and Treasury but in rivalry to them. Partly this happened because LBJ sought to buy support with domestic spending and partly this was because of his frozen worship of FDR that drove him to attempt to emulate in 5 years what FDR did with the New Deal and WW-II over 13 years. The fact was that the New Deal, which was a failure, ended with the entry of America into the war.

Bush 43 repeated LBJ’s error when he failed to mobilize the nation and attempted to buy domestic tranquility by throwing money at special interest programs that fed his enemies. FDR might have been a second class mind but his first class temperament made him know that you had to mobilize the American people for war. If we had Frank Roosevelt in charge in 2001 then we would have had Hollywood, PC be damned, cranking out cartoons, comedies and melodramas ridiculing Islamic culture. Further, illegal aliens and Saudis would have been rounded up and deported before Christmas. Finally he would have tossed half the university’s faculties into uniform and bullied the rest into silence. FDR never entered a fight to engage in a process. Whether you liked him or not and whether you agreed with his policies or not, he fought to win.

Sometimes Conservatives get so wrapped up in our justifiable admiration of Winston Churchill that we slight the leadership and tough mindedness that FDR brought to the war. He employed many woolly headed ideologues whose progeny (Ickes for example) blight the landscape. It is my belief that he would never have spent political capital pushing for immigration amnesty in wartime.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:03 pm 129. Anodyne:

“that stat sort of makes a dreamlike image, as if you were up high, say on a crane, looking down at the festival, everything is like it was but at the edge of the picture way off in the distance sort of along a treeline, there’s those 109 fellers just kind of standing there watching.

it almost makes me cry. hell not almost, it does.”

You’ve got a big heart, Buddy. Hopefully there’s also a dreamlike image of those 109 young guys being bucked up by your anguish over their loss.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:13 pm 130. Lifeofthemind:

For the record today in Union Square I saw Heirloom Tomatoes on sale for $4.75/lb and less prestigious cousins going for $2.75/lb.. Heirloom indeed, at those prices they should be bronzed and put in a vault.

Reminds me of the obviously old story of the businessman who returned to the head office after big trip. His buddy thought he looked ill so he tactfully asked how it went and the answer was,
Wonderful, marvelous, everything was great.
Really? Where did you go?
Didn’t have to go anywhere, stayed in the hotel, the restaurant, the meetings, everything was right there.
That sounds nice and convenient. So the firm arranged a good hotel for you?
Good hotel? It was the best. Six star hotel. The card on the back of the door said it cost $200 a night.
Two hundred dollars! Was it a nice room? Did it have a comfortable bed?
I tell you everything was perfect. I never felt a more comfortable bed in my life.
Well I’m glad to hear that, at least you must have gotten a good night’s sleep.
Sleep? Are you crazy? At those prices I didn’t want to miss a second!

buddy Larsen,
Age shall not dim them. They are with us as long as there are those who remember and they are in the company of brothers.

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:31 pm 131. Charles:

According to this freerepublic post Glen Beck is asking for videos of Obama’s czars. he figure’s they’ll all be taken offline soon. Beck himself is under pressure. I didn’t see beck’s twitter address.

Ah here is Beck’s twitter address as well as some instructions for how to use twitter.

btw anyone interested in building a following in the 1000’s on twitter — the way you do it is to find twitter posters who have similar interests to yours — follow their followers. About 1/3 will return the compliment and follow you back.

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:10 pm 132. Doug:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties

This writer was born in 1967, but has an excellent compilation of people and events.

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:18 pm 133. Tcobb:

#124 Charles

That’s way too far out of my climate zone (south Texas) to know about what grows there. Can you grow artichokes there?

Aug 15, 2009 - 8:45 pm 134. Doug:

Listen to the Flower people

Aug 15, 2009 - 9:01 pm 135. Subotai Bahadur:

# 130 LOTM and #124 Charles,

Heirloom vegetables command a price premium for two reasons. First, modern farms use hybrids that are breed for disease/pest resistance and ease of handling in getting to market over taste. Heirloom vegetables, especially tomatoes, taste better. Second, Heirloom vegetable seeds can be collected to plant the next crop. Hybrids do not produce fertile seeds. Having Heirloom varieties at hand might be a good thing if things get hungry out.

Charles, I am guessing that you are in the area of Prince Georges or Calvert County. You should have no water shortages for your crops and a decent growing season. Also, any pasture should be pretty rich. Here in the Alpine desert, we are not so lucky. Assuming that you take care to maintain soil fertility [growing legumes and fallow periods or adding organics] you should be able to grow pretty much anything. The only problem may be in growing a staple grain crop, due to lack of area. However, there is also the possibility of growing something like a specialty breed of corn for the market that would command a premium price. We have varieties like Sakata Sweet or Olathe Sweet corn that will make you turn up your nose at regular corn. If you can get seed for those [they are hybrids] or something similar, you might be able to sell to Whole Foods or other specialty market once they approve your organic status.

Given your general location, I hope that you are far enough away from any possible Γ-ray emitting mushrooms that might grow.

Subotai Bahadur

Aug 15, 2009 - 9:46 pm 136. trangbang68:

The cultures of counterculture and military culture overlapped in Viet Nam around the middle of 1968. Partly because of the draft which reached into the largely deluded and rebellious youth culture. Many of the young as we all know got 2-S college deferments.The draft picked a lot of factory kids, southern boys, southwestern Indians and Chicanos and a not disproportionate number of Blacks. Once Cronkite and company gave credence to the antiwar mob, morale started sinking. Black power and drugs began to poison the army divisions.
You want to weep a tear, shed a couple for Kenneth Pavan ,got drafted the same time as me from Niagara Falls, NY. He was 26, married with kids and lost a deferment He died three months in in the Big Red One in Binh Long province. Cry for Phillip DiGregorio, one of the nicest people I ever met in my life.He died in the Big Red One also. Robbie Brown I mentioned here before delayed r&r to go on an operation with my company in the 25th Division in October 1968 and died assaulting a bunker complex on the Oriental River. I could tell you some other names but they’re carved on a Black granite wall on the national mall. Joni Mitchell saw the bombers turning into butterflies above our nation. Some of us saw the flower of a generation bleeding out in the rice paddies and triple canopy jungles of a faraway land . Hell I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:28 pm 137. Lifeofthemind:

FWIW, I added a couple of comments on PJM to Roger Kimball’s thread regarding Yale censoring the book about the Motoons. My prose is lost in moderation land but preserved on my blog.

The work of William Sloane Coffin at Yale has born fruit. Parasites always are surprised and angered when the host collapses beneath them.

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:23 pm 138. DWB:

Trangbang68 #136 – You touch on what I have reflected over the years in reference to our wars. Many of the people who would have been good for a normal society, never got the chance. They never got to have families and children, start and run businesses, or help shape other peoples lives. Many of the people who avoided the war proliferated, had kids like themselves and are a plague on us. This reverse Darwinism is the real tragedy of war.

Aug 16, 2009 - 12:17 am 139. Charles:

#124 Charles

That’s way too far out of my climate zone (south Texas) to know about what grows there. Can you grow artichokes there?

133. Tcobb:
I went to my cousin’s wedding reception in San Antonio in early July. Nice evening setting in a downtown hotel. Cool air conditioning. If you cared to step outside it was hot and humid but the little river ran by. I talked to the only texas republican elected official who didn’t vote for George Bush in 2000(because he said the way Bush got better test scores was the same way ann richards did…dumb down the tests.) Afterwards I went out with my uncle to visit a piece of land he uses for an airport with frontage on Guadalupe River near
Seguin. That’s my guess anyhow as I’m not familiar with that area. We passed through miles and miles of burnt up corn fields. A couple seasons of that could just wipe out the farmers–unless someone shows them how to grow something that doesn’t need much water–and isn’t mesquite.

Do you know of such a plant?

Aug 16, 2009 - 5:23 am 140. Charles:

135. Subotai Bahadur:

I wasn’t actually asking on my own behalf. I was asking on behalf of another of my cousins who has five acres in Howard County (Next door to PG county.)

I’ll pass yours and other suggestions on to him.

I live inside the beltway of washington dc on the virginia side.

Aug 16, 2009 - 5:36 am 141. Charles:

137. Lifeofthemind:

The work of William Sloane Coffin at Yale has born fruit. Parasites always are surprised and angered when the host collapses beneath them.
…….
I fear the church I currently attend will die of the same disease that Coffin rendered.

Aug 16, 2009 - 5:39 am 142. Subotai Bahadur:

#139 Charles

Re: a low water crop that might work in Texas drought country. I have been experimenting with quinoa, which is an Incan staple grain grown at even higher altitudes than here [10,000+ feet] in the Andes. Extremely high in protein, and complete proteins. It is a desert type plant [bloody little water down there]. It grows in Colorado and there are small farms of it down by Trinidad [around 6000 feet] according to our extension service. San Antonio is around 700 feet [and I do love that Riverwalk. There used to be a Cajun restaurant with blackened prime rib to die for.]so I don’t know if it will grow at that altitude. However, when the local health food store heard that I was going to try to grow it [and we do organic], they offered to buy my crop before it was even planted. It is a fast germinating [3 days], low water crop and we got [miribile dictu] 2 1/2 inches of rain days after I planted which wiped it out. This has been our wettest summer in decades. But I will try again next year. Have your uncle do a web search on the grain, and see what his county extension office says about it. It is a possibility.

Another thought for your cousin. Given the nanny state taxes that have hit and are still coming; it might be worthwhile to try growing an acre of tobacco. Not for commercial sale, which would involve government regulation; but for “personal use” which is unregulated still. The barter possibilities are interesting. I know tobacco grows in Virginia and hte Carolinas. Not sure if Maryland is suitable for small scale. He would have access to seed in that area.

#140 Charles

That’s nasty mushroom country. I hope you and yours are visiting your country cousins when we receive the inevitable, unopposed gift from Iran, Al Quada, Russia; et.al.

Subotai Bahadur

Aug 16, 2009 - 9:55 am 143. Oh, bother:

Doug @ 85: I thought surely someone other than me remembered that just a few years ago WFM was the Walmart of Crunchy, expanding all over the country, driving lesser stores out of business, and all that. Apparently it still is. *yawn*

Having said that: that’s a pretty good health plan. I haven’t seen a health plan that good in several jobs. Starbucks partners get a pretty good health plan, too. Just sayin’.

Aug 16, 2009 - 10:19 am 144. herb:

Trangbang68
Welcome Home.
been meaning to say that for a while.

Aug 16, 2009 - 10:35 am 145. herb:

Robohobo and others who trade with TJ and WF: Dont take me wrong. $3Chuck is ok. and if you like your bacon tofu based free range inorganic its fine with me. Im into pig-based bacon. I can tell from here that your head is on straight.

WF and TJ have just recognized a good chunk of the population will respond to the flattery of their moral vanity.

Aug 16, 2009 - 10:41 am 146. Tony:

Thanks, Trangbang.

Aug 16, 2009 - 12:54 pm 147. Al_Batross:

What a wide-ranging and informative discussion this has been !
A bit hard on the chickens, though.
We should remember that chickens are not that faraway from being dinosaurs, and that our modern chickens originated from the Jungle Fowl of S/SE Asia, whose domestication began at least 5,000 years ago. In all that time, we may have taken the bird out of the jungle, but we have not taken the jungle out of the bird. In the farmyard, the chicken genetic play-book still has the same rules.
Perhaps with selective breeding we could produce a hapless, helpless chicken, stripped of the instinct to scratch and peck, but what use would it be except as miserable battery-farm fodder ?
The “flying head” image has rather stuck in my mind (Madam Guillotine at work ?), but from the chickens’ point of view it is just valuable protein…

Aug 16, 2009 - 1:06 pm 148. trangbang68:

Thanks for welcome homes. I’m grateful for any such although I’ve been home and at peace for many years. My friend’s son was at our church this morning on leave from Afghanistan. I wanted to hug him and tell him we love him and that he’s connected, but he knew that.
Correction: I called Phil Delorenzo Phil Digregorio in my earlier post and wanted to correct that. The hallowed dead deserve that.

Aug 16, 2009 - 1:51 pm

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