So How Many Boycotts Are There Out There?

The news of NDP deputy leader Libby Davis getting in hot water about supporting a boycott of Israel has got me thinking. Not about Israel’s right to exist – even if I understand any nation’s right to defend itself in order to better assert and ensure continuation of its existence – but about boycotting. The National Post reports it in this way:

The video shows Ms. Davies answering a series of questions about the situation in the Middle East, starting with comments suggesting that Israel has been occupying territories since 1948, which is the year of its independence. “[The occupation started in] ‘48. It’s the longest occupation in the world,” she said in the video. “People are suffering. I’ve been to the West Bank and Gaza twice, so I see what’s going on.” Ms. Davies also expressed her personal support for an international campaign for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, breaking ranks with her party’s official position.

Now whether or not she has deviated from the party line is one thing – not to mention to the entirely wackier thing that is any call for the end of Israel – but time was it was all boycotts all the time. We all remember the South African boycott in the 70s and 80s (actually going back into the 60s) but I seem to recall that boycotts of France over nuclear testing and Nestle were also part of my parent’s shopping reality as a kid. Earlier, there were boycotts against the Nazis as well as by them. Farm workers in the US have successfully used the boycott as did politicians in relation to the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympics. Right now people apparently want me to boycott Alaska, Nokia and Cheetos.

The thing is boycotting always seemed to me to be about a sort of personal expression or at least participation. My Mom could join in and neither she nor France were at risk. Cheetos will go on. They may even be improved in their Cheetos ways, policies, practices and products. It means folks don’t have to be Ghandi but can be like Ghandi. But only if the cause is right.

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Friday Bullets For World Cup Starts Today!

It’s now been a few years since I played soccer. Last World Cup I was all still in the, you know, idea that me and – like – slide tackling was… errr… not stupid. I thought that it was very healthy to have rolled ankles, sprained kneed, black and blue shins not to mention aches and pains. Not just aches. Aches and pains. Fortunately, I have embraced non-fitba member me since then. I’ve found a life after exhaustion, hot baths and aspirins all weekend. And looking like a bee. It’s a great game, though.

  • France and Uruguay this afternoon. I have always liked Uruguay and not just because of the abundance of the letter “u” in the name. Blues v. Blues. Hope the blue team wins.
  • “6 Ways To Overcome Social Media Burnout“? Doesn’t it start with not being a nerd when you are six?
  • Nigel Barley?
  • Canada Posts bans dog treats. Bite, doggie, bite… but aim for management.
  • Someone doesn’t like “food bloggers with their wankerish little digicameras”! And it’s that most useless of creatures – a newspaper food critic. Remember: those who cant’ complain a lot and do their best to keep available funds to themselves.
  • New UK PM apparently is having a hard look at Jean Chretien’s masterful decision to take a stand eighteen or so against deficits. Will he seek Steve’s advice as to how Jean did it?

Wish good luck for South Africa. I have cousins there, grew up in a boycott house, have a great pal who was in the Army and then got away before the changes, lived in towns with Boer War monuments. We should be closer.

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Illinois: IPA, Goose Island Beer Co., Chicago

On a Monday night when elementary school children are melting down all around you, it is hard to imagine Friday. Friday is that tiny light at the end of a long tunnel. A legend you hear about only in whispers in that place between waking and sleeping. And, worse, it’s four days away.

But at least I booked the afternoon off as well as the next Monday to watch some World Cup soccer over a long weekend. Apparently, the USA is one of the teams playing and this might be the beer I save for this Saturday game against Engerlant. It pours a swell orange amber with a swell clingy white head and the smell of freesias and marigold. It has a great mouth feel with a good bit of body, a bit cream, a bit of heat from the hop acids and plenty of white grapefruit pine sour, too. The brewer has a pretty full spec sheet but suffice it to say it’s yum without being like aiming a can of aerosol furniture polish at the back of your throat like so many of the big bomb IPAs these days. You won’t need a Rolaid mid-bottle, either. Great BAer respect – and if England pulls into the lead, well, I can switch to Honkers just to be safe.

So, if this is the beer for USA… what does one have with Uruguay?

Sign of The Endtimes #2658: Helpful Clothes

Again with the failing cause of the right to idleness illustrated by the lengths that scientists will go to keep us from the benefits of idleness:

Smart clothes could soon be helping their wearers cope with the stresses of modern life. The prototype garments monitor physiological states including temperature and heart rate. The clothes are connected to a database that analyses the data to work out a person’s emotional state. Media, including songs, words and images, are then piped to the display and speakers in the clothes to calm a wearer or offer support.

Will the cause of the stress be analyzed, too? Maybe there is a very good, even pleasurable reason for being hot and bothered? Maybe the person needs to handle such tensions by themselves? By sitting in a chair or having tea. In fact, isn’t tea – cold or hot, sweet or not – the entire low-fi answer to the problem… if there is a problem at all. Are the stresses of modern life beyond coping? Coping at least without an intervention by one’s socks offering support? Have a tea. Have a nap.

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Yutes Today Less Empaffetick

I don’t know why this is so silly but maybe it’s because I was a thoughtless college yute in the 1980s:

Today’s college students are 40-per-cent less empathetic than those of the 1980s and 1990s, says a University of Michigan study that analyzed the personality tests of 13,737 students over 30 years. The influx of callous reality TV shows and the astronomical growth of social networking and texting – technologies that allow people to tune others out when they don’t feel like engaging – may be to blame, the authors hypothesize…The researchers found a 48-per-cent decrease in empathic concern and a 34-per-cent decrease in perspective-taking between 1979 and 2009. In particular, post-millennial students were far less likely to agree with statements such as, “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.”

Forty-eight percent! Who knew? Weren’t we the “me generation” or is every group at that age lumbered with that label? I recall college years being based upon the need to get beer, find money to get beer and to consume that beer. I can think of one or two guys who were involved with ding something good for others and the hundreds of others I met were just getting by and/or getting it on one way or another. Tender concerned feelings were demonstrated by that guy who kept the collection of empty rye whisky bottles in his dorm room. Now, to be fair, there were more dudley do right Earth Day organizing sorts after my degrees were obtained by 1991 but even that would not qualify so much as perspective as a amateur junior lobbyism practice. Then was the time of the rise of the “anti-s” and should nots.

What is being such rose coloured revisionism? Must be today’s parents. Trained as they were in a pool of ale and shooters, I feel for them.

Wisconsin: Moon Man Pale Ale, New Glarus

It’s Memorial Day weekend in the USA and I am celebrating. Mainly because I’ve been sick since the middle of last weekend’s Victoria Day long weekend up here. Being in a border town it’s not a great stretch even if I can’t get over to witness one of the glories of the western world, a small town US parade. Eat a hot dog this weekend, woudja?

This beer was launched just a few weeks ago and arrived in a mixed 12 pack care of my Wisconsin mule – oddly by way of a village in north western Quebec. It gives off the aroma of peaches and apricots at an alarming level. It pours light burnished gold with an actively sustain pure white foam. On the swallow, theres a wall of pale malt sweet graininess with black tea hop with a weedy floral overlay. The finish is a bit tea, a bit bitter green with a squirt of juicy malt right at then end. Yum.

Structurally, it’s quite singular – a overly perfumed kolsch? And at 5% its a reasonably sessionable beer but I bet it could be rolled back to 4.4% with reasonable integrity. BAers got the love thang.

You Were My First Blog… But I Forgot You…

It’s not like I’ve had unkind thoughts about you, Gen X at 40, but with the busy beer blog, Twitter and Facebook I hardly have any time left. Heck, I haven’t even checked my email accounts this morning. Plus I get up too late. You understand. Right? And it’s not like I am all that clever before the caffeine kicks in. You should be happy for the break once in a while. It’s the pros. That’s what it boils down to. The invasion of the pros. It happened to amateur political rant blogs back around 2007 and now it’s even happened to beer blogs. Even the aggregators are going. Remember them? The places that were supposed to kill blogs are being killed off themselves. No one even spams the comments anymore.

Sorry about yesterday, my oldest blog, but these things happen.

My Computer Screen Is Dying And I Don’t Mind

I am actually sympathetic as my back is still stiff and wonky, having good days and bad. The screen narrows, flickers, gets wavy and even reboots of its own accord. Once upon a time, this would have been a source of anxiety. How would I pay for the replacement? How will I get along without checking in. But there are other surplussed screens around the basement as well as that laptop I picked up at Best Buy on sale. I have a better screen sitting on the 1995 Pentium 75 “Asteroids server” right now. There is other equipment floating around going back fifteen years and I consider myself a latecomer to these things. My computer screen can die without me noticing that much.

My computer screen is a lot like a fork to me now.

Session #39: Collaboration? Call O’ Bore-a-tion?

That’s not very clever. Or polite. But one must pun as one can. And one has to be always on watch for indulgence – especially when it comes to marketing… or is it marketability. That is what Stan mentioned: “Collaborations are good business, good marketing, good fun and often result in interesting beer.” Or a bit of what he said… or implied. Sorta. But can they also result in bad business, poor marketing, tedium and dull beer? Of course they might. If not, what point would there be to this month’s edition of The Session?

This brew is a good illustration of the quandary, Brewmaster’s (sic) Collaboration Signature Ale #1 which resulted from a brewing get together 3 years ago and two months ago between Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing and Dirk Naudis of De Proef. It pours a deep rich varnished pine under thick rocky clinging off white head. The aroma includes pine sap and nutmeg, bubblegum and marigold. The mouthfeel is very soft and compelling but turns on you with the twin bite of hops and alcohol. There is pear and honey in the malt. All very attractive yet it’s a bit of a muddle. It’s overly hot from just 8.5% alcohol, the hops also burn and the malt’s a wee bit flabby. There is a bit of brett or some other sour tang a bit down there as well as a little of spice. But the furniture polish hops overwhelm it all. As they usually do. Like using the fuzz or the waa-waa pedal or a car with an intentionally bad muffler. The label claims that “these notes could be out of balance were it not for the generous maltiness that holds the beer in check.” I am not sure I agree.

Could be that time or the shelves of the middleman have taken a toll? I think not. This beer is like a decent Belgian golden strong ale got mixed up with a good California double IPA which stumbled into little dubbel. Plenty of BAer love but hasn’t this been done? A hundred times? Could be by now – but had it “been done” back in March of 2007? Three years and two months is a lifetime in craft beer marketability trends. It took until 2009 before folks got a bit jaded on the idea. Maybe this was one of the first inquiries into the collaboration idea that branched into or at least was working with into that early late mid-decade Belgian double IPA idea. When collaboration was new and interesting.

Collaboration might be a great idea but it also might be an idea with less universal applicability or longevity than one might have hoped a few years ago. Let’s be honest. All craft beer is collaboration. Brewers work with other brewers, were trained by brewers and were inspired by brewers. Does it really matter that one craft brewer held the basket of hops as they were shaken into the other’s brewing kettle? After taking a jet?

We Played Base Ball… And We Won

I didn’t get the great shot like with other games. No photo of the instant before a ball is hit. No photo of hands outstretched. Thought I did get the actual money shot, above. Maybe it’s because we actually won and I spent my time screaming at the team to cover the gaps, not drift off the line and
rush around the bases. Turns out we don’t need to suck every game as the Kingston St. Lawrence Vintage Base Ball Club (“the Brown Stockings”) beat Royal Military College (“the Royals”) 41-3. That’s a lot. It was quite the thing. Took four seasons but a win… they can’t take that away. Sackets is doomed in July.