The Shock Doctrine

I finally finished reading this great book last night and you can read my review over at the Winter Reading Challenge blog.

If I ever meet you Ms. Klein, I'm giving you a high five for writing such a great book.

Oh okay, if you insist, I'll give you a medium five.

Are there any good corporations?

Long time readers know what I think of the multi national corporations that are killing us and ruining our planet. So you might think that I think all corporations are bad, but you'd be wrong Bucky. There are good corporate citizens in the market place who are responsible and who use their corporate power for the good of the communities they are in. And one of those corporations is going to open a store here in Johnson City.

Meet Earth Fare. It's a grocery store that carries mostly organic foods. Organic foods are grown without fertilizers and pesticides which poison our planet, are grown using long term sustainable methods, and far less mechanization is used in the organic farming process. Earth Fare is committed to buying locally grown organic produce and meats. They also have a policy where they will not sell any products that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup.

They do their best to keep imported produce to a minimum. They also have a bakery, deli, and hot food bar in all their stores. All three of which make and sell organic breads, pastries, and all manner of organic dishes. They also offer a wide range of organic cheese and dairy products.

They offer a complete line of organic and sustainably made health and beauty products, along with other products that nurture one's mind, body, and spirit.
They recycle in all their stores and they encourage you to recycle as well by offering some recycling opportunities. They are a bright spot in an otherwise bleak corporate landscape. I for one am looking forward to shopping at their new store here in town when it opens this summer. It's always good eatin' when you have food that has been grown locally and without poisonous fertilizers and pesticides.

Now all the signs in the shopping arcades say, "The corporation thief is the new Jesse James!"

Odds bless him, Elvis was anti corporate before being anti corporate was cool.

By the way, the guy who plays the gameshow host in this video, Harry Enfield, is huge in Britain, over here however he can't get arrested.

I have no idea who the brunette in this video is but she's insanely cute in it.

Whatever would we do with out massive multinational corporations?

Slappy Boi was back on my blog and he/she had a problem with my post about that ass Mark Cuban. I deleted your comment Slappy Boi because this is my blog and I control things here. Until you buy out Google and force me to stop deleting your comments, I'll keep on doing it.


Slappy has a big problem with my anti corporate stance. He wanted to know whatever would he do if he couldn't buy milk and condoms from his multi national corporate owned mega super store and whatever would he do if he couldn't fly a corporate airline that is backed by the US government so that it never will go out of business.


Here's what you'd do if the major mega store went under Slappy, you'd have to buy local products from farmers and Mom and Pop owned businesses. It would be better for the planet and for your health if you were forced to buy locally grown food. Instead buying a gallon of milk that is full of hormones that do not naturally occur in milk, you'd be buying and drinking milk that is how nature intended it, pure and wholesome. Instead of buying meat that had been slaughtered in a dirty abattoir in China, you'd have to buy meat that had been harvested closer to home. Millions of gallons of fossil fuels would not be burnt and your neighbors would be reaping the profits instead of some faceless gutless corporation that cares nothing about the environment or your home area.


As far as what the airlines go, that's one industry that I'd love to see lose all government help and subsidies. It's one industry where the vicissitudes of the free market should be actually let loose. The airlines cry foul when they have to actually compete and they run to the government to bail them out when they lose money. The government ended welfare for individuals years ago, it's time we ended it for business and industry.


You see Slappy, your neighbors, I'd usually use the phrase "your friends and neighbors" but I doubt you have any friends, would pick up the slack if the major corporations weren't sucking up all the business and putting small business out of business. I'm not anti business, I'm pro small Mom and Pop business. I'm against huge conglomerates owning everything and I'm for local ownership of businesses.


I'm glad you keep coming by though, maybe one day the truth and reality of what I and my compatriots write about will sink in on your small mind. Oh and just to let you know, I won't ever be stopping by your blog, nothing you say interests me.

Let's take a field trip!

After we finished up our usual weekend walk at Willow Springs Park this past Saturday where we had great mountain views like this: I said to Sparky, "Hey, let's drive to Jonesborough and see if that new brewery is open." With the prospect of cold locally brewed beer dangling in front of her like a Christmas ornament, Sparky quickly agreed to my plan.

So off we drove in the Sparkymobile until we reached our destination in Tennessee's oldest town:

I was worried that they may have been closed by the time we got there but one quick glance at the hours of operation told me we made it in plenty of time, we got there around 3:30 PM in fact.
From the outside the brewery doesn't look like much:But once you get inside it's another story. We walked in and we were ushered back and the nice young fellow asked us if we wanted to taste their wares. Not being ones to turn down free beer we quickly agreed to sample the locally brewed ales and lagers. And yes, at one point the young man told me the difference between an ale and a lager but I was too busy enjoying the free beer to pay attention.
Once he checked our ID's, we have a new state law that says all persons wishing to buy any alcohol must show ID, the young man started pouring from the taps pictured above. We sampled the house brew, which was very good and was the kind we ended up buying later, a caramel tasting dark beer, a dark Scottish ale that is also currently for sale in local grocery stores in 12 ounce bottles, a beer so dark that it almost sucked the light from the room and that tasted too much like coffee for my tastes, a fruity lager which I liked but Sparky didn't, and one other ale which was really good but the name of which I forget now.

After sampling all those beers on a nearly empty stomach, I must admit I got a buzz. It reminded me of my old college days when we'd get drunk in the afternoons on the weekends. Now that I think about it, maybe all those times I got drunk on weekend afternoons contributed to my C minus average, all well, that's water, or in this case, beer under the bridge now.
Even though the sign outside said tours by appointment, the young man gave us one without an appointment, finally we are getting the respect and perks we deserve! Blogging pays off kids, stick with it!
The young man took us on a guided tour of the joint and we saw many tanks like the ones above and the ones below.

We also got to see their delivery van!

Our guide told us that the owner, Michael Foster, invested quite a chunk of change to get his brewery open and that things were currently looking up for them. They have several restaurants and pubs in the area selling their beer on tap and now they are branching out to local grocery stores. One can also buy kegs, mini kegs, and bottles of their beer direct from the brewery. I did not inquire as to the price of a full keg but I did ask about their mini keg system. They said that the mini keg system was $160 for everything including the tap and when you ran out of beer you bring the little keg back and get it refilled for $45. That was out of our price range so instead we bought what they call a "growler," which is a glass jug that has half a gallon of beer in it.
Mmmmm, locally brewed beer in the fridge.

*****

As I said before we got a growler of the house brew. The only problem with this size container is that it's kind of like a two litre of soda in that once you open it the natural fizz of the beer starts to leave it. So to combat the loss of fizz we were advised that once we opened it we should drink it all. Despite Sparky's reservations when we finally got home later that evening, I opened that bad boy. I ended up having 4 glasses to Sparky's 2. All in all the beer was great but that's actually a little too much beer for me in one night. Ideally since my heart attack I should have only one a night, two at the most. Luckily for me though they are going to start shipping one of the lighter ales in 12 ounce bottles to local stores soon, until then however I may have to wait until we have guests that will help us drink a growler of beer, so all of you should consider that an invitation to come on over, wink wink.

You can visit the brewery yourself if you like. They are located at 904 Depot Street in Jonesborough, TN. Or you can visit them on the web here. I'm thrilled we have a local brewery that makes such good beers and I'm hoping people around here and from all over the world discover this great new small business.