At the Twilight's Last Gleaming: Way OT: Coffee mystery solved

November 14, 2005

Way OT: Coffee mystery solved

Feel free to skip this post if you're looking for something relevant to the purpose of this blog. Extended random thought follows. You have been warned.

In the last few weeks, I've noticed that the stores in our area have been having trouble keeping Folgers instant coffee on the shelves. As much as I love ground coffee, I'm also exceedingly lazy, so I'm the ideal demographic for instant coffee. It's a problem, though, when the stores have absolutely nothing of my favorite brand. So... do I go with Taster's Choice (no, because in addition to being lazy, I'm also stingy) or with the mysterious Store Brand (maybe, but only because I have to have something).

I finally became intrigued enough about the empty shelves that I decided to test the power of the Internet as an investigation tool. I went to Google News, typed the word "Folgers" in the search box, and... what do you know? Something is up:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Procter and Gamble Co. says its Folgers coffee plant in New Orleans is back in full operation.

The plant was shut down by Hurricane Katrina and has slowly resume operations in the weeks since then. Coffee supplies to some stores have been disrupted, and the company had run a national television commercial campaign about the hurricane's impact.

P & G says the New Orleans plant is the largest coffee production plant in the United States.

Folgers says it has notified retailers that supply will return to normal by early December. More than 400 of the company's 554 employees in New Orleans are back at work.

Folgers says it remains strongly committed to New Orleans, where it has had a presence for more than 50 years.

Well, okay, mystery solved. Now I know I have a personal stake in the recovery of New Orleans.

1 comment:

Tim said...: Reader "Chocolate" writes:

Wow! This wasn't news to me at all. A couple of weeks before I saw the TV spot my local grocery store, Wegman's, had a sign with the info on the shelf where the Folger's belongs. But, then again, Wegman's isn't a grocery store. It's a way of life. Of course they would be a head of the curve.

Now, Tim, I thought you only drank fair trade coffee. I've never told you I drink Folger's because I didn't want you to say "tisk, tisk" to me. So, either it is fair trade or I should be saying "tisk, tisk" to you!

Within hours of my original post, I was seeing references to the Great Coffee Shortage everywhere. I missed it before because I don't watch TV enough to have heard the news there.

As for "fair trade" coffee, didn't I say in my post that I'm stingy?; 11/16/2005 10:26 PM

What Happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that. I aim to make my case as time goes on. I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Why our country is where it is

As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars -- whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract -- and vastly more important.

-- Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, October 16, 2008 speech

The U.S. is not a democracy!

Q. If we are not a democracy, why are our officials elected by a majority of the people, and why are our laws passed by a majority of the lawmakers?

A. We are not a democracy because both the people and the lawmakers are limited by the fundamental law of the land, our written Constitution. Election by the people is not a grant of power beyond the constitutional limits of the office. A representative government limited by law is a republic, not a democracy. In a republic a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights, or the rights of others -- unless ... unless they step outside the Constitution.

-- Preserve The Constitution, By Don Fotheringham (October, 1995)

The Cancer of Democracy

Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome.

— Lazarus Long, in Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset

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November 14, 2005

Way OT: Coffee mystery solved

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