Category Archives: Poetry

Food, History, Poetry, Security

Absinthe legal in the US again

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I have a bottle sitting on my shelf. It was a novelty gift from Prague. My favorite part is the label. Now I hear that a local distiller will be selling bottles and offering authentic samples in their tasting room.

The SF Gate has written a fascinating story that touches on why this relates to hype versus reality in public safety:

Now it seems that no one can remember exactly why it was prohibited. Some say it was the chemical thujone found in the herb wormwood, used to make absinthe, that affects the brain. Others say it was a plot by the wine industry to put the popular spirit out of business. And there are those who believe it was a case of baseless hysteria, not unlike “Reefer Madness,” the 1936 propaganda film about marijuana.

Perhaps because there is nothing exact to remember in these issues of human behavior? Hysteria is the right word. Fear is another one.

Earlier this year, a lone Washington, D.C., lawyer took on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in an attempt to lift the ban. After some legal wrangling, the agency agreed – with some limits.

Lone? Personal mission? I am surprised they do not say lawyer and poet, or lawyer and aspiring artist? Alas, even though a lawyer is to blame for the legalization of the drink I am sure it will continue to be associated with those least involved in its production and distribution. I just can not see absinthe being associated with holiday parties at big law firms. Consumption would appear to be most conspicuous among those who are least controlled/contrived in their daily expressions.

Last week, St. George Spirits of Alameda received the news that, after seven applications, the federal agency had approved its label, the final obstacle before going to market. On Monday, the small artisan distillery sold its token first bottle, becoming the only American company since 1912 to sell absinthe in the United States.

Approval of the label is a big deal because there is little to object to in the substance itself if made properly. Might as well have a team of legal and risk experts debate the merits of marketing it safely while this substance has no more risk that the millions of bottles it will sit by on the shelf. Will they use something like Cigarette pack warnings? Those vary by culture and country, but they are the hallmark of regulated marketing.

Overall, I found the article highly entertaining. It puts to light much of the controversy about causality:

“Look, absinthe is bad the way Jack Daniels is bad, the way Skyy Vodka is bad,” says Lehrman. “The worst component is the alcohol. If you drink too much, something bad will happen.”

I guess you could expect a distiller to say that about alcohol. Moderation, and self-control right? Might as well ask someone from Colt if guns kills people. Sorry, I digress…

But in 1905 the Swiss government was convinced that it was absinthe alone that turned a law-abiding citizen into a homicidal maniac. After Jean Lanfray, a 31-year-old laborer, killed his pregnant wife and two children, the Swiss government banned the spirit. Although Lanfray had sampled a bottle of absinthe before breakfast that morning, officials failed to take into consideration that he had also consumed Creme de Menthe, cognac and soda, more than six glasses of wine and a cup of coffee laced with brandy, says Barnaby Conrad III, the San Francisco author of “Absinthe: History in a Bottle” (Chronicle Books, 1988; the publisher is not affiliated with this newspaper).

Nice try, but the Swiss should have banned cups, glasses and bottles. Homicide would have ended with the demise of drinking vessels. Or maybe they should have banned labor.

I’m kidding.

With that in mind, here’s my favorite part:

…the drink became synonymous with the degeneration of the world’s most famous bohemians, from Van Gogh’s infamous ear cutting to Verlaine’s debaucherous sprees of sex and rage.

Even Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Clarity…or degeneration. It is all about perspective, I suppose.

Ironic when you think about all the work for a label to avoid confusion about something that is said to bring clarity.

Perhaps when you drink it, you become clear on why it should be banned.

If not, you are in good company; just ask the Wormwood Society. They point out that absinthe was actually never illegal…just restricted:

There is no law which prohibits absinthe by name, but any drink which contains in excess of 10ppm of thujone is prohibited from being imported into, or produced for sale and consumption in, the United States.

Good to know. Consumers will benefit from safe absinthe, although modern science apparently has found thujone as relatively safe (“0% mortality rate at 30 mg/kg”).

History, Poetry, Security

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

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My prior post on Germans dealing with the issue of identity and security reminded me of the famous lyrics of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I like the version by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole:

Public Radio in the US even did a story on it.

NPR’s Susan Stamberg continues her series on the meaning of “home” with the story of “Over the Rainbow,” from the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. The song that became Judy Garland’s signature tune tells of longing to escape home for a more exciting place. Of course, as anyone who’s watched the movie knows, Garland’s Dorothy realizes there’s no place like home.

Someone might also think Lions can talk and water kills witches, or that the US should follow the silver standard instead of gold. Maybe that’s not the point.

There is no place like home when it comes to the present, rather than past or future, right?

Poetry, Security

Germans drop English as marketing language

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The devaluation of the US dollar has been disappointing, but now I see that the English language may also be losing its value abroad. DW has an amusing report about the move to more native phrasing in German advertising:

One reason for this shift is purely practical. While even native speakers struggle with the double negatives of Adidas’ promise that “Impossible is Nothing,” a study commissioned last year by advertising agency Endmark revealed that Germans respond to most English-language claims with sheer bewilderment.

Faced with a dozen Anglicisms, only one-third of those questioned in the survey actually knew what the slogans meant. Few grasped the point of “Come In and Find Out,” the ubiquitous promotion for the Douglas cosmetics chain. Most consumers, it emerged, thought they were being invited to enter a store and then find the nearest exit.

Would the same group express sheer bewilderment at the logos as well? Does it really matter if they truly understand the phrase or icons if it registers a positive sentiment or simply serves as an identity? I thought that was the point of marketing, not to connect on a more meaningful level.

What does Douglas mean? What does Adidas mean, for that matter? Or more to the point, should anyone really care if they want to buy the product sold under a particular identity? Differentiation is key, according to Businessweek.

It has been permanent jurisdiction in German courts since the 1970s that two, three and four stripe designs infringe adidas’ three stripe trademark. The distinctive mark enjoys a worldwide brand awareness of more than 90 percent. According to the German Federal Court of Justice, the public recalls and recognizes such well-known and distinctive brands rather than un-established marks. It is therefore likely that consumers associate and confuse signs with two, three or four parallel stripes with the adidas trademark.

The objection that the questionable stripe motifs are not used as trademarks, but merely for embellishment or decoration, is negligible. This is because the consumer is accustomed to view parallel stripes on apparel and shoes as evidence of origin and not as a simple design motif.

Ninety percent? That’s impressive, but does anyone really know what the stripes mean? I guess the issue really is that English is no longer seen as sexy or cool enough to move product on its own. Not clear if that’s because of association (e.g. Bush deflating the value) or just a trend, but chances are that its both.

History, Poetry, Security

Bush, Cheney and the Origin of the Word “Terrorist”

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I hate to ruin the punchline, but there is a fascinating op-ed in the NYT called “Bush’s Dangerous Liaisons” that compares the current US administration to French Revolutionaries:

To defend the nation from its enemies, Jacobins expanded the government’s police powers at the expense of civil liberties, endowing the state with the power to detain, interrogate and imprison suspects without due process. Policies like the mass warrantless searches undertaken in 1792 — “domicilary visits,” they were called — were justified, according to Georges Danton, the Jacobin leader, “when the homeland is in danger.”

[…]

Though it has been a topic of much attention in recent years, the origin of the term “terrorist” has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and pundits alike. The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hate freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor of course to “Islamofascism.”

A terroriste was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during la Terreur.

Good reading. I checked wikipedia (where else?) for the etymology and found this nugget:

A leader in the French revolution, Maximilien Robespierre, proclaimed in 1794, “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.”

The footnote suggests this fact comes from Mark Burgess, A Brief History of Terrorism, Center for Defense Information. Further reading led me to a poem called Robespierre by Georg Heym, translated by Antony Hasler:

He bleats, but in his throat. The bland eyes stare
into the tumbril’s straw. Sucking, he draws
the white phlegm through his teeth from chewing jaws.
Between two wooden struts a foot hangs bare.

At every jolt the wagon flings him up.
The fetters on his arms rattle like bells.
Mothers hoist their children up, and yells
of cheerful laughter cross the rabble’s top.

Someone tickles his leg. He does not see.
The wagon stops. He looks up. At the end
of the street he sees the last black penalty.

Upon the ash-grey brow the cold sweat stands.
And in the face the mouth twists fearfully.
They wait for screams. But no one hears a sound.

It would seem history shows people often confuse terrorism with the principles of security and safety.