disappointed in both arizona and trader joe’s in sweden

We have this bag hanging on a hook in our hallway.  It is a Trader Joe’s shopping bag, and it says “Arizona” on it in big letters.

We don’t use it right now, and the Arizona bugs me, because of all the immigration ridiculousness going on there right now.

And now the Trader Joe’s doesn’t feel so good either.  As the investigations editor for The Faster Times, I am working on a “Reader Investigation” on private label and organic food. (For more on our investigations, check out this story on us in Columbia Journalism Review).

Our writer, Amy Westervelt, has come up with some great stuff … especially on Trader Joe’s.

From the post (read the whole thing here):

Nobody wants to hear anything bad about Trader Joe’s, and in a lot of ways it’s a great store. But it’s also a business that operates in the shadows. About 80 percent of Trader Joe’s food is private label, a trick it picked up when it was purchased by German superstore Aldi in the late 1970s …

“You’d hear stories about it all the time, this small producer who was basically putting all their eggs in the Trader Joe’s basket and then they wouldn’t be able to shave another penny or two off their price and the order would be pulled and the company would be ruined,” says Jeff Porter, a former buyer for Andronico’s Markets [a local chain of gourmet food stores in Northern California] and current Wine Director for Mario Battali’s Osteria Mozza in L.A.

“But it’s hard for companies to sell to Trader Joe’s and anybody else,” Porter continues. “First, Trader Joe’s doesn’t like them to, and second, other stores didn’t like them to either. They know they can’t compete with Trader Joe’s prices.”

What am I going to do with that bag?!?!

America, Welcome to Socialism!

Reprinted from The Faster Times — This is a bit old now, from March 24, a few days after Obama’s health care reform passed the Congress.  But I just like to show all my socialism love here in Daddyland.

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If you have doubts about the new health care legislation, just relax.  Yes, just like Joe Biden said, “This is a big f—- deal.”  But you are going to love socialism!

I live in Sweden, which is not actually a socialist country, but, for the sake of my good friends in the tea parties, we can call it socialist.  I mean, c’mon, I am on nine months of paid parental leave.  My kid gets subsidized child care.  I am taxed at one of the highest rates in the world.

Then there is the health care.  Oh, the health care.

Actually, I hardly ever think about the health care here.

And that is the point.  I hardly ever think about the health care (and my family is not lacking medical issues).  It is just there.  I can fuss with choice and private doctors if I choose.  Or I can go the old school neighborhood clinic route.

Pssst, here is the secret.  Even with all the taxes, my family still does fine.  We have more stuff than we want.  You should see all the yachts around Stockholm.  And cars are outrageously expensive, but everyone has one! (except me)

You could say I am addicted to socialism.

Prominent conservative and former Bush advisor David Frum even more or less says that Americans will soon be addicted, in this widely quoted “Waterloo” piece for CNN:

More relevantly: Do Republicans write a one-sentence bill declaring that the whole thing is repealed? Will they vote to reopen the “doughnut” hole for prescription drugs for seniors? To allow health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? To kick millions of people off Medicaid?

It’s unimaginable, impossible.

Safety nets are good.  People you know need the safety net.  America was built on community as much as any pull up your bootstrap individualism. I’d love to see how many tea party people will turn down Medicare when they hit 65.

I know the Republicans are still frothing about socialism and Obamacare and all that.  This will go on for a good while.  More from Frum:

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters — but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

Now the overheated talk is about to get worse. Over the past 48 hours, I’ve heard conservatives compare the House bill to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 — a decisive step on the path to the Civil War. Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking.

Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune also compiled some real winning quotes from Republicans on the socialist menace.

As for me, I’ll be waiting out the end of winter up here in the great socialist north, not listening to crazy Republican talk and not thinking about health care.

And if you were wondering, despite the recession, Sweden is doing just fine economically, thank you, with the world’s fourth most competitive economy and low debt levels and budget deficits.  Plus all that socialist cradle to grave welfare stuff.

Now take a deep breath, and repeat after me, “Socialism is not evil.  Socialism is not evil …”

now blogging off the news at The Faster Times

I have started blogging off the news for The Faster Times, to go along with my sporadic Huffington Post entries.

I am working to find my own personal mix of links and news and commentary.

I am toying with adding haiku into the mix (seriously) but am still too new at the website to venture that.

But check it out …

http://thefastertimes.com/bignews/