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We can file this Orange Juice Fiasco safely under the heading of corporate conduct that manages to screw the consumer, adhere to the barest letter of the law, and be scandalously profitable all at same time! Heuristically speaking, what the major orange juice producers are doing is considered the standard of corporate behaviour. So when your right-wing friends tell you about how evil restrictive government policies/regulations are literally choking the life out of the (sacrosanct) market you can tell them about this orange juice story and watch them wiggle and squirm as they try to think of what combination of market theology/bombast will shut you the hell up.
“The cartons say “100% pure and natural.” But juice-drinkers who believe that premium juice is minimally processed and freshly made may find that their glass is only half full.
A joint investigation by CBC Marketplace and Radio-Canada’s L’épicerie reveals that much of the premium not-from-concentrate orange juice on the market, including juices from Tropicana, Simply Orange, Oasis and others, is highly processed and may be stored for several months before making its way to supermarket shelves.
That processing may keep the juice from spoiling, but it also strips the flavour, which has to be put back into the product to give the juice its orange flavour.
“If you’re paying premium thinking that it’s a fresh-squeezed product, then there is a problem there, because it’s not,” Alissa Hamilton, […]”
Not past your first cup of life yet, let me highlight the key point – Your premium “freshly squeezed” OJ has probably been stored in a vat for serveral months, in a flavourless, pasteurized state. To make it palatable, they have to add orange concentrate back into the mix. I know I’m jumping ahead here, but this is the gist of what is going on in the OJ industry.
“But many leading juice companies do not disclose, either in marketing or on the packaging, that they add natural flavour to juice.”
Whoops. Not like consumers would need to know about that right? It wouldn’t be like they were contradicting themselves or anything with the rest of the OJ label claiming to be “freshly squeezed”.
“Canadians spend almost $500 million a year on orange juice, including premium juice, which is often marketed as “fresh,” “pure,” “natural” and “not from concentrate.”
And that premium comes at, well, a premium.
“’Not from concentrate’ costs quite a bit more than ‘from concentrate,'” says Hamilton. “They’re trying to convince you that that’s because of the fresher product, that you should pay that much more.”
The Marketplace survey, conducted online by the polling firm EKOS in November 2014, also found that 62 per cent of Canadian orange juice drinkers said they believed that premium juice is fresher than juice made from concentrate, and 58 per cent say they believe it’s more natural.
In fact, 46 per cent were willing to pay more for these juices because they believe them to be more natural.
The survey involved English speakers who said they had bought or consumed orange juice in the last six months.
But Hamilton says that “what you’re getting back in these flavour packs is an engineered product.”
Shocked I tell you, just shocked am I about juice producers dishonestly labelling their products to make a buck.
“Flavour packs are made when fragrance companies take extracts from orange peel to reproduce the aroma and taste of freshly squeezed oranges.”
Mmmmmm…I love the taste of freshly squeezed flavour packs in the morning…
“Solange Doré, vice president of Lassonde Beverages Canada, which makes Oasis juices, told L’épicerie “these are flavours that come from the fruit, they are an integral part of the fruit. So, in essence they’ve been lost and we collect them and restore them.
“So we’re not adding synthetic flavours, it’s very important to understand that difference,” she said.
For that reason, juice companies don’t feel that the labelling is misleading and say that the packaging complies with existing regulations.
Coca-Cola, which owns popular brands Simply Orange and Minute Maid, told Marketplace in a statement, “orange oil and orange essence is extracted during juicing to capture the natural orange taste and aroma, which may be later blended back into the juice to ensure a consistent, fresh-squeezed taste.
“The amount of orange oil or orange essence that may be re-added to the juice is within the range that is commonly found in freshly squeezed orange juice,” the statement said.”
Well, there is the greasy technicality they are using to bilk you, gentle Canadian reader, out of your hard earned dollars.
The immoral of the story, as usual, with corporations is that greed and the bottom line take precedence over all other concerns. Take heed conservative voters who think that deregulation and ‘cutting red tape’ are mega-fracking awesome ideas because this OJ debacle is only a minor jaunt into the world of corporate malfeasance.
Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!
On Dec. 9th, 1965 – 49 years ago – nearly half of the US population tuned in to A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles Schultz, an animated broadcast that featured the music of the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
Prior to its debut, producers were worried it was too religious, and the soundtrack was too jazz cutting edge for children’s programming. Were they ever wrong! 15 million homes had eyes glued to that broadcast, and it has since become an iconic Christmas classic.
Jerry Granelli, a drummer and a long time native of Halifax, NS is the only surviving member of that original trio. On December 7th of this year the Jerry Granelli Trio toured a show called Tales of A Charlie Brown Christmas that featured all the music from that original broadcast.
Here they are doing the true classic, Linus and Lucy.
***Let me preface this post with a handy disclaimer for clarification – When women say that have been abused – I believe them.***
**Update – Lucy DeCoutere speaks of her abusive experience with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC radio’s show The Current – Catch the podcast here.**
Okay this story broke over the weekend and the major print media involved so far has been the Toronto Star. In the TS’s words here is what happened –
“CBC star Jian Ghomeshi has been fired over “information” the public broadcaster recently received that it says “precludes” it from continuing to employ the 47-year-old host of the popular Q radio show. Shortly after CBC announced Ghomeshi was out the door on Sunday, Ghomeshi released news that he was launching a $50-million lawsuit claiming “breach of confidence and bad faith” by his employer of almost 14 years. He later followed that up with a Facebook posting saying he has been the target of “harassment, vengeance and demonization.”
Hmm. Well I think the CBC’s information – having a host that is violent toward women – is probably a good reason for canning the dude.
“Ghomeshi’s statement said that he has been open with the CBC about the allegations. He said the CBC’s decision to fire him came after he voluntarily showed evidence late last week that everything he has done was consensual. Ghomeshi blames a woman he describes as an ex-girlfriend for spreading lies about him and orchestrating a campaign with other women to “smear” him.
The three women interviewed by the Star allege that Ghomeshi physically attacked them on dates without consent. They allege he struck them with a closed fist or open hand; bit them; choked them until they almost passed out; covered their nose and mouth so that they had difficulty breathing; and that they were verbally abused during and after sex.
A fourth woman, who worked at CBC, said Ghomeshi told her at work: “I want to hate f— you.”
Fascinating. It would seem that Ghomeshi has the standard defense of blaming and making women responsible for his shitty behaviour down pat. Might another dodge in the dude’s handbook be that what he does in private (beating women) should have no effect on his job?
“Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird, normal, or outright offensive to others. … But that is my private life. … And no one, and certainly no employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life.”
Ah, but Jian the three women in question all say that you physically attacked them explicitly without their consent – and that boyo – means your private life, your private kinks – are fucking irrelevant to the issue at hand, because attacking people is against the law.
“Early last summer, the Star began looking into allegations by young women of sexual abuse by Ghomeshi over the past two years. The Star conducted detailed interviews with the women, talking to each woman several times. None of the women filed police complaints and none agreed to go on the record. The reasons given for not coming forward publicly include the fear that they would be sued or would be the object of Internet retaliation. (A woman who wrote an account of an encounter with a Canadian radio host believed to be Ghomeshi was subjected to vicious Internet attacks by online readers who said they were supporters of the host.)”
Go read that paragraph again. You will not find a more clearly defined example of what rape culture is and how it affects women and their choices.
Why didn’t these women just go to the police? Because often filing a police report and going through the process ends up as nothing more as a re-victimization of an already traumatized individual and no legal censure for the abuser in question. Plus, now with the shiny new information age, women are targeted for harassment, rape and death threats over social media and email (just take a peek at the abuse women get for daring to speak their mind). Coming forward just isn’t that easy or cut and dried as people would like to portray.
From the New York Times:
“They [the women Ghomeshi abused] explain further:
“Each of the women accusing Ghomeshi cite the case of Carla Ciccone as a reason they desire anonymity. Last year Ciccone wrote an article for the website XOJane about a ‘bad date’ with an unidentified, very popular Canadian radio host whom readers speculated to be Ghomeshi.
“In the days that followed, Ciccone received hundreds of abusive messages and threats. An online video calling her a ‘scumbag of the Internet’ has been viewed over 397,000 times.”
In her 2013 XOJane piece, Ms. Ciccone writes that a man she calls Keith, who “has a successful radio show in Canada,” repeatedly tried to touch her when they went to a concert together, even after she asked him to stop.
Those who speak up about sexual harassment or violence have long been subject to public scrutiny and criticism. But an onslaught of online abuse and threats has become a strikingly common response to women’s public statements — see for instance the threats Anita Sarkeesian and others have received when they speak publicly about misogyny in video games.
Brianna Wu, a game developer, details her harassment in an essay at XOJane, describing death and rape threats as well as threats to her career:
“They tried to hack my company financially on Saturday, taking out our company’s assets. They’ve tried to impersonate me on Twitter in an effort to discredit me. They are making burner accounts to send lies about my private life to prominent journalists. They’ve devastated the metacritic users’ score of my game, Revolution 60, lowering it to 0.3 out of 100.”
Yah, soooo..before we get any spirited arguments about “Why didn’t they just go to the police? – the above quote is your answer. Do you want to face the possibility of ruining your life given the very real chance that your trauma won’t be taken seriously by the authorities? Can you see how large the disincentive is for women to “go public”. Again, say hi to what it like to live in a rape culture.
Heather Malik writing in the Toronto Star elaborates this key point about how rape culture effects women and the reporting of sexual abuse:
“When it comes to redress for suffering a sexual attack, Canadian women might as well be in Saudi Arabia. We whisper among friends and quietly trade stories, or we shut up for our entire careers.
The barriers start with institutional sexism and pile on with the almost impossible burden of proof for acts committed in private, the adulation offered to well-paid and well-connected men, the insulation of a large staff on Ghomeshi’s radio show Q, his hiring of a PR company and a team of libel lawyers, the fact that he claims he is a union member now filing a grievance against the CBC, an army of carefully catered-to fans online, the continuing shock of being physically assaulted, and then one of the worst things of all, the terror of being placed in the online bearpit.”
The stigma for women surrounding sexual assault and battery needs to be removed. The choice between ruining your life for a slim chance at justice or shutting up about your sexual assault is really no choice at all for women, as this story so vividly illustrates. Women need protection and support from the legal system and society. Woman should be able to exercise their human and legal rights without fear of retribution from the misogynistic elements of society that would see their lives ruined for the mere act of speaking the truth about their experiences.
As a long time CBC radio listener, I sincerely hope that Mr.Ghomeshi is not rehired. Canada is a progressive country and the abusive, anti-woman vibe that surrounds Mr.Ghomeshi has no place on our national radio network.
Acting responsibly with your money, saving it perhaps?
You sir/madam are an idiot; at least according to the Bank of Canada. “Why are you not out there spending money and making the economy grow?”, asks our benevolent Central Bank. The temerity you have displayed (despicable saver!!), acting responsibly and not going credit debt wild is unacceptable. As a matter of fact, let’s punish you for your responsible fiscal behaviour.
My faithful readership by now is aware of the rambling nature of my commentary so I advise you to go to the CBC right now and watch the video about what I’m faffing on about before reading the rest of what I have to say. This is some scary shite we are talking about today and it highlights precisely what is going wrong with our Western Democracies. But before we get to that, lets get some quotes from the article and lay down a rough sketch to aid in understanding what “quantitative easing” is and how it is ruining your life.
“Every six weeks or so, they gather in Basel, Switzerland, for secret discussions and, to an extent at least, they act in concert.The decisions that emerge from those meetings affect the entire world. And yet the broad public has a dim understanding, if any, of the job they do. In fact, these individuals now wield at least as much influence over the lives of ordinary citizens as prime ministers and presidents.”
Let me assure you that this is not Shadow Cabal Cranktastical Serendipity Territory straight up. These people meet regularly and make policy in very ordinary hiding in plain sight sort of fashion. Our central bankers meet and then robustly plan the future of the world economy… no problems right?
“The tool they have used to change the world so profoundly is one they alone possess: creating money out of thin air. There is an economic term for this: quantitative easing. More colloquially, it’s called printing money. Since the great economic meltdown in 2008, these central bankers have probably saved the world’s economy from collapse, and dragged it into the unknown at the same time.”
I have trouble when the term “saving the world economy” means printing and then giving more money to the people who just finished wrecking the economy with hopes(!) that they would fix it and mend their avaricious ways (!!).
“Stock markets have risen on this tide of cheap money. So has real estate. So, arguably, has everything else. But there are two big concerns with what this new central banker elite has done. One is that no one really understands the consequences of pumping such vast amounts of money into the world economy. It’s already distorted the prices of certain assets, and some fear hyperinflation or market crashes are inevitable (the subject of tomorrow’s column). The other is that it’s caused a massive shift in wealth, from savers to borrowers, and is taking money out of the pockets of almost everyone approaching or at retirement age.“
I did not see Quantitative Easing in any of the party platforms in Canada. People are deciding by fiat, who is going to win and who is going to lose.
“Probably the most painful of the consequences of quantitative easing has been borne by the elderly. Most of that generation grew up believing that if you save and exercise prudence that you will earn at least a modest return on your hard-earned money to keep you comfortable in your old age, perhaps along with a pension. But the money-printing orgy of the last five years looks to have shot that notion to smithereens. Very deliberately, the central bankers have punished savers, pushing interest rates so low that any truly safe investment — and older people are always advised to play it safe — yields a negative return when inflation is factored in.”
So, the new economic paradigm is that investing or saving prudently is actively discouraged. It is just me or does this seem like greasing the skids for a race to the bottom on a global scale? Looking back to Canada we can see our Central Bank Mandarin preaching the value of the damage done to Canadians that have the audacity to save.
“As Canada has performed better than most Western nations, Carney has not ordered any new money printing. But he has kept interest rates down, and that has fed the real estate booms over the last few years in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and elsewhere. He scoffs at the suggestion that “the party” will end at some point. “I am not sure we are having a party right now,” he says. “It doesn’t feel like a party.” And, in fact, he has repeatedly expressed concern at the huge debt levels Canadians are accruing, at least partly because of his low-rate policies.
But surely he understands the anger of an older person watching their savings being eroded, I ask him.
Carney smiles grimly. That question is clearly a sore point. He gets a lot of mail on the topic. Canadians, he says, must understand that the alternative is massive unemployment and thousands of businesses going under, and “my experience with Canadians is that they tend to think about their neighbours and their children and more broadly … they care a little bit more than just about themselves.”
Seems like a lot of justification for keeping the “free market” afloat not to mention keeping the class that currently holds much of the wealth in the country protected and wealthy.
Being a citizen of the world I am rightly pissed off at the machinations going on because I wasn’t consulted. The absence of the political class on the issue speaks volume to the primacy of the Central Banks in our economies today. This sort of power without accountability is recipe for disaster.
Do note that when the money printing ends, the next bludgeon deployed is “Austerity”. Greece and Spain are certainly thriving under the auspices of this particular policy, one wonders who is next?
Welcome, the signature series continues. As always, you will need to go the CBC Radio 2 website to hear the compilation and voice over about the beauty and the majesty of what music in the key of C minor has to offer.
C minor: The Tortured Genius
Also known as:
The Solipsist.
The Misanthrope.
C minors you might know:
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Lord Byron.
Kurt Cobain.
The notes: C – D – E♭ – F – G – A♭ – B♮ – C.
Number of flats: three.
Relative major: E-flat major.
What they said about C minor in the 18th and 19th centuries:
“A tragic key, fit to express grand misadventures, deaths of heroes, and grand but mournful, ominous and lugubrious actions.” – Francesco Galeazzi, 1796
“Sounds in deep tones of misery; it proclaims rigid, numb grief. Fear and horror. Bitter lamenting. And despair.” – J.A. Schrader, 1827
More C minor listening:
Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms.
Symphony No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich.
The Canadian connection:
“The Floor” by Buck 65.
Unlike The Arbourist, I have very little musical talent. I cannot play any instrument, keep time, or even step in rhythm (my dancing has been described as “dangerous”, and not in a good way). On occasion I fantasize about how awesome it would be were I actually a classic guitar virtuoso, percussion prodigy, or mad-skilled pianist. Once the dream fades, I am left wondering what instrument would actually befit a person like me.
Today I happened upon this delightful little article on the CBC music blog and thought it would be fun to share it. It seems that, depending on my mood on a given day, I ought to take up the Viola, the Timpani, or the Cello.
Perhaps you’d like to start playing a musical instrument, or your five-year-old is begging for lessons. But you’re wondering: With so many musical instruments out there, how do I choose?
It’s simple really. Ask anyone in the music business and they’ll tell you that musicians have personalities matched to the instruments they play. So we’ve come up with a little way to figure out the instrument that’s right for you. (Click the image below to enlarge it.)
CBC article here
Hey I need some help eroding the church/state separation. Lets ask the experts!
I’m not really sure what is so shit-hot about the attitudes and conventions of the Dark Ages, but Harper and his government have decided to fecklessly dive into the land of pants-on-head stupid and establish a official government bureau of “Religious Freedom”. Let’s be clear, not something useful like an office sponsoring freedom FROM religion, so sorry Rishma of Pakistan, you still get be sentenced to death for allegedly burning pages from a magic book. Because, obviously we need MORE religion in the world because rational thought is too fucking hard to deal with.
“The federal government’s long-awaited Office of Religious Freedom will be unveiled soon, officials say, after months of delays caused by difficulty in finding the right person to head the office.
The new body, which will be housed within the Department of Foreign Affairs, was expected to be up and running earlier this year.
But a senior government official told CBC News that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has had a hard time finding someone to fill the role of ambassador to head up the office. Two people who were approached ultimately turned the post down for logistical and personal reasons.?
Reasons why? Because being head of the Canadian christian god brigade overseas is not appealing. I’m really flabbergasted at my government right now. I’m imaging that in some meeting some wonk pops this ass-blister of a suggestion and throws it out there –
“Hey, you know that separation of church and state thing, its dumb, lets set up an office and get the government officially involved in delusional religious shit”. Ohh the meetings goes quiet. “But where are we going to get the money?” says Economic Wonk, our resident member of brain trust of turdistan says, “oh, well we closed a bunch of science and research down there is plenty of money saved from that…”.
And then there was cabinet/Harper approval. Yes, lets close down scientific research on one hand and fund the promotion of stale religious brain-flatulence from the bronze age. Brilliant! How can we lose? It is astonishing that people voted for people that actually endorse this sort of thinking.
“Some supporters of the idea have grown frustrated with the long wait. The $5-million office was first announced during the May 2011 election campaign as a centrepiece of the government’s foreign policy.”
A vesitgal bone thrown at the dumb-as-dirt religious value voters that worked. Apparently jebus said lower corporate tax rates so we can screw the rest of society over. To my idjit right of centre commentators, did you notice that you only get lip-service paid to your nuttily-regressive ‘social conservative” goals all the while the economic conservatives who hold the real power happily continue to gut the bastions of the social democratic state? You think getting screwed over would become tiresome after the nth time, apparently you thought in 2011, *this* time it would be different.
Bhatti argues the new ambassador must be objective.
“The person shouldn’t be one-sided,” he said. “He doesn’t focus on the one religion, or one persecution. He will treat every religion equally and give his recommendation to the foreign office and government regarding truth and reality.”
I don’t even know what this means. But I think I would be a good candidate for the job. I all religions the same, with contempt, would this make me a good candidate for the job? Probably not since the ability to think clearly is not selected for when trying to get a job within a religion.
“As CBC NEWS reported last year, internal Foreign Affairs documents showed nearly all of the panellists who participated in a closed-door consultation with Foreign Affairs last fall in Ottawa were drawn from Western religions, primarily Christianity. Few Muslims were in attendance and there were no Muslim panellists.
Arvind Sharma, a Canadian scholar of religion, has been carefully monitoring the government’s plans, and says the idea presents a great opportunity for Canada on the world stage.
But the McGill University professor warns that’s only if Canada avoids promoting proselytization.”
Yep, Canadian Christians for Christ, sponsored by the secular government of Canada? *sigh* Canada is a secular democracy and really needs to axe this crumby idea.
Giving government support to mythology is stupid and needs to stop before even more people get that idea that religion is an still acceptable choice in the 21st century.
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