Mia of Land 'O Lakes Is Gone
The beautiful Indian maiden has been featured on packaging for the name brand butter product for over 90 years; she has been targeted by the diversity industrial complex/politically correct police as a "racist stereotype". I instinctively recoil from politically motivated initiatives of activists to impose their values on other people. I think that a company runs the risk of a backlash when they violate consumer expectations and product identification, e.g., when Coca-Cola tried to replace its original soft drink with New Coke, initially attempting to force the change on loyal consumers without allowing them the choice of formulas. I know as a Clapton fan, I loved his original rock anthem "Layla"; that's the version I would expect to hear if I went to a concert. I was seriously pissed when he introduced his low-tempo, acoustic version some 20 years later. (I think this sort of thing was probably prefaced by Sedaka's slow version of "Breaking Up is Hard to Do", over 10 years after his bouncy pop original. But to be honest, a break-up song should probably be more somber than bouncy, unless you're celebrating the end of a really bad relationship.)Now the company, a farmer cooperative, is trying to spin the switch in labeling as an attempt to emphasis its farmer-owners, probably similar to the approach by that orange juice company owned by Florida orange growers. Personally, the change doesn't make me more likely to purchase the brand, nor am I so motivated to boycott the product because it's ditched its decades-long marketing icon. I think it's a mistake, but I buy butter for the product, not the label. Most of the butter I've purchased over the last 5 years is KerryGold, an Irish brand made from the milk of grass-fed cows. More recently, I've been on a budget kick, see butter as mostly a commodity good and probably bought whatever was on sale, say if Walmart had a budget label product. (Land 'O Lakes is more of a premium-priced product.)
I personally don't buy into the politically correct rubbish that references to Native Americans in branding (including sports teams) are exploitative, racist-motivated, or disparaging. I think we err by imposing presentist values on the past. It's self-evident that we are marketing a sports team or a product, we see a name or symbol as a positive, honorific construct. We don't choose, say, Nazis, cannibals or criminals. (There are choices that don't fit this context, of course, like the 'pirates', but pirates had a code of conduct.) Sometimes the term 'canuck' is considered a pejorative, especially in reference to my French-Canadian heritage, but for the most part, Canadians don't see the term as offensive and use it for one of their professional hockey teams.
As I've written before, I've got a couple of Native Americans on my Dad's side of the family tree (different tribes), and always thought that was pretty cool, although, unlike Cherokee Lizzie, I've never claimed any link. My mom once told me I had the cheekbones of my paternal great-grandmother, a Cherokee, and I considered that really cool.
I haven't pulled up an account of how a beautiful Indian woman came to be chosen to represent the butter company's brand nearly a century ago. From my perspective, it was an enigmatic choice: I was unaware of (pre-European settler) Native Americans domesticating livestock, drinking cow milk or churning butter using it. (I double-checked with a Google search while writing this segment.) So why did they choose an Indian maiden versus, say, an Amish woman churning butter, a more natural, identifiable symbol?
My guess is the land of 10,000 lakes (Minnesota) and an original inhabitant Native American reflected reverence for the unspoiled, pristine beauty and purity of nature and a proud heritage/culture, perhaps intended to symbolize the all-natural, pure product in the packaging. This is a totally speculative inference, which could easily be dismissed by a company archivist.
I'll miss you, Mia. The butter shelf won't the same without you.
Trump Fatigue
Trump is always running against something or someone. The insulting nickname. The strawman opponent. Against the press. The Democrats. The Chinese. Those pesky libertarians in the GOP not rolling over for his massive spending initiatives/agreements. The constant provocative tweets.It's also his personality: his lack of self-control, massive ego, habitual hype and self-promotion, his defensiveness, his lack of professionalism of dealing with other people, his lack of candor (outright lying about what he did/didn't say)
It's almost impossible to enumerate all the annoying things he does; it seems there are multiple things every day. But let me discuss 2 of them in particular over the past week.
First, there is an executive order in which he has suspended legal immigration for 2 months because of the COVID-19 crisis and job protectionism in a largely shutdown economy. Let's be clear: we now lead the world in confirmed cases. Perhaps we might ask why an immigrant would want to come in the middle of a full-blown pandemic. But in fact, Trump could simply have the immigrant tested before boarding a plane. Most immigrants are vetted; it's not like they just schedule a flight at the last minute. Depending on the country, they could spend years on a waiting list. This xenophobic idea of a diseased immigrant exploiting the system to come in and infect Americans and crowd them out of healthcare facility is a bogus rationale to appeal to his anti-immigrant base. There is zero evidence of immigrants being infected by COVID-19 or being a relevant factor contributing to the pandemic; it's just Trump fear-mongering. Similarly the labor protectionism rationale has been debunked for years (cf., e.g., Alex Nowrasteh of Cato Institute).
Second, there was this bizarre sequence at last Thursday's press conference, where he's spitballing about the potential relevance of disinfectants, UV lights, etc., to treating COVID-19.
Let's be clear. This is an election year, and he is using the power of incumbency and free network coverage to portray himself as being in charge during the crisis, an advantage his likely opponent this fall, Joe Biden, doesn't have. Of course, the current crisis is a nightmarish situation for his reelection because, as I've repeatedly pointed out, the booming economy was his principal argument for another 4 years. Now he finds himself under scrutiny as unemployment soars to the highest since the Depression and dark statistics of infections and death counts mount and are reported daily, perhaps the most serious in just over a century. People, in particular his partisan opposition, are holding him accountable, especially for what appears to be a sluggish response to the pandemic. Perhaps he is paying the price for his efforts to expand the powers of the imperial presidency; his gaffes, e.g., of disclaiming responsibility while insisting on his total authority, as if state governors are his subordinates, exacerbate things. He is a prime target for central government failure in response to the pandemic. as CDC and the FDA fumbled in the response for testing and the private sector was hobbled in trying to engage the pandemic under regulatory obstacles, even as Trump portrays himself as Deregulator-in-Chief. Perhaps he is responsible for setting unrealistic expectations of his role.
Now to be honest, I don't watch the press conferences in part because I don't like gotcha questions from the press and Trump predictably responding with personal attacks against the reporters or tiresome rants against the "fake" press. However, I've seen clips of the rhetoric in question. Trump has since disingenuously claimed his comments in question were sarcastic--which, in my opinion, was Trump trying to turn the table on the press. But it is clear from context he was serious and putting the scientists in attendance in a difficult position with off-the-wall questions which no one expected. I think Trump was trying to be relevant, knowledgeable, and engaged in front of a national audience--and it blew up in his face.
Let me end this discussion that I see myself more as a Trump critic than someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome. I do write a lot of critical tweets and often poke fun at him, but I give the devil his due (e.g., I've praised his deregulation agenda, some rollbacks of Obama policies, and a number of his judicial appointments), and anyone who has reviewed my tweets know I have been just as tough on Dems/progressives. I probably reply to Dem tweets more often than Trumpkin (vs. Trump) tweets.
