Saturday, November 17, 2012

Hostess: they just knead a little more dough

The news is bad: it’s not just Twinkies.  It’s the whole line of Hostess bread and treats.

Remember when the adage used to be “As GM goes, so goes the nation.”  I guess that’s (unfortunately) still true,

nationalize thisNationalize This!

butt now we may have Hostess to add to the axiom: As the Wonder bread goes, so too goes the nation.

Let’s review: a few years back the Health Police declared Wonder bread, while basically nutritious, not healthy enough to pass their new rigorous requirements for what THEY want you to eat (fiber). So even though there is nothing wrong with white Wonder bread, other than it tastes good, and even though it has served as the anchor of sandwiches that fueled the work day of America’s workers and students for generations, Hostess felt compelled to mix it up a bit.

What else can you do when Health Police edicts give preference to other breads that aren’t as white? The Hostess company began to give into the self-loathing that sprang from the continual onslaught of allegations that their bread was responsible for all that’s wrong with America. They were accused of causing everything from impoverished, underperforming inner city schools kids to the national diabetes epidemic. In addition, their unions accused them of being greedy capitalists making money off the backs of the working class. The self-hate began to take its toll. The shareholders voted to try something new, hoping the CHANGE would increase their approval ratings and thereby increase the value of their stock. So they expanded their product line:

Wonder-Bread-coupon

They began offering everything from plain old white to 100% Whole Wheat and every shade in between.

Public pressure to stop eating white bread altogether continued until Won day, Wonder Bread lost it’s foothold with the enlightened class altogether:

Wonder Bread may be losing its, well, wonder. When it comes to sliced bread, shoppers are spending more on whole wheat than white for the first time. Though white is still slightly ahead in volume, at 1.5 billion packages sold in the last year to 1.3 billion of wheat, that gap is shrinking. And in dollar sales, wheat crept up 0.6% in the last year, to $2.6 billion, while white dropped 7%, to $2.5 billion.

Although I should note that the 100% whole wheat bread is still a tough sell because some people simply refuse to wean themselves completely from the bread that brought them this far. Butt for those who believe the proclamations of the Health Police and don’t want to be accused of being narrow-minded when it comes to their eating habits, the bread of choice seems to be made from a 50/50 blend of white and whole wheat flours. It doesn’t taste as good, their cholesterol levels and weight have gone up slightly due to the sugars and fillers used to make it more acceptable on the palate, and it cost a lot more, butt they’re convinced they’re doing the right thing, so they’re sticking with it.

Being a mirror, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really get the whole concept of self-loathing; everyone that peers into my reflective glory seems to love themselves.

Mirror-Mirror-embiggened-copy_thumb1

Butt as I understand it, the psyche of self-contempt has something to do with a self-image generated exclusively by other people’s concept of who/what you should be instead of who you actually are, and your subsequent inability to live up to it. I’m afraid this psychological malady might in part be responsible for the demise of Hostess.

Sure, the company’s largest union, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), has to shoulder some of the responsibility, having initiated the nationwide strike after rejecting an offer made through bankruptcy court. Butt in addition to the years of union demands that crippled the company's profitability, so too did the company’s foray into politically correct diversity. They began offering so many new colors and flavors of the day, hoping to attract new customers, that they confused the old customers. They bought something thinking it was another thing and ended up being so disenchanted with the product that they finally stopped buying Hostess altogether and went for Little Debbies.

Allow me to state my case: I reflect, you decide:

What started out on the bread line moved quickly into every other division of Hostess. First to be “improved” in the delicious snacks division was the iconic white Snoball:

img_snowballs

Apparently white ones were no longer good enough, so they stared to make pink, blue -even lavender Snoballs! Thankfully, however, no yellow.

          91287256-260x260-0-0_Hostess Hostess Sno Balls 8 full size packs 2 cakeblue snowball

         hostess_sno_balls_02lavendar snowballs

Next, came the iconic Twinkie. They couldn’t even let the the little cream-like filled sponge cake retain it’s exclusive claim to “vanilla,” and had to add a chocolate and raspberry variety to the brand to make it hip.

2914485380_twinkie_answer_1_xlarge_xlarge       800px-Hostess-Rspbry-Zingers71-resize-380x300chocodile twinkie

Oh well, frankly Twinkies haven’t tasted the same ever since they replaced the lard in the filling with Crisco.

Next to fall to the PC hammer, the time honored Hostess “cupcake.” Up until recent years, “cupcake” meant chocolate if it came in a cellophane wrapper. No longer diverse enough, because some people are allergic, they added orange:

hostess_orange_cupcake_02SONY DSCslide_263863_1768881_freedsc_0969

Nothing wrong with that butt you can imagine the confusion when you buy one thing, and get something different altogether.

Ditto the world class Ding Dongs; where chocolate sufficed for decades, they had to make orange Ding Dongs all of a sudden - masquerading as Big Wheels :

 hostess_ding_dong orange chief big wheel

As far as I know, the Ho Ho is the only treat that they didn’t subject to their diversity program, possibly because everyone knows it’s unwise to mess around with a Ho.

ho_hoes2

Even then, that didn’t stop them from trying to “tart” her up a little to broaden the appeal to other snack world constituencies:

Penguin_Snack_Cakes,_chocolate_Little_Debbie_Swiss_Roll_Penguins,_Hostess_Ho_Ho_Penguins,_Christmas_edible_craft_recipes,_animal_party_treats_

Still a Ho, butt dressed up as a penguin

There are plenty of other people who still  blame the Hostess demise on the mascots who have been around forever. Their thinking is that they failed to change with the times, no longer held any appeal to this generation’s youngsters who now go to the internet to get their cute logos and information on what sugary snack food to buy. As you can see below, the fast paced world changed butt the Hostess mascots stayed mired in their old school, stodgy ways; ultimately becoming the very symbols of the stereotypical America that the Hostess brand managers were trying to shrug off with new diverse products that nobody was buying:

                  king kong dong      3571737571_6ebd80f97e_o

King Ding Dong, too fat; Happy Ho Ho, too happy (butt not gay enough):

    

    captaincupcake too fatfruit-pie-the-magician too rich1chief big wheel too offensice

Captain Cupcake, too authoritative; Fruit Pie Magician, too rich; Chief Big Wheels, too insensitive to America’s First Peoples:

Or - let’s face it- they were just too white:

                twinkiethekid.jtoo whiteWonder%20Classic

So I guess there’s plenty of reason for self-loathing here. And while I understand that one of the characteristics of the syndrome is to assume responsibility for other people’s moral failures, I don’t see how it benefits anything. In this case I’m not even sure what it means.

I for one would just like to go on record as saying that I do not hold Hostess accountable for the upcoming Twinkie shortage, nor to I blame them for the fact that people want to eat fried Twinkies.

deep_fried_twinkieDude! Have you ever HAD one!?!

So I’m not sure just exactly where to place the blame for the loss of these 18,500 jobs:

      Hostess_bakeries_BCTGMho ho strikers

I leave that up to others:

atlashostess-via ADiOwnTheWorld  via American Digest

For my part, I just take solace in knowing that there will be no shortage of Twinkies, Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s in Washington.

  howdy messina

hey joe where'd you get that smilepelosi_stupid_grin

As for the rest of the country, just consider yourselves lucky.

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Friday, November 16, 2012

Let’s Just Put a Wedge in It.

These are indeed unusual times.

It’s hard to say for sure when the last time was that we were served by so many people in so many key positions who know so little about anything; either by accident or design.

Take Susan Rice:

Ambassador UN Susan Rice Discusses North Korean RmEeaovF_ICl She knew nothing (by accident I guess: maybe she should have had a “classified” briefing instead of an unclassified one; and it might have helped if her talking points weren’t so fuzzy.)

CIA Director David Patreaus:

patraeus

He also knew nothing (somewhat by design: he found out if he knew anything he might lose his job.Turned out he was right)

Then there’s the press:

cnnfail-mainstream-mediaAnd stop asking so many damn questions!

They know nothing (by their own design).

And of course there’s Nancy “you’ll have to read it to know what’s in it” Pelosi: she’s never known anything (by God’s design).

nancyFisherBadgeLgOriginal by the Creator; remodeled body by Fisher

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) confused the 14th and 11th Amendments when suggesting the president could bypass Congress and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, saying, “Whatever it is, I’m with the constitution.”

Although she’s right about the boy-king being able to raise the debt ceiling if his eminence so desires. And it sounds like Dickie Trumpa, Big Labor leader and clearly big hammer in formulating our second historical presidency’s economic plan thinks his eminence should; raise the roof that is.

Butt back to Benghazi: as we saw previously, Big Guy was outraged that people would attack his defenseless little woman for communicating the lies misinformation she received from Chicago in her unclassified briefing before being given a White House binder (is that sexist?) of approved talking points.

Asked about their opposition to Rice during his annual press love fest on Wednesday, President Barack Obama visibly and audibly bristled at the idea that anyone would question Rice or his nomination of her. Obama took a “my way or the highway” approach Wednesday, just as he did in his first meeting with Republicans after his inauguration in 2009. “I won” has morphed into “Come after me,” despite the fact that the president earned fewer votes this time than in 2008 and his party remains out of power in the House and in most of the states.

Some people are now accusing BO of exhibiting  “phony rage.”

“What’s going on here?” Gutfeld said. “Is he Ross to her Rachel in a pointed episode of ‘Friends?’ His rage over criticism of Benghazi far exceeds his rage over Benghazi. And to me it’s kind of sexist. Obama casts himself as Rice’s protector with a juvenile bravado that scared only the NPR correspondent. … What, he doesn’t think she can take care of herself? Would he have offered the same protection to a male ambassador? See Benghazi.”

I would just like to stick up for Big Guy: as his record clearly reflects, he’s been a champion for the “lit-ul” people ever since he Won. Right out of the box there was his brave stance against the cops who acted stupidly, bullying and then arrested Big Guy’s pal, Henry Gates simply because he was black, and arguing with them (stupidly, some people might say).

Next there was Trayvon Martin, who looked just like BO’s sons that he never had with any of his composite girlfriends. Remember how outraged he was about that death?

Then there was Sandra Fluck Fluke who was bullied by El Rusbo for sounding like a slut. Big Guy, who hardly knew Sandra before the War on Women got underway, was so moved by her predicament that he made her a central feature at his second historical coronation by the DNC this fall.

120906023117-dnc-sandra-fluke-full-speech-00002307-story-topSandy’s DNC speech was second only to Jennifer Granholm’s in over-emoting

So naturally he felt compelled to stick up for Ambassador Rice who’s been bullied mercilessly by Fox News for lying mis-misrepresenting what caused the Benghazi attack. And since he feels so bad about the abuse she’s been subjected to, he’s more committed than ever to making her his new Secretary of State. She earned the title.

So there you have it: the wealthy black Harvard professor mistaken for a burglar, the victim of a white-Hispanic hate crime mistaken for a burglar, a poor distraught coed mistaken for a slut and the helpless little black Ambassadress mistaken for a liar. Big Guy has proven himself over and over again to be the champion of the underprivileged and female-y.

And in case you weren’t paying attention, Big Guy won a mandate last week to continue to use race, sex and class-warfare to get what he wants. Never before in the history of America has a wedge President use wedge politics so effectively.

abortion vs debtg

In fact, The Dems managed to garner all of the minority groups with the exception of heterosexual interior designers from LA. Well done Big Brains! You’ve made America safe once more for smurfs.

papa-smurf

I guess all that’s left now is to wait and see exactly what it is that Big Guy wants. I sure hope our Jewish coalition doesn’t begin to regret their votes for HOPE and CHANGE.

img_606X341_1111-gaza-israel-attack

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

51% Does Not a Mandate Make. A Press Pass, on the Other Hand…

We held our first post-reelection post-partisan post-racial news conference yesterday:

With respect to the issue of mandate, I’ve got one mandate. I’ve got a mandate to help middle-class families and families that are working hard to try to get into the middle class.  That’s my mandate.  That’s what the American people said.  They said:  Work really hard to help us.  Don’t worry about the politics of it; don’t worry about the party interests; don’t worry about the special interests.  Just work really hard to see if you can help us get ahead -- because we’re working really hard out here and we’re still struggling, a lot of us.  That’s my mandate.

a man-date?

Unless he’s following in Jennifer Granholm’s footsteps by appearing on “The Dating Game,”

reg and bo151132389MB00580_Democraticbo_kass_2009_both_lefties_thumb[6]

Bachelor #1, “bachelor” #2, bachelor #3

the only man-date he got on November 6 was from the coalition of the aggrieved, deranged and lazy.

polls_obama_supporters_zombies 

Re. the Fiscal Cliff: , Big Guy felt compelled to warn all the good little boys and girls that if the do-nothing Congress doesn’t do what he wants, they’ll be finding a whole lot less in their “holiday” stockings this year:

If despite the election, if despite the dangers of going over the fiscal cliff and what that means for our economy, that there’s too much stubbornness in Congress that we can't even agree on giving middle-class families a tax cut, then middle-class families are all going to end up having a big tax hike.  And that’s going to be a pretty rude shock for them, and I suspect will have a big impact on the holiday shopping season, which, in turn, will have an impact on business planning and hiring, and we can go back into a recession.

And while technically, going “back into a recession”  would be called a “double-dip,”

double dip recession A simple double-dip can still be blamed it on “W” (Dubya)

in actuality it will constitute a record breaking quadruple back-flip. Off the cliff.

backflip off the cliff“FORWARD!”

Still, the Obots do constitute a slim majority of 51%  - due in large part to the opposing coalition of the disaffected, discouraged and distraught that decided not voting was a meaningful way to dissent. (How’s that workin’ out for you?)

There were many other highlights from the presser which you can read or watch right here, in case you missed any of it (and who didn’t?) including Big Guy defending his little womyn. No, not Lady M, she can take care of herself, Susan Rice:

As I’ve said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. 

Which raises the questions: did she mis-misunderstand the intelligence that had been provided to her, did she lie, or did the people who provided her with the intelligence lie? It’s one of the above.

If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.  And I’m happy to have that discussion with them.  But for them to go after the U.N. Ambassador [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N – I know, it’s a nit], who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.

And if she had nothing to do with Benghazi why was she the one sent out to lie to do the 5 major network TV shows?

Butt let’s be perfectly clear, if you want to take a swing at his little womyn, you’re going to have to get past Big Guy first. Which probably won’t be as hard as you may think.

bo flinches judo olympic demonstration white houseHere, hold my jacket while I defend you. Ohhhh! Look out!

BO also addressed Ed Henry’s yes/no question re. Benghazi:

On 9/11, as Commander-in-Chief, did you issue any orders to try to protect their lives?

by responding in standard Big Guy defensive rhetoric:

But as I’ve said repeatedly, if people don’t think that we did everything we can to make sure that we saved the lives of folks who I sent there and who were carrying out missions on behalf of the United States, then you don’t know how our Defense Department thinks or our State Department thinks or our CIA thinks.  Their number-one priority is obviously to protect American lives.  That’s what our job is.

Ed’s just lucky BO didn’t threaten to punch him out, as I understand that’s our new official stance towards uncooperative reporters.

And you sure don’t want to miss journOlist Christie Parsons congratulating Big Guy on his win, telling him:

“I’ve never seen you lose —”

Fail, maybe. Obama-Library_03Butt lose? Never. That’s what our Unions and coalition of malcontents are for.

trumka drumming up the votesNow get you’re a**es out there and “dig up” 10 votes each, got it?

Christie then continued, commenting on that one State Representative race he lost before his Chicago roots took hold and he learned how to effectively take out his opponents ala Alinsky’s Rules:

“I wasn’t looking that one time.”

Yeah, we know Christie. None of you ever do.

So: what does it cost to win an election these days?

  • Obama Phones: $1.5 million, 
  • Womyn’s contraceptives: $900,000 billion,
  • Green Energy initiatives: $2.3 trillion…

Butt a Press pass? PRICELESS!!!!!!!

bo press pass copy

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

A Sad Report on our Amusing Bunni

bunni banner

I’m sure you saw the comments yesterday about Amusing Bunni’s terminal illness. This will be hard, but I’m going to fill you in on the details that  Bunni told me, and said I could share with you.

You all know Bunni from her wonderful comments and her blog, Amusing Bunni’s Musings, over there in my sidebar. You may also have noticed that she hasn’t been around much for a while. Bunni has been ill. She’s been feeling very poorly for several months and  she checked into the hospital for tests about 2 weeks ago.  Bunni received the devastating news the same week as the election: she was diagnosed with inoperable Hepatocellular carcinoma – stage 5 liver cancer. Her diagnosis is terminal and she has been told she has only 3-6 months to live.

There are no words that can express how saddened I am, yet again, to hear such devastating news about another of our blogger family. I can neither imagine how it  must feel to receive a diagnosis like that, nor are there words adequate to describe how it feels to hear a dear friend has received this sentence.

Bunni actually sounds like she is taking this better than me, but she is worried about how she will be able to handle her last few months on this earth financially, and how to care for her beloved Little Kittehkins after she’s gone.

100_0187

Because she can no longer work, Bunni will be terminated from her job and, shortly thereafter, lose her employer provided health care insurance. She’s applying  for Social Security Disability and Medicaid, but she still has a mortgage and palliative treatments to pay for without interruption.

I have put a special, exclusive link at the top of my sidebar for donations to her secure, PayPal medical fund. Because she needs the help RIGHT NOW, and there really is no tomorrow, it is the only “Help” link there for now.

Bunni is looking for a loving home for her Kittehkins, preferably in the Chicago area. If you want to adopt Little Kittehkins, please contact Bunni through me at motus@michellesmirror.com.

And while, believe me, I know it’s hard out there right now, Please, if you can, hit the link to HELP BUNNI.

Bunni is looking forward to rejoining her mother and all the family and friends who have gone before her. She asked us not to cry, butt as I explained to  her, while there’s no crying in baseball or politics, in real life, tears are plentiful.

 

125155-most-spectacular-hubble-images

To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…Hamlet

Godspeed Bunny, our prayers are with you. We will all join you on the other side of the gates one day.

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