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Well, it didn't take Bud Light long to back down from its support of a trans influencer.
"Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch attempted to assure investors that everything is fine — even though everything most certainly isn’t — and it would get back on track.
Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris distanced the company from transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as sales of the beer continue to plummet.
'We need to clarify the facts that this was one can, one influencer, one post and not a campaign,' Doukeris said during an earnings call."
Its a good lesson from anybody in the community who were hoping that corporations would stand on our side.
They will - until it costs them anything.
Sadly, the same is true of politicians - the only elected people coming to our defense are those who are in "safe' places. Nobody is going to risk not getting re-elected to protect us.
The "Hideous Strength" that CS Lewis described is here, or if you prefer the False Aslan has arrived.
and my own story, "when they came" is coming true.
I don't think I have ever had less hope for us trans people.
Comments
Balance Sheet Rules
The "Wall Street Effect" means that corporations are ultimately evaluated by how big of a profit they earned.
Until corporate citizenship (good or bad) can be assigned a dollar value and entered on the balance sheet, companies will have impressive ad campaigns to "promote" their good deeds but when it comes to actual corporate operations the balance sheet rules.
It would help if senior executives had to forfeit their bonuses when companies get caught cutting corners or outright violating regulations.
Michelle B
Bud Light: It is really beer?
{Warning Rant Ahead}
and not just the urine of gnats in a tin/bottle?
and it is brewed with rice.... WTF?
Sorry, but InBev are a blot on the Beer landscape. Their beer factories are obscene(I refuse to call them breweries). Yes, they did good by recognising Ms Mulvaney and Yes the GQP have gone bonkers with their reactions but isn't is making a mountain out of a molehill? The GQP by reacting the way they and their deranged fans did gave her far more publicity than if the whole thing had been ignored.
I wish Ms Mulvaney all the best for the future.
Back in the 1980's, I was almost thrown out of the Bud Factory in Merrimack NH for mentioning the German Beer laws prohibits the use of rice in the process.
Now to pour myself of T.E.A. from the Hogs Back Brewery that is less than one mile from my home.
Samantha
Ask JoanneBarbarella. . . .
. . . how Lite Beer is like making love in a canoe.
:D
Emma
Favorite lite beer?
La Croix. :-)
LIte beer
I do not drink alcohol myself but my partner used to drink but now can't as alcoholics can't afford to continue so.
BUT, according to her Heineken Zero is actually very good and has no alcohol to boot so if you don't want the alcohol and that seems zero alcohol would be the ultimate lite beer then it may be worth a try.
That said, it is a bit pricey though.
Proper Budweiser
My elder son, an insanely frequent traveller, clued me in to 'Proper Budweiser', which we can get on the right side of the pond. The two varieties are often displayed side by side, especially if the store owner knows no better. Czech Bud is a decent beer, if you get to try it.
Of course there are many other more decent beers, but that is another story.
Penny
Corporations
I’m a bit contrarian on this one. I do expect better from politicians. The public good is their job, and we are part of the public.
But I don’t expect better from corporations. Their only reason for existence is to increase shareholder value. If they can do that by virtue signaling in a liberal direction, they’ll do it. But if they decrease shareholder value by doing so, they won’t. I was honestly surprised that A-B got caught out like this, since the market for Budweiser almost certainly skews deep red.
Corporations aren’t people. They don’t have consciences or souls or hearts. And honestly, that’s okay by me. They are tools for a particular kind of social good, and I no more expect “good citizenship” from them than I expect it from a car or food processor.
It’s easy to lose hope. Things look bad right now. We are a punching bag in a war we didn’t want. But things look worse in part because they were finally starting to look better. Hang tight — the wheel may turn again!
Lots and lots of hugs, woman!
Emma
“Greed is good”
The elevation of “fiduciary duty to shareholders” as moral virtue and the apex justification for corporations is comparatively recent. I believe it stems from economics though I may be mistaken. There are corporations that pre-date the idea, certainly, and not just Hudson Bay. I also believe that descriptions of normal modern corporate behavior, when evaluated by psychologists, are generally identified as evidence of pathology.
How did we come to accept corporations as immortal virtuous psychopaths?
Good Corporate Citizen
Having lived in the halls of big corporate many decades I have to challenge your bleak opinion of what it means to be a good corporate citizen. I worked with a number of big corps that had souls.
Bottomline profit is a goal. . .an essential goal. But being a good corporate citizen is also a goal for all but the most jaded corporations.
No corporate board is going to want to be stuck in a bee's nest. But, please take note of the next twenty ads you see on TV. How many have bi-racial couples? How many have women in power positions? How many feature gay couples? The world of TV ads is much more tolerant than RL.
Do you remember Holiday Inn's "remodeling" ad in 1997. It was on and off the air in a blink of an eye. It caused quite a stir. https://www.google.com/search?q=super+bowl+ad+transsexual+re...
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Hardly a surprise
We are a mere blip in the population balance sheet after all.
If we cost them money then we are a pretty small sacrifice.
Thing is, it just further emboldens them unless there is a backlash from those who despise their hypocrisy.
A further problem might be those who object probably have better taste than to drink the stuff in the first place.
I will admit
My first time buying Bud Light was since this transpired.
I expected and found it to be, as I alluded earlier, something like sparking water.
Ahh Me Pretties
The concept someone might not have the same ideological leanings as thyself and refuses to participate by donating, purchasing with their own money, to said GLBT aceptance is wrong? Sorry, I've been laughing at the insanity of a company who sells a commodity to a bunch of hillbilly rednecks suddenly marketing it as good enough for a fairy. No one in the real world would have been so stupid. Only those who live in their own little enclave of woke could have been that stupid.
The general public doesn't want gay, lesbian, transgender shoved in their face. Most of you live in and travel in company of like minded individuals. Until we started demanding "equal rights" most things concerning GLBT were just there. Had to push and demand everyone like us, agree with us. accept us. A fire has been built between us and the general public. We started it and now most don't like what it has turned into.
Try and understand this if you can. Anheuser-Busch has lost between six and nine billion in revenue since the fiasco. They broke the bond they had with the good ol boy's club. They tried a half baked ad about how manly their beer was with a Clydesdale and iconic scenes across the U.S. Beyond stupid, who the hell is in their advertising department. The CEO made a non apology, apology. Pissed everyone off even more. Sales are tanking, stocks are piling up in stores, no one wants their beer. CEO comes back with another non apology, Dylan Mulvaney wasn't part of our advertising campaign. If the intelligence factor is above the single digits at that company I'd be shocked. Now Gay bars are refusing to sell the beer because Anheuser-Busch sold out to the Red Necks. Sales are falling like hailstones from the thirty thousand foot thunderstorms rolling across the plains.
Believe what you want but the anti woke crowd has said enough is enough. They don't want my lifestyle shoved in their face and they sure as hell don't want yours either. We demand tolerance as the least tolerant class of people on this planet. All I want is to live my life as me. No one has to accept who or what i am. I'm willing to share a lifetime of studying why there are those like me if anyone wants to know but they must ask. It's the beginning of a mind willing to learn more.
I'll never drink Bud Light. I don't think they will miss me. I never drank it before.
Hugs People
Barb
I know God loves me. He created me. I pray I'm not too big a disappointment when I return the gift.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
...
...
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
I can't drink Bud
It upsets my stomach, as does most light beer. I used to put in quite a few and smoke several packs of cigarettes per day. Only for about fifty years. I quit smoking eight years ago and found that my vices fed each other. I like cider, Guinesse, and old style American beer (Blatz and Old Milwaukee) if I can find it fresh.
I take a dim view of corporate cause celebe. Too many wet fingers probing for wind direction.
Ron
Intersex Not Transgender
I think that billing myself as Intersex (True story) puts me in a stronger position than Transgender folk. The religious right has taught hate of T folk. Generally people don't actually know what Intersex is so don't hound us. Some feel entitled to say that Transgender folk are filled with sin, while Genetic variation can not be attributed to sin. Some populations in the world are up to 1/3 Intersex, while in others it is very rare.
Stronger position
Maybe?
That hinges on whether the average bigot even bothers to suss out the differences at all. I get the impression we are all lumped into one gender stew that in their bigoted mind as 'not my tribe' and just hate anyway.
Certainly Florida's bathroom law has no subtlety or carve outs for intersex folks. I mean somebody who has CAIS who is model beautiful is still technically violating their law everytime they use the bathroom.
Certainly those women who reflexively call the authorities/security as soon as anybody not feminine enough to their standards did not stop to ask.
Obviously I am saying that it is a difference without meaning to so many folks it is not even funny.
So, I suspect that there are Floridian Republican Transwomen here lurking on this site so I wonder how many of those folks will obey the law. Please speak out and explain how you will handle it. Personally I know of one who runs a music store/school in Florida and am wondering how she will do it. It would be pretty ironic that she can't enter her own womens room.
Bud light
Some years ago I watched a TV show about a craft brewer, in Colorado as I recall. He stated that water was critical, since beer is 95% water. The he paused and added, "except Bud Light which is 99% water."
I can no longer drink beer (bad for gout), but when I did, I wanted a beer which tasted like something, so I never drank light beer, Budweiser's or anyone else's.
Regarding >only< beer & brewing.
This is for those who don't care for the flavor of available commercial brews, or the corporations making them.
My Mom referred to "The Great American Beer Pool", and we somehow imagined this enormous reservoir somewhere underneath Kansas (Central USA) with all the Big Makers siphoning from it ...
First, look to your 'close enough' micro breweries. I think one name is 'brew pub' where they brew their own.
---
There is also DIY (BYO - Brew Your Own?)
My introduction to home brewing came when my Wife got a https://www.MrBeer.com brewing kit. We made a number of batches, and I made a batch or three after our divorce.
>>> Important: USA Law: allows 'Head of Household' (me) to brew up to 200 gallons / year, without me and 'The Feds' bothering each other. And I >must not< sell it. I can give it away, but selling turns me into a 'Moonshiner'. Oh, and I may >not< distill it.
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Seems I don't care for beer all that much.
But I did end up with liking hard cider.
Long ago, a friend gave me a sample of her mead. Loved it. She asked if I wanted more, and I said "No. Please use what your brought to get everybody else 'hooked'."
So, at the moment, I have a half gallon of gonna-be- (I hope) -adequate wine brewing. It's about as minimalist as one can get. Half gallon of grocery store grape juice with I hope the right amount of sugar, bread yeast and popped on an airlock. (Airlocks let CO2 out, pressure is ambient, and no bad yeasts or cooties can get in.)
(Yes, I know where my Brew Shop is, and they sell beer, wine, Champagne and other 'designer' yeasts.)
I have my Mr Beer brew keg (fermenter) and stuff, and the right amount of apple juice for 2-1/2 gallons of hard cider. The fun part will be getting enough glass bottles (*) to bottle it all. I could either buy 'empties' (**), or buy bottled commercial hard cider, and empty the bottles myself. {Insert really happy grin}
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(*) Vital: the bottles used for the final (carbonating) step >must< be able to take the pressure, which can be ... considerable. I've had two plastic bottles explode, and two more where I wanted to call the Bomb Squad ... One other plastic bottle held, but the Yikes! pressure level put stretch marks in the plastic (Oh!).
-
(**) Cost of buying empties can be higher, than buying full bottles and enjoying emptying them ...
===
Now the fun part:
Mead, that is, honey wine.
The recipes seem reasonable to follow and do. Except I have one key problem in making honey wine:
I'm vegan.
So I get to replace the honey with probably agave, and use some herbal teas to replace the "flowers" taste of honey. (If you get a chance, savor some clover flowers.)
===
And now the required reminders:
Brew legally, do not sell it in USA, and drink responsibly.