Did you notice how the brother really didn’t know how to react around the 37 second mark? You would think one of the dopes at Folgers would have noticed the actors reaction and thought, “Hmmm… that doesn’t look right.” That is, of course, unless the director of this commercial is into creepy familial relations. Gross.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a good one, everyone. Enjoy!

I think that for the first time in a long time, I’m not really “into it” yet. For me, I think there are three specific reasons why I’m not so much into the spirit yet this year. First, the weather! Maybe it’s because I’m thinking back 20+ years, but I always remembered December through March as being a vicious time of the year with respect to snowfall. Nowadays, though, if we get two major storms and a few flurries in between, that’s a lot. I think that there’s something about the snow and watching a snowstorm that makes this time of the year special. When it’s t-shirt and shorts weather, though, it’s pretty tough to get into the spirit of the season.

Second, the stores aren’t doing it for me this year. If I recall correctly, last year I would walk into the Wal-Mart and the Target and even the Monmouth Mall and everything was draped with “Merry Christmas” signs or “Happy Holidays” banners and you’d see Christmas trees set up around the store, etc. It was a very festive scene! However, this year the local stores seemed to have toned it down a bit which might be a result of cost cutting measures, who knows. I always think that the Christmas season, though way too commercialized these days, is always augmented in a positive way when commercial outlets dress themselves up in the season. On a related note, the Christmas music on Sirius XM’s channels has been so-so at best this year. They’re mixing in a lot of different stuff and I believe that the diversity in generations of musicians takes away from the overall impact.

And finally, I’ve been really busy over the last three months so I admit that I haven’t really had a chance to stop and think about presents or decorating or attending any Christmas parties, etc. Of my three reasons, this is the only one that I think I have an ability to change, but I really don’t think a change on my part is necessary since in about a week’s time all of the things that are taking up most of my free time will be over (teaching and taking a course).

Maybe next week it’ll be a little colder, the stores will put out more of their Christmas decorations, and I’ll have more free time to take it all in. Until then, though, the days seem to keep on flying by just like any other time of the year!

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends –

Here at Food Democracy Now! we wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. We all have a lot to be thankful for this time of year and believe it’s important to take time to honor the incredible work that America’s family farmers do each day, rising early and working late to help put healthy, safe and nutritious food on our tables.

More importantly, we wanted to take a moment to stand up for those that are less fortunate and cannot provide for themselves at this time.

A recent report by the USDA found that 1 in 4 children in America are now on the brink of hunger. This is a sad and sobering statistic: to think that in the “land of opportunity” any child would go hungry, let alone more than 16.7 million.1

Tell your Senator that no child in America should go hungry, that they need to act today.
Fortunately, for America’s needy children Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) recently introduced important legislation to protect and prevent children from going hungry called The Access to Nutritious Meals for Young Children Act (S.2749). If passed, this bill will improve children’s access to healthy meals in child care centers, family child care homes, and Head Start and Early Head Start programs.2

Consider this…

A recent USDA report found that 14.6% of U.S. households, or some 49 million – 1 in 7 Americans – suffered from going hungry at some point in the year 2008, a significant increase from 2007. In 2008 the number of children going hungry in the U.S. reached a record 16.7 million – or 22.5%. That’s 4.3 million more than in 2007.3

Experts believe that the number of Americans experiencing “food insecurity” will climb steadily in 2009 as hard economic times and unemployment continues in the near future.
Help protect those who need it most – our children – by sending this letter to your Senators.

Today, we are also most thankful for you, our community of supporters at Food Democracy Now!. Thank you for joining us and using your voice to create a more just and sustainable food system for future generations that supports us all.

Have a Healthy and Enjoyable Thanksgiving!

Sustainably yours,
Dave Lisa and The Food Democracy Now! Team

If you’d like to see our grassroots work continue, please consider donating as little as $10 to Food Democracy Now! http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/25?akid=46.18844.F285wT&t=1 Thanks for your support!

P.S. We’d also like to take a moment to thanks some of the great organizations that are making sustainable change happen on the ground that we’ve worked with over the past year, including: Farm Aid, Food & Water Watch, Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, National Family Farm Coalition, The Center for Food Safety, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, The Land Institute, Organic Farming Research Foundation, Organic Valley, Organic Consumers Association, the Cornacopia Institute, Pesticide Action Network, Roots of Change, Slow Food, Food, Inc., Food Fight, King Corn, Big River, and all the family farmers and sustainable food advocates we’ve met along the way.

Sources:

1. 1 in 7 Americans Went Hungry in 2008, CBS News, Nov. 16, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/83?akid=46.18844.F285wT&t=1

2. Gillibrand Introduces Legislation To Improve Nutrition For Young Children, Press Release Senator Gillibrand, Nov. 11, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/84?akid=46.18844.F285wT&t=1

3. USDA: Number of Americans going hungry increases, Associated Press, Nov. 16, 2009
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/85?akid=46.18844.F285wT&t=1

Enjoy the rest of your holiday!

Enjoy!

BFAds.net already has a bunch of advertisements scanned and available for your review on their website. It’s never too early to start planning your post-Thanksgiving shopping spree. I’ve been thinking about how this year’s Black Friday – and the Christmas shopping season as a whole – are going to go. On the one hand, most of the country is still feeling the negative effects of the downturn in the economy. On the other hand, Americans have begun to save more money than in the last decade…but we love to spend that money once we see it in our bank accounts.

I genuinely hope that America’s retailers do well this holiday season. However, knowing the increasing thrift that Americans are bringing to their personal finances, the big winners this holiday season might be the banks.

I brought this stuff back with me to my home near the shore and when I got there, I immediately put the keyboard into a different storage area in my closet and I added the writing implements to a bucket of similar items. I’ve never been one to throw away items that still have some tangible use to them and I think that is a virtue. However, adding those extra pens and pencils to my bucket of pens and pencils got me to thinking about all of the stuff that we all probably have lying around in junk drawers or plastic bins or buckets, etc. How many of us have a bunch of old pens and pencils sitting around, but when we need something to write with we comment that we never have anything to use?

I bring up the brief story about bringing home pens, pencils, and a keyboard to comment on something that I’ve been trying to do for a few years now. When I started going to graduate school at Rutgers (which would be the spring semester of 2004), I realized that it made no sense for me to go out and buy new pens and notebooks and other things that you’d use in the classroom because I had leftovers from both college and high school. Seriously, who needs to go out and buy another notebook when you’ve probably only used 15 – 20 pages out of your last one or if you have sheets of loose leaf paper laying around? It’s insane the amount of resources that we all likely waste by not completely using all of the items that we purchase. Think of how much money you’ve probably spent on writing implements over the years when you had perfectly good ones lying around your home or office.

While these are “sustainable” and “environmentally-friendly” reasons to completely use the items that we purchase, there is another reason – it saves money! Why go out and spend even $2 or $3 on new pens when you have old ones sitting in a drawer? Why go spend $5 to $8 on notebooks when you have old pieces of paper that you can use? I’m currently taking a course in executive communication and the notebook that I’m using is an old black and white marble covered composition notebook from Mead that I purchased when I was in college. In the last ten years or so, I only used about 6 pages in that notebook. Just 6 pages! Talk about a waste…

And as a quick note – I’m not against going out and purchasing new stuff when it is needed. For example, the garbage can that I keep near the desk in my bedroom is broken and needs to be replaced. Sure, it gets the job done, but it’s broken and has a jagged edge. When I get a new garbage can, though, I’ll be sure to put this one in the recycling bin since it is made of plastic.

The pencil that I’m using to take notes during the executive communication class is probably older than some of the people reading this blog. I remember getting it in second or third grade and it has “Happy Thanksgiving” stamped across the side of it with a weird looking turkey and an odd pilgrim on either side. This is one of the pencils that had been sitting in my Mom’s shed for 10 to 15 years doing nothing. Sure, it’s a funny pencil, but it gets the job done and it is a bit of a conversation starter with my classmates (which usually starts with either, “Is that your kid’s pencil?” or “Does that say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ on it?”).

The next time you think you need to go out and buy a pen or a pencil stop and think about whether or not you have a sufficient writing implement at home or in the office somewhere.

For those who haven’t seen our blog entry here is some good news. We are looking to open (online for now) in time for Thanksgiving. We’ll be preparing and gathering what we need over the summer.

It will be just Marzipan in the beginning and hopefully expanding the selection in early 2010 to satisfy everyone’s sweet tooth.

Elk Candy Co.
visit us at www.elkcandy.com
keep up with the our latest news at blog.elkcandy.com

My Mom used to take my older brother and I to this candy shop when we were little kids living in Manhattan. We’d get marzipan and she’d get chocolate covered marzipan (I think they were called acorns). Absolutely delicious – better than any other marzipan that you’ll find anywhere. This was also the place to get your Advent calendars.

Treats from the Elk Candy Company compliment the perfect holiday gift. I encourage you to go online, bookmark their page, and check back frequently to see what the Elk Candy Company has to offer!

And be careful of the tryptophan coma after eating all of that turkey later today – you don’t want to miss some quality football tonight! Ha ha ha! Enjoy!

Over at CNN.com they posted an article talking about how major retailers are luring in holiday shoppers with huge discounts. Well, I combined this article with the great information that I found over at one of my favorite holiday websites – BFAds.net – to come to a general realization: today’s retailers have no idea what the public wants! I’m sure anyone can come to these conclusions on their own, but looking at the “deep discounts” that are listed on the Black Friday advertisements is appalling.

I guess what really gets me is that while there are discounts on a variety of items in each of the stores, you don’t see any of the stores really cutting prices on items that people in my age group would want. For example, Circuit City has great DVD discounts, but not really on the programs that I’m looking for on Black Friday. On the same token, all of the stores have some semblance of a sale on the next generation of video games (Wii, X360, and PS3), but none of them are going out on that limb and reducing the prices $50 or $100 below the competition. Granted, there are some restrictions in terms of how much money the various companies expect to receive with each sale, but isn’t that a basic premise of marketing and advertising? Draw the customer in with a blockbuster, financially-bad deal for company and then make up the difference (and then some) with other sales during the customer’s visit.

Looking through the Black Friday ads it just doesn’t appear that retailers understand this concept. What will it take for a profitable Christmas season? Deep discounts on quality items that will bring shoppers into your specific store. Simple, right?

Well, let’s see how it goes on Friday…