FunctionalAmbivalent

Guess The French Will Have To Go Back To Distilling Their Wine Down To Alcohol For Automobile Fuel

The previously reported licensing deal between Disney and Costco, which would have brought us Ratatouille Chardonnay, has been scuttled.

Bottles of the French 2004 vintage white Burgundy were to carry labels featuring Remy, the haute-cuisine-loving rodent who stars in Ratatouille, the latest movie from Disney's Pixar Animation Studios. Disney said it and Costco Wholesale Corp. canceled the promotion after getting flak from California winemakers and opponents of underage drinking.

Advocates of underage drinking could not be reached for comment.

So, now that the wine-endorsed-by-a-cartoon-character is out of the picture, the least likely wine licensing deal remains that between pornstar Savannah Samson and Italian winemaker Roberto Cipresso, which produced a red rated 91 points by Robert Parker. In his review of the wine, Mr. Parker made note of its "mouthfeel."

In Case You Thought It Was Only American Politicians

An Italian minister of parliament with a history of advocating tougher drug laws resigns after the prostitute in his hotel room overdosed on cocaine. Read the utterly predictable details here.

On the Plus Side, Pavarotti Wasn't In the Cast

In an attempt to spice up German Opera, the month-long Richard Wagner Festival in Germany tries: Nudity.

On opening night, to the beat of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg ("The Meistersinger of Only Mountain", according to the dubiously useful online translation service Babel Fish) the production wheeled out naked opera singers and something described in media reports as "plastic phalluses."

The audience booed -- which is, I think, an eloquent illustration of why I don't go to the opera. The people I hang with generally don't boo naked entertainment. Though, to be honest, there are risks that should be considered before one attends a naked opera.

Anyway, the director of the production explained the staging in the most obvious way:

You have to take risks to build something new. In Germany there is a problem that people always have tradition on their minds, like folk dress and lederhosen.

If you ask me, lederhosen is a lot kinkier than nudity.

Labor Relations

A businessman under financial pressure has two disgruntled employees who ask him for a raise. So he shoots them.

“As I understand, the employees were not really happy about the pay, and they had questioned him about it over the course of time,” (police Captain Russell) Popham said. “That morning he said he just snapped.”

Which reminds me: I need a vacation.

Which Is Why, Just For the Record, I Drink Sauvignon Blanc

At the California State Fair, 350 different wines entered the Chardonnay competition -- proving, if nothing else, that there are too many Chardonnays in the world and someone needs to come up with a new idea.

Anyway, of the 350 in the blind tasting, the winner was Charles Shaw, better known as "Two Buck Chuck." Charles Shaw is a product of Bronco Wines, a huge Central Valley winery that is, amongst the fashionable, appreciated about as much as Wal Mart. Bronco is also responsible for Franzia and about a million other wine brands.

One of the reasons Two Buck Chuck won is its comparatively fresh and fruity taste, preserved in the winemaking not because Bronco has a great theory of winemaking, but because Bronco is too cheap to spend money on the $800 French oak barrels that have turned just about all Chardonnays into the same vanilla milkshake.

No Chardonnay over $50 medaled in the prestigious contest.

The Harvest

Two days ago, there were no tomatoes. Today, about 20 pounds came off the vines. For the next month, all we eat is tomatoes. Tonight, BLTs with a huge pot of romas boiling down to a sauce, which will be tomorrow and Tuesday dinner.

The pot has parsley, garlic, basil, chives and oregano out of the herb garden, and a couple of cups of fat red wine just for oomph. It will be served with linguini tomorrow night and become lasagna on Tuesday. By Wednesday, more tomatoes will be ready and Mrs. A will make her "crack tomatoes," which are steeped in balsamic vinegar and basil.

Ah, summertime...

Concept

So I'm thinking of doing a new blog. It will consist of nothing but entries explaining and apologizing for why I'm not posting anything on the blog. I think it could be really funny. I'm just not sure it's got legs.

Thoughts?

In Which We See the Kentucky Spirit Alive in Places Other Than Kentucky

A Virginia man, incensed after being called a "nerd" in an Internet chat room, drives 1,300 miles to set fire to his tormentor's trailer.

Here.

Sorry

No posts yesterday because I had to travel early in the morning and then ended up in a meeting that lasted literally all day. I intended to blog early in the evening, once holed-up in my hotel. As I was leaving the office a couple of locals asked me if I wanted to go play golf, and since I had my clubs and shoes (shoes are as important to golfers as they were to Imelda Marcos) in the trunk of my car, I went and played golf.

If it's any consolation to you, I played terribly. It was a very different kind of course than I'm used to playing and I ended up having to use a lot of oddly numbered clubs I don't usually take out of the bag ("What is this 4 iron, of which you speak?") and -- because I was playing with people I'd never played with -- I tried all kinds of tricky shots I would never try in front of people I planned to see again. For example: The attempted snap hook that should, theoretically, have put me around the willow tree and onto the green, but instead shanked right and ended up in forest primeval.

Anyway, back at the hotel last night I was tired from swinging at the ball so many times (Score: 1,253) and went directly to bed -- well, I did take time to order a pizza -- where I dreamed about playing bad golf and being chased in a golf cart by an angry and demented Lindsey Lohan.

A Perfect Example of How Both Right and Left Expect Too Much of Government

Three pro-life pharmacists in Washington are suing to overturn the state's regulation mandating that pharmacies dispense the "morning after" pill.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs."

Stop me if I'm wrong, but don't lots of jobs require people to balance the needs of the employer with the employee's deeply held religious beliefs? Don't soldiers have to balance their sense of patriotic duty with "thou shalt not kill"? Don't bank loan officers have to consider Christ's admonition to give to the poor with their fiduciary duty to not give the bank's money away? And don't we, as a society just kind of expect people to make up their own minds about what's more important in their lives?

But anti-abortion pharmacists want special protection. And abortion rights proponents want government to force access to emergency contraception.

What the state ought to do is step away from the controversy entirely. This is just the kind of thing that the marketplace -- of both ideas and goods -- handles lots better than government.

If the pharmacy owner, in this case, wants to limit the drugs he dispenses based on his religious beliefs, that should be his right. The fact that he lets his religious beliefs interfere with his business will become known in the market and some people will choose to do business with him because of that and some people will choose not to.

The pharmacy employees, on the other hand, can quit if they don't like the owner's policies. If they refuse to dispense a legal drug against the policy of their employer, the employer should be free to fire them if they don't have the good sense to find another job more aligned with their beliefs. We don't need to create a protected class of workers, nor do we need to set the precedent that people can refuse, with impunity, to do their jobs based on self-decided matters of conscience. (Give people that right and watch how many religious sects spring up that require margarita communion during the Friday afternoon mini-sabbath.)

Taking this approach would have several salutary effects. It would:

1. Protect personal liberty
2. Give Washington state government more time to deal with real problems
3. Put a couple of lawyers out of work

I seriously don't see what in this controversy requires government intervention.