Got the following email from MNB reader Joe DiVincenzo regarding our discussion of food expiration dates:
Reading the story on food expiration dates made me laugh at some of the silly things we do in the industry.
I was an executive in center store merchandising, and I went back and forth with our QC Director about expiration dates on our Private Label Products, which we are very well known for. Himalayan Sea Salt was one of the questions. I argued it was something like 5 billion years old when we put it in a jar, why do we need an expiration date? By corporate policy, it was mandated an 18 month expiration date on all our private label products, no matter what the actual shelf life was. 5 Billion years old, and we apparently got it in the bottle just in time! (I lost that battle, but trust me, if you have expired Himalayan Sea salt in your cupboard, its just fine to keep using!)
We had a story last week about how there seems to be a concerted legal attack on companies and institutions (colleges, law firms, businesses) that have invested in diversity initiatives.
I commented in part:
I've made the case here on MNB many times for DEI programs - retailers are better able to market and merchandise to a disparate customer base if not everybody around the table, or in the aisles, looks and acts and thinks the same. DEI can be good business.
(May I make a parenthetical point here that was not in Friday's commentary, but that I've made many times before on MNB? I think it makes sense for companies and institutions to invest in diversity initiatives and that they can be stronger and more relevant by doing so. But I also think that it is fine for companies and institutions to not do so - if they do not believe in them, or believe that it is bad business to do so, then they shouldn't. The free market will then sort out which approach makes the most sense and is the best business model. But that most assuredly is not what is happening here - the people filing these lawsuits clearly do not believe that businesses and institutions should set their own course within the limits of what is legal, and they clearly do not believe in free markets.)
I suspect that it will be eternally frustrating to these activists that while they can sue schools and law firms and businesses for pursuing diversity, they won't be able to sue the American public on the same grounds - there is no way to stop the basic demographic reality that America will eventually become a place where minorities of all kinds will comprise a majority. I'd argue that this actually fulfills the promise of America, but that's a different discussion.
Which promoted the following email, which, under normal circumstances, I would not run because it strikes me as so ugly in its tone. But I also think that this is how some people think, and I believe in what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, that "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Remember, this is in response to my saying something that seems demographically irreversible, that companies and institutions might as well embrace diversity because America will eventually become a place where minorities of all kinds will comprise a majority of the nation's population:
That's tantamount to saying "if you know you're about to be raped, just lie back and enjoy it." This is a historically-White country. Now we know how the Indians felt.
Gonna need a lot of sunlight, I think. Though I'm not sure there is enough disinfectant in existence to deal with these sentiments.
