Moo April 18, 2006March 4, 2017 TWO WORDS It is a dark day for my old friend, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter – Light. I never thought I’d say this, old pal, but I have just two words for you: Fleischmann’s Premium Blend Made With Olive Oil. ‘NOW NO TRANS FAT per serving.’ Okay, that’s more than two words, and I will admit I am getting a little confused, but we all know trans fat is bad and olive oil is good. We also know that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter – Light has no trans fat per serving either – when you buy it in the TUB, but 1.5g of trans fat per serving when you buy it in the STICK. Which strikes me as odd, because the serving sizes are identical. Is it the ‘stickiness’ that produces the trans fatty acids? You would not necessarily associate tubbiness with better health, but there it is. And yet – even though the ‘per serving’ qualifier after NO TRANS FAT tells me that Fleischmann’s has just rounded down (if the servings were bigger, I presume they’d show trans fat) – I’m going with the olive oil anyway. For now. Tastes good. Try it. TWO MORE: Honest Tea. Look at the new varieties! Tangerine Green Tea – 10 calories per bottle. And, now, Honest Ade. E.g., Pomegranate Blue Organic Fruit Quencher, which ‘harnesses the flavor and power of antioxidant-rich organic fruits.’ The nation’s first organic pomegranate drink combines the antioxidant power and great taste not just of pomegranate but also of blueberries. It’s got less than half the calories of those other pomegranate drinks so it has a light, refreshing taste that has everyone asking for more. In fact, we have yet to leave a focus group without someone draining every last bottle. Honest Ade Pomegranate Blue takes the power of the pomegranate to new heights of refreshment. Some of the teas come in glass bottles, which are classy but maybe not perfect to shove into your backpack for the bike ride to work. (I don’t have a backpack, my bike long since rusted, I don’t work.) Others come in more modern, grippable plastic. I know all this because – as long-time readers know – I was a very small, very early investor in this still-private company. (So every time you buy Honest Tea, you add to me Prosperi-Tea.) And I’ve been a cheerleader ever since. To quote the inside of an Honest Tea bottle cap: ‘Optimism can make you look stupid, but cynicism always makes you look cynical.’ – Calum Fisher Drink up. MOO This was posted March 21 by Jane Smiley, and reverberates still. Smiley is the author of Moo. Her post is more of a roar – or a scream. It will seem too strident to many of you. In places, it seems too strident to me. But there’s a lot to be strident about. It’s objectively true that we are far weaker than we were five years ago – financially, militarily, and in moral capital. Cry, the beloved country. And register to vote.