It’s hard to be much more American than Heinz’.  He started his business outside of Pittsburgh, PA, developed a reputation for execeptional quality, survived bankruptcy and went on to have one of the first international food companies in America. From his biography he sounds like a great man to have worked for:

Another of his highest priorities, Heinz believed that people should be treated well. Factory conditions were often better than the workers had at home. He was so proud of the cleanliness of his factory that he invented the public factory tour. Heinz died on May 14, 1919, leaving his family to carry on the family traditions.

There’s a topic on this in the SEB Forums where Les equates this pathetic mockery to ‘Freedom Fries.’

These guys had to figure out how to make back some of the money they lost when they were laid off thanks to the great economy.  Following their line of thinking I guess Democrats should look for an alternative oil.

I think the “W” ketchup tribute to Reagan is perfectly appropriate, considering all that he did for ketchup… designating it a vegetable in the school lunch program and all.

Well, that was dopey - I was laughing so hard I missed the previous comment that brought up that very thing! (about Reagan)

What irritates me most about “W” ketchup is that I DIDN’T THINK OF IT FIRST!!!

What irritates me most about “W� ketchup is that I DIDN’T THINK OF IT FIRST!!!

What irritates me most is that I didn’t realize this had been covered in the forums. I really should read there more often.

And just to clarify something - I have no problem with people using their buying power to affect social and political change. I think it’s one of our most effective tools. I don’t support Proctor & Gamble by buying their products because I’m aware of many unsavory things the corporation has done.

But to simply say “don’t buy Heinz because it is owned by a democrat” is nothing but hate-mongering. Can you imagine if Pepsi accused Coke of being un-American? If the two parties have really become nothing but product offerings themselves, then we are further on our way to becoming a society of polar opposites.

Today it’s ketchup. Tomorrow it might be the neighborhoods we’re allowed to live in!

Don’t buy into it folks… I hear tell that W Ketchup is made of people! POOR PEOPLE!!!

Brock, you are a treasure!

I wrote a nice letter to these guys a few days back:

“I noticed that your ketchup isn’t actually for sale.  How sad.  Maybe you could produce your catsup more efficiently by outsourcing it to another country, perhaps Indonesia or mainland China?  I, for one, am deeply aware of the effect that my condiment choices have on the political opinions of my friends and neighbors.  I think you may attract more investors by making Ronald Reagan a more prominent design element on your labels.  I know that would have an almost Pavlovian effect on certain relatives of mine, and I’m sure they’re on the lookout for non-democratic savories.

Best Wishes,
Mary Hanley

PS: Best wishes to my new friends at the Office of Homeland Security!”

They wrote me back promptly, thanking me for my interest in their product.  Damn, I really wanted to be included on their Wild-Eyed Liberal page! 
If only I’d thought to write my letter in caps....

Send in the scoops!

After the humor I found myself wondering if electing a condiment might not be the better choice given our current choices.

I would probably vote for hot sauce, but could be persuaded to lean towards salsa.

A portion of every W Ketchup sale will be donated to to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for the children of active duty service members killed in the line of duty.

Which is only fair, considering dear W is the one sending them to die for a family vendetta ...

("pay")

I know it really has very little to do with the situation, but this reminded me of something that I did a while back.

Two years ago in our school cafeteria (from which, thankfully, I’ve graduated, despite this fiasco), they used to keep these large, 3 gallon bags of ketchup outside the kitchen section so they could more easily refill the ketchup dispensers on the condiment table.  A friend of mine, who was graduating that year, was wondering what we could do with one of them, so I told him to take one of them.  He didn’t, but with his help I did - guess it piqued my curiosity a bit.  We didn’t have anything to do with it at the moment, so we kept it at the bottom of my locker for about two weeks.

Our initial plan was to send it up the elevator with a little sticky note saying “U.S. Red Cross Donation” on it, considering there were blood donations going on that week.  Figuring that wasn’t enough, however, we just procrastinated… until, of course lockers had to be cleaned out before Christmas vacation.  So here I was, with a 3 gallon bag of this stuff, with nothing to do with it and nowhere to put it.  So what did my apathetic, chaotic little adolescent brain decide to do?

I decided, before gym class one day, to drop the thing off the third floor of the stairwell near the main hallway of the school.  A bunch of my friends got together to watch, and as soon as the thing went over and hit the bottom, it made the loudest, most sickening splat one could imagine.  I ran to the bottom by another stairwell, and discovered it was completely covered (the splatter almost reached up to the second floor, and the ceiling was covered in it).

That’s what you get when you mix teenage depression and apathy with a bit of stupid curiosity, I suppose.  The result was that I was suspended out of school for three days, and in school for one day.  Odd thing is, it was the longest Christmas vacation I ever had!  And they call that punishment?

Either way, this story really doesn’t mean anything, the ketchup just reminded me.  And it reminded me that were I hanging “Dubya” over the edge of that same stairwell, I would have done the same thing.  Republicans seem to be getting more and more rediculous every single day.

Josh:

I am going to sue you for making me bust my gut laughing. Ow!

Too good.

Evil story there Josh! I had to modify my impression of you due to it, but it still isn’t a bad impression - as long as you don’t mind being known as the Ketchup Killer.

And maryh, I can’t believe you actually wrote them an email. I thought of doing that, then chickened out. Funny email, but I doubt they took it the way it was intended.

These Ketchup wars have me re-examining ALL my condiment choices now. I wonder if Miracle Whip really is a miracle, and whose god might be responsible for it. And don’t even get me started on Plochman - that doesn’t sound like a God-fearing American name to me at all.

JoshMan, I am humbled.  That’s just friggin’ awesome!

Same here Josh! That was funny as hell!
I would have loved to have seen that.

Hey check it out! captcha = “brock”!

Oh man, I am WAY too old.  And a parent.  And a former mid-level corporate executive.  My first thoughts on reading Josh’s story were:

1) Wow, I can’t believe that bag of ketchup didn’t explode in the locker!  That stuff can go bad if it’s been opened and not refrigerated for a while ...

2) Oh man, the poor people who had to clean up that mess!  How irresponsible can you be?!?!?

I know, my sense of fun has been trimmed back considerably from years of having to clean up messes, both figurative and literal ...

("game")

In the movie version, principal Ashcroft would be just coming down the main hall when the ketchup hits, and is completely covered.  He stands there in disbelief, his eyes open in a totally red face.  He screams:  “JoshMAAAAAAAANNNN!”

Choice of principal’s name just for fun.

Hey, I think I got my first trackback, though the link led to an error page. Still, it’s my first trackback (I think) and that’s cool.

Thanks, Neil! I’m happy now.

BTW - What’s a trackback and how much do I get paid for one?*

(*sorry, my tongues still stuck in my cheek)

EE filters the URL to remove uppercase characters, but Neil’s site uses them for the Month so just capitalize the J in Jul and it’ll go through to the right page.

A trackback is like a “remote comment.” When one blogger writes something on his blog that talks about something he saw on another blog he can send a ping that let’s the place he’s talking about know he wrote something about it.

Ok, it worked doing that. Next question - can we do a trackback of a trackback so there is an infinite loop that substantially increases my payout?

Sorry, I’m just getting tired of waiting to win that Captcha word of the month drawing.