818 Carefully Selected
Label on a water bottle: “Only from carefully selected natural springs.” This raises some questions:
1. Do you mean “This water comes only from carefully selected natural springs?” Or did you just have a quarter inch of space you had to fill with type?
2. Are there carelessly selected natural springs?
3. If so, what’s the difference?
4. Who carefully selects the springs and what are their qualifications?
5. Do they have to take refresher courses in careful selection and if so, how often and where?
6. Are there unnatural springs?
The company that makes this stuff is Swiss-based Nestle. It’s a huge multinational, which like any similar outfit has had a checkered history in this and other countries, but seems to have a solid commitment to what it calls “healthy hydration.”
It also makes 12 different brands of bottled waters, most of them household names: Deer Park, Perrier, Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Ice Mountain and San Pellegrino among them. Do we infer from this that Poland Spring is not drawn and bottled from “Carefully selected natural springs?”
Doubt it. All the Poland Pumpers probably have to take the same careful selection refresher like the rest of the company.
It’s true not all bottled water comes from springs. Some is “purified” after being drawn from “municipal water supplies.” Someone turns on a hose in Teterboro, runs the stuff through a filter and maybe a heater and cooler and, presto, bottled water. It’s on the label. Yes, really Teterboro.
It’s a little tougher with sparkling water like Perrier. You can’t fake it in Teterboro. But don’t try to count the “50 million bubbles,” it’ll drive you nuts.
But pull back for some perspective: We drink this stuff, wasteful as the plastic bottles may be because we think its healthier. Maybe yes, maybe no.
And about those bottles... the ones that if you put them in the landfill during the Paleolithic era two and a half million years ago, they’d probably be retrievable now, unchanged and undamaged.
Now that’s conservation!
The new teeny-tiny caps are better. Use a lot less plastic. Just don’t try to unscrew them when your hands are wet or if you have arthritis.
Shrapnel:
--The comments were quick in coming for our using “nept” to mean the opposite of “inept,” most suggesting that “ept” would be more appropriate. Perhaps so, but the rest of the vast radio audience probably wouldn’t understand it and instead think we were plugging either an “Early Pregnancy Test,” the “El Paso Times,” or the “European Poker Tour.”
--The stupor bowl is just around the corner -- Steelers vs. Packers -- and after that, there might be a player lockout as the long-running union contract expires as skyrocketing profits force the teams to demand givebacks. The best thing about the Steelers is owner Dan Rooney, 78, who has smoothed over such troubles in the past, but who’s not directly involved in negotiations this time because he’s serving as US Ambassador to Ireland. The next best thing would be if Pittsburgh lost the game and with it some of its arrogance.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
Label on a water bottle: “Only from carefully selected natural springs.” This raises some questions:
1. Do you mean “This water comes only from carefully selected natural springs?” Or did you just have a quarter inch of space you had to fill with type?
2. Are there carelessly selected natural springs?
3. If so, what’s the difference?
4. Who carefully selects the springs and what are their qualifications?
5. Do they have to take refresher courses in careful selection and if so, how often and where?
6. Are there unnatural springs?
The company that makes this stuff is Swiss-based Nestle. It’s a huge multinational, which like any similar outfit has had a checkered history in this and other countries, but seems to have a solid commitment to what it calls “healthy hydration.”
It also makes 12 different brands of bottled waters, most of them household names: Deer Park, Perrier, Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Ice Mountain and San Pellegrino among them. Do we infer from this that Poland Spring is not drawn and bottled from “Carefully selected natural springs?”
Doubt it. All the Poland Pumpers probably have to take the same careful selection refresher like the rest of the company.
It’s true not all bottled water comes from springs. Some is “purified” after being drawn from “municipal water supplies.” Someone turns on a hose in Teterboro, runs the stuff through a filter and maybe a heater and cooler and, presto, bottled water. It’s on the label. Yes, really Teterboro.
It’s a little tougher with sparkling water like Perrier. You can’t fake it in Teterboro. But don’t try to count the “50 million bubbles,” it’ll drive you nuts.
But pull back for some perspective: We drink this stuff, wasteful as the plastic bottles may be because we think its healthier. Maybe yes, maybe no.
And about those bottles... the ones that if you put them in the landfill during the Paleolithic era two and a half million years ago, they’d probably be retrievable now, unchanged and undamaged.
Now that’s conservation!
The new teeny-tiny caps are better. Use a lot less plastic. Just don’t try to unscrew them when your hands are wet or if you have arthritis.
Shrapnel:
--The comments were quick in coming for our using “nept” to mean the opposite of “inept,” most suggesting that “ept” would be more appropriate. Perhaps so, but the rest of the vast radio audience probably wouldn’t understand it and instead think we were plugging either an “Early Pregnancy Test,” the “El Paso Times,” or the “European Poker Tour.”
--The stupor bowl is just around the corner -- Steelers vs. Packers -- and after that, there might be a player lockout as the long-running union contract expires as skyrocketing profits force the teams to demand givebacks. The best thing about the Steelers is owner Dan Rooney, 78, who has smoothed over such troubles in the past, but who’s not directly involved in negotiations this time because he’s serving as US Ambassador to Ireland. The next best thing would be if Pittsburgh lost the game and with it some of its arrogance.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011
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