Showing posts with label knäckebröd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knäckebröd. Show all posts

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Barilla Boycott (Updated)

Poor Guido Barilla, he has had a hell of a long weekend due to his big mouth and airing his thoughtless bigotry.

One would think that chairpersons of large International companies had staffers to coach them and guide them at every step, especially when meeting the media, but somehow it is refreshing to sometimes actually hear one of them speak his honest opinion, even if it is to the detriment of his family and their business.

The guardian.com.uk has this brilliant summary of how it all started going sour for poor Guido on Thursday:
Guido Barilla, who controls the fourth-generation Barilla Group family business with his two brothers, sparked outrage among activists, consumers and some politicians when he said he would not consider using a gay family to advertise Barilla pasta.
"For us the concept of the sacred family remains one of the basic values of the company," he told Italian radio on Wednesday evening. "I would not do it but not out of a lack of respect for homosexuals who have the right to do what they want without bothering others … [but] I don't see things like they do and I think the family that we speak to is a classic family."
Asked what effect he thought his attitude would have on gay consumers of pasta, Barilla said: "Well, if they like our pasta and our message they will eat it; if they don't like it and they don't like what we say they will … eat another."
In response, Aurelio Mancuso, chairman of Equality Italia, accused Barilla of being deliberately provocative. "Accepting the invitation of Barilla's owner to not eat his pasta, we are launching a boycott campaign against all his products," he added.
Although poor Guido, his family and the company have since worked tirelessly trying to rectify his faux pas with a written statement and a video of poor Guido being forced to read the statement (both posted prominently on the company website), these attempts however don't have the same honest ring to them as when he spoke from his heart. They therefore fail miserably in convincing anyone.

Bock in SecondLife recommends all its readers (gays and straight allies) to follow the recommendation of poor Guido Barilla himself and refrain from purchasing any products belonging to that particular group of bigoted misogynists and homophobes. I am joining the Barilla boycott and will certainly not be forcing my pink money on products from a company that doesn't accept me and my kind. The thing I will miss most due to this decision is actually not the pasta, but my preferred "knäckebröd" (the Swedish hard-rye crisp bread) from Wasa.

The brands in the Barilla Group are
Barilla,
Mulino Bianco,
Voiello,
Pavesi
,
Academia Barilla
,
Wasa
,
Harry’s
(France and Russia),
Misko (Greece), 
Filiz (Turkey),
Yemina and 
Vesta (Mexico)
---

Update September 30, 2013
Josh Rimer, a Canadian YouTube Marketer, has made a parody of poor Guido's insincere apology. My thanks to Anonymous for informing me about it in the comments to this post.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Better Than Sex?

This is a blog response to Vanadis Falconer´s post "Låt oss tala om sex!" (Let´s talk about sex!) where she discusses the morals that seem to guide SecondLife, Iphone, Blogger etc., and the morality clauses that all these services carry with them. The fear of nudity, the fear to discuss anything sexual in an open and outright why is crippling.

At the end of her post Vanadis makes the parallel - that comes naturally for many of us Swedes - between the need for sex and talking about it as much as we need the traditional Swedish crisp bread called "knäckebröd".

Remembering my childhood years in Pakistan, where one of the true highlights and big thrills was the arrival every six months or so of the "package from home". That package was an enormous crate (2 x 2 x 4 meters) filled with all kinds of goddies for the Scandinavian community.

It always contained such delicacies as enormous amounts of knäckebröd, several 20 kilogram containers of  lingonberries, several 20 kilogram containers of pickled cucumbers and all other food that we Swedes in the diaspora yearned for.

I totally agree with Vanadis, really it is as important to talk about sex with an open mind as to enjoy eating knäckebröd. Hell for the time being I am totally relying on knäckebröd alone and it keeps me sane!