You are what you eat, eats

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food:

"Essentially, the idea is that we're part of the food chain, and in the food chain creatures eat other creatures, and so you can't just say, "This is beef." It's a very different food depending on what that cow or steer ate. A steer that was finished on grass is a completely different food than one that was finished on corn and industrial by-products in a feed lot. We don't pay enough attention to that. If you're eating from a grass-based food chain, you're getting a very different diet than if you're getting a corn-based diet."

You should read the book. It's out. If you're not convinced by this simple piece of insight, then read some more from the article it came from.

Random Autumn picture: We miss nanny and granddad.

"I put power tools in the hands of second graders"

I love TED talks. They are so good. This quote comes from the presenter.

His talk is called "Five dangerous things you should let your kids do". Simple things to do to raise kids to be confident, creative, and in control of life.

1. Play with Fire.

Take a look for the rest.

Mood Foods

In a crappy mood? Men's Health magazine tells us, it's what we eat.

Your brain depends on a variety of nutrients to keep itself balanced. Cheetos and beer are not on the list.

Really now? Greasy food doesn't make me happy? (Hint: ever think maybe the idea of 'comfort foods' came from a 50's copywriter dude who meant well?)

Anyhow, they offer a list of moods, and then the snack that's good for the mood. Here's one from the list:

Your Mood:
Flummoxed
You've forgotten your last two deadlines.

Your Meal:
Pineapple chunks for a snack or a cup of berries in your oatmeal

Here's Why:
Antioxidants from the most-colorful fruits and vegetables help pick off the free radicals that wear away at your memory. "Because your brain consumes so much oxygen, oxidants do heavy damage there," says Somer.

It goes on to offer snacks for when you're restless, insecure, depressed, anxious and stressed, among others.

I love the word flummoxed. So don't be flummoxed. Start with not missing any deadlines, and eat berries with your oats. Or the right snack.

What to do when you renovate

We're renovating our living room.

Look at those two words: living, room. It's not only the largest room in our house (more than twice as large as the next biggest), it's truly the room we live in. It'e the room with the TV, the computer, and Autumn's toys.

We're getting it turned into the room we've always wanted. Which is exciting, though daunting, since we can't use it while it's getting remodeled. That said, i thought I would put together the top ten things to think about when renovating your living room:

10. Next time, get it done in the summer. I'm just saying.
9. Bake cookies. lots of them. Or bake a cook. Or cook. You'll be spending a lot more time in the kitchen listening to talk radio, so you might as well cook something good.
8. Hang out in bed. Admittedly, this is wishful thinking. Autumn might be willing to spend about 10 seconds in bed. After that, you're done.
7. Walk. (see #1).
6. Go to a friend's house. True, we have Autumn, so it's bit more than just getting in and hanging out. However, if you read this and you're within a drive, there's a chance you might find us on your doorstep.
5. Cruise around Buffalo in the car. A. This gets Autumn to sleep (see #8).
4. Beg and plead for contractor guy to go faster.
3. Get outta dodge. Head to Canada, drop off Autumn and Lucy at happy grandparent's and go out to dinner in Toront0.
2. Repeat #3.
1. I think you get the message.

Update: our contractor was suppose to start tomorrow. The room we live in, AKA the living room, is empty of furniture.

Only now, he isn't starting until next Monday. ARRRGGHH. Deep breaths are required. And perhaps beer.

An Eaters Manifesto

I'm a foodie. I like good food. The Turkey we had a Thanksgiving costs 10 times more than Turkey's in the supermarket. It was a no antibiotics, cage-free, hormone free bird.

Stop and think about that. In order to tell you what our Turkey was, i have to tell you what it wasn't. Organic describes food that isn't sprayed with chemicals. Grass fed beef describes food in which the cow ate what it would naturally eat.

Even the word natural has meanings we don't fully understand. Calling a blueberry natural doesn't make sense.

Michael Pollan got me thinking about this. He has a new book coming out called: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

Here's the book's description:

Because most of what we're consuming today is not food, and how we're consuming it -- in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone -- is not really eating. Instead of food, we're consuming "edible foodlike substances" -- no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.

But if real food -- the sort of food our great grandmothers would recognize as food -- stands in need of defense, from whom does it need defending? From the food industry on one side and nutritional science on the other. Both stand to gain much from widespread confusion about what to eat, a question that for most of human history people have been able to answer without expert help. Yet the professionalization of eating has failed to make Americans healthier. Thirty years of official nutritional advice has only made us sicker and fatter while ruining countless numbers of meals.

I love food. And I like the idea of getting tomatoes in December. But I'll admit something: a tomato in December is no match for a tomato off the vine in September. Taste that September tomato, and it immediately vaults into your top five all-time tomato (assuming you, like me, keep a running top-five of most moments).

I'm not suggesting we all change overnight. I'm suggesting we think about our food. It's true, we are what we eat. And if what we eat is completely processed, then we're all completely processed. And that makes no sense.

Think about your food. Start maybe with this book. Not because it will change your behavior, that's tough. Right now, we go to Wegman's. We also go to our little coop (that sources a little more locally), and a local produce place that also sources a little more locally.

We're making an eat local effort. And that is healthy, and normal. It's not really normal to get Asparagus from Peru in December.

The secret to raising smart kids

There's an article in Scientific American that claims to know the secret to raising smart kids. This sounds more like a theory than a secret, but it makes sense. Here is the key concept:

"Many people assume that superior intelligence or ability is a key to success. But more than three decades of research shows that an overemphasis on intellect or talent—and the implication that such traits are innate and fixed—leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn."

Thus, telling a child they are 'smart' or 'gifted' will have them come to believe that things will come to them without working for them. Instead, the study says, focus on the effort.

In real terms, this means don't say the following when your kid gets an A.

"Wow, you're a really gifted smart kid. Way to go."

By saying this, you reinforce the notion that results come easy. It's possible (though not guaranteed) that your child will begin to think that things are easy because they are so smart.

Instead, when your kid gets an A, say this:

"Wow, you really worked hard for that A. You have worked hard to become smart."

The A was a result of hard work, and not a result of being gifted. Fact is, we get stuff in life through hard work, not simply by coasting by. The study goes on to say:

"Teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life. Parents and teachers can engender a growth mind-set in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling success stories that emphasize hard work and love of learning, and by teaching them about the brain as a learning machine.

There will be times when we'll tell Autumn that she's smart and gifted. That's life. but I think I'll remember this post, and be sure to add that it was through her hard work that she became smart and gifted. To me, that makes perfect sense.

Radio, as defined by Autumn

When Autumn learns certain words, Radio, Telephone, TV, her definition of these words will be entirely different from the way we think of these words.

Take Radio. Currently, Autumn can listen to the radio on a radio (yes, they exist), but more and more we can 'listen' to the radio online via podcasting. At home, we listen to This American Life, RadioLab, Car Talk, and The Curling Show all online. (You really will like all of these. No matter who you are.)

Now. how far away are we from a radio that can connect to the internet and pick up podcasts of your favorite shows? The technology exists. And since it does, I think we're in a golden age of radio. Where, instead of tuning into news-like shows that seem repetitive, you can pick other shows you like and listen to them when you want.

The next revolution is the elimination of the hour show. With the exception of The Curling Show, above, the shows we listen to are Made for Radio. They are hour shows and have acts to keep the shows moving through the hour. Not so with the curling show. It can be 10 minutes, or 20. It's dependent on the content, not a radio schedule. And soon, shows like This American Life might realize there's more of a market for snippet podcasts and create shows that work like that.

Just think: in your car, you hit wireless hotspots all the time. Why not have a wireless radio? Or whatever it is that Autumn calls it.

The American Idea

For its 150 anniversary, Atlantic Magazine asked people to contribute to the magazine their thoughts on the American Idea. In 300 words or less. I'm not sure what the American idea is, but after 5 years of living here, I'm thinking about what it isn't.

It isn't a team game. It isn't one idea that all strive for. It's actually the opposite of that. It's the American dream (no other country has that). But it's singular. The country doesn't have a dream. In the classic American Dream narrative, a person picks themselves up from their bootstraps and succeeds. This is a powerful notion, since the US broke from a country (England) that was all about class. Indeed, the way one speaks is a signal of where they are from, and consequently, the class and the level they will achieve (think of Henry Higgins).

This rugged individualism has created a country whereby it's simply understood that we're all in it alone. There isn't a feeling that we're in it together.

Think about education. About health care. About just about all of the social safety nets that exist in other country. Here, it's up to the individual to foot the bill. The problem is, of course, kids get thrown out with the policy. if a child is born to people in the poor section of town, they don't get health care and they don't get an education. For them, the American Idea isn't a good one.

How is your diet

Marketers long ago stole the word diet and turned it on its head. Diet once meant the foods one ate. After marketing people got a hold of it, they turned it into the food you don't eat. A carb diet thus means you're restricting the amount of carbs you eat. When we go 'on a diet', it's understood we'll stop eating something.

It turns out our bodies didn't get the marketing distinction memo. Here's the lead paragraph from Time magazine: (link)

If you think you're cutting calories by eating diet or low-calorie versions of your favorite foods, think again. A new study by Canadian scientists published in the journal Obesity suggests that our bodies can't be fooled that easily.

It turns out that rats fed diet food tended to overeat. They understood that low calorie foods meant they needed to get more calories.

Thanks to evolution, our bodies are excellent at storing food and fat. For most of the history of humans, our ancestors didn't know when the next meal was gonna be. Thus, they were able to store fat really well. Skip a few thousand years, to a time when your next meal is not only scheduled, it might just be an all-you-can-eat buffet, and it's not a quick leap to an obese country. We eat at lunch, but our bodies still don't know we'll eat again at dinner. When we eat at dinner, it still doesn't trust that breakfast (or a late night snack) is on the way.

But there is a way. The first step is to realize your body is on a diet whether you eat so-called diet foods or regular foods. Your body doesn't get the distinction. It gets calories. Eat them, and then burn them, and your body will adjust.

So eat food. And then get out and walk it off. That's the best diet.

Advertising works

So often, we advertisers are faced with the very real dilemma of wondering if our ads work. The reality is, it's in the question where we do the most wondering. What on earth do we mean by work?

If a really popular ad generates an increase in sales, then by gosh, the ad worked. However, if an ad tests well, but a small flaw in the product is discovered, one can argue that the faster people stop buying the product would also be an indication of the ads effectiveness. To wit, an ad promotes trial, a bad product ensures there's no retrial.

In direct marketing, that's junk mail to the common folk, the communication is judged on how many people call. Indeed, depending on price point and other factors, if 3 people out of a 1000 call, the communication can be judged to have worked. Generally though, direct marketers think of 3-5% response as 'working'.

Things get a little tougher when the objective of the ad isn't as clear. Lets say your objective is an introduction. The ad says: introducing a new flavor from Tropicana. The simple fact is, the ability of the ad to work is directly tied with the shelf space that the store gives the product. An ad can create desire, bu the product better be there when the shopper heads to the store.

I say all this because of an article I read whereby things like vegetables taste better when wrapped in McDonald's wrappers. McDonald's has such positive brand equity amongst kids that things that aren't McDonald's foods taste better when wrapped in their brand. Interesting.

Space and memory

My free e-mail box from Yahoo is a mess. The thing is, Yahoo mail offers unlimited space to store e-mails. Unlimited. I'm old enough to remember when space on a computer meant something. (Old fogie alert). I once filled a computer with stuff. I forget how big the drive was (maybe 500 mb), but I remember when it was full. I had to delete some games I no longer played in order to make room. Now, we take 500 mb of pictures of Autumn a month. Indeed, our home computer has 200 gb of space. That's 400 times bigger than the computer I once filled.

And, the newer version of the Mac we have comes with 500 gb of space. My point, Autumn will never know a time when she doesn't have space for digital memories. We already backed up 2006 photos on a DVD. And that's 2006 photos, movies, photo booth photos and some other bits and pieces. Incidentally, the DVD is 728 mg. 1.5 times bigger than the computer I once filled up. Chances are good, a thing the size of a DVD will one day store 200 gb of stuff and we'll think it once quaint that a computer only had that amount of space. Ah, the memories.

Now though, I should get back to my yahoo mail address. And delete some spam.

some thoughts

"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."

- Tom Robbins -

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it."

- Salvador Dali -

I sorta like the second one. Sometimes we want everything to go well in life. When really, when things go nutty, or even irresponsibly, they turn out even better. How many of your nest times have come from things that have gone wrong? Rhona and I consider our first date to be a serious of unfortunate events, starting with her car breaking down, and ending with us getting locked out of our house.

We strive for things to go well. Well, here's a toast to things going wrong. Sometimes horribly wrong, and having it all work out. Horribly well.

This post might seem deep. It isn't. While I have a lot on my mind right now (mostly a deadline for an ad I'm having a really hard time writing), it's more about believing, whole-heartedly, that things will work out. They often do. It's just a question of in what way.

Bringing up baby in a quantum world

Just so you know, this is about to get really geeky.

We have a lot of choices bringing up Autumn. What food to give her? Do we let her cry it out? If she falls, do we run and pick her up? Is she warm enough? What time should she go to bed? Should we feed her blueberries? What kind of diaper? What about diaper rash? What should we read her? Should she even see a TV on?

As you can see, questions. And this, dear reader, is but the tip of the ice burg. So it goes without saying that one might ponder each question and wonder if one made the right call. What if the blueberries were the wrong choice? What if not letting her cry it out was wrong? What if anyone of the millions of decisions we have to make turns out wrong?

That's one way to ponder things. Another is that every decision is right. Because everytime we make a decision, we actually pick all of them.

I bet I just lost ya. Let me allow Hugh Everett (via wikipedia) to explain:

The many-worlds interpretation or MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that claims to resolve all the "paradoxes" of quantum theory by allowing every possible outcome to every event to define or exist in its own "history" or "world", via the mechanism of quantum decoherence, instead of wavefunction collapse.

There, clearer now? In this theory, we pick every option. And there are multiple universes that every option is being addressed. It sort of eliminates our need to ponder free will. Because free will implies we have an option. But this theory implies that we take every option. So in essence, we don't need free will. It's kinda silly. But theoretically possible.

So, as we make all the decision for Autumn. We can sort of relax. Because somewhere, we make the right one every time. And that's kind of a nice feeling isn't it?

Oh, and I'm posting this on my laptop swinging in a chair on my porch. At least, in this universe .

Water, water everywhere

Each night, we give Autumn a bath. It's part of getting her ready for bed. It's a signal we send, to her, to get in the act of sleep. And it's working. for the last couple of weeks, we've stopped rocking her sleep. Now, after a bath, we place her softly in the crib, and exit stage left.

We get out of the room fast.

Anyway, in the bath, we read a bath book to her. She loves the book, and Rhona and I add our own flair to the experience. The book says this: "Water, water everywhere, water near and far. Let's use our hands and feet to count how many kinds there are."

It goes on from there. But the point is, here in the good old queen city, there is water, water everywhere. Buffalo sits on two great lakes. The great lakes are the largest source of fresh water in the world.

The Toronto Star noticed. And wrote this article. Here's the money quote under a picture of Buffalo:

Both Buffalo, above, and Cleveland have suffered population declines and stagnating local economies since the 1960s, a trend that drought in the American Southwest may help reverse.

Record heat in the southwest and record drought are causing record amounts of forest fire and a record demand for water. A demand that is currently being met, but can't be sustained. From the article:

At first glance, the crises of the rust belt and the Southwest would seem unrelated. They are, in fact, inexorably linked. Each has what the other does not. In Phoenix, tremendous affluence; in Cleveland, and in Detroit, Toledo, Youngstown, Buffalo, Rochester, Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, abundant, near-endless water – in the Great Lakes alone, as much as 25 per cent of the world's supply.

Sticking a straw in the Great Lakes is not a solution to Phoenix's water problems," says Robert Shibley, director of the Urban Design Project at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "Maybe it's time to really think about what constitutes need and stop spending money to build carrying capacity in places that don't have it by nature, and start investing in places that do.

Yes. Buffalo has wind. Water. A four seasons. And in a world that is fast becoming about online networks, where you can do most jobs from anywhere, that list could just be in demand.

The guy nod and the 'moue'

Today I read this in a blog I read:

"I just passed my neighbor in the street and he gave me the New England salute: a "moue."

He might have waved his hand, nodded, smiled, flashed his eyebrows, or even stopped to chat. But, no, what he had for me was a moue.

This is a small gesture of the mouth. Lips are pulled back and compressed, as if someone were about to play the trumpet. it happens very quickly. If you are not watching very closely, you'll miss it. (In the image to the right, President Bush is making what might be a moue.)

He gets more in-depth about what is being communicated with the 'moue'. "...the moue feels stingy. It feels like a withholding." He writes. He goes on to point out that a cheery hello is a better thing than the moue.

Me though, I'm less interested in exactly what is being communicated in a moue, or a nod, or a smile. I'll agree that a hello is better, but I'm more interested in our need to feel a connection with the person we're passing on the street. Even more so, why do we ask people how they are when we really have no interest in how they are?

I wrote a lengthy post once about the guy nod. I even guy nodded once with Ryan Miller, on my street. My argument was then, and is now, that there are things going on with us humans that transcends language. Duh, you might say. But as a marketer, there are things we communicate without words. There are gestures that say more than all the words in this post. And that's neat. And I'm glad to read others are thinking about this. It makes me feel connected.

And for the record, I have no idea what relevance this has to anything.

Stress free

When you’re stressed, you stop growing. It’s a well-documented thing. Serious stress, serious nightmares, and person will stop growing.

Consider this:

Barrie was born to a family of Scottish weavers in Kirriemuir, Angus, the ninth child of ten. When he was six, his brother David, his mother's favorite, died in a skating accident on the eve of his 14th birthday. His mother never recovered from the loss, and ignored the young Barrie. One time he entered her room, and heard her say "Is that you?" "I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to," wrote Barrie in his biographical account of his mother, Margaret Ogilvy (1896), "and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me.'" Barrie's mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her. This had a profound impact on Barrie: he never grew much beyond five foot, and some authors have speculated that Peter Pan was inspired by the traumatic events of his own childhood. At the age of 13, Barrie was sent away to boarding school at Dumfries Academy. Here he and his friends spent time in the garden of Moat Brae house, playing pirates "in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan".

Just in case you're wondering, we plan to make Autumn's early life stress free.

Autumn and expectations

A doctor from a Chicago ER was sent to the front lines during world war two to treat soldiers. He'd seen people get shot before, but noticed something different on the front lines. When Soldiers were shot in a war, they didn't really feel a lot of pain in comparison to people who were shot in Chicago. And the theory is that it's the 'narrative' around the event that translates the pain. Consider:

A soldier has an expectation of getting shot. And thus, if they do, their first thought is, "Cool, I'm alive." The first thought is good news. Next, they consider the other good things: they can go home. They get a medal. They are war heroes. They get to eat better food. They still get paid. The list of 'good things' far outweigh the list of bad ones.

Now think about the narrative around a person in Chicago getting shot. It's unexpected. They can't work. They can't feed their family. They have to pay for the care to get fixed (this hypothetical takes place in America). All bad parts.

Thus, in the second narrative, the brain hurts more. Or so, that's the theory. I think it's about expectations. And Autumn is currently testing them. We all know this scenario: a baby falls, looks around, sees that no one is watching, and gets up. Same baby, same fall, sees someone watching and cries. I think this is about expectations. You can call it attention seeking as well.

These days, Autumn is really into hugging. When mom and dad hug, it makes her laugh. When we include her, it makes her day. So we try to have family hugs a lot. But those are a little different to hugs on falls. Those are about setting up expectations. The expectation that every time she falls, one of us will come running with a hug. But if we always come running, she'll expect it. And, so the theory goes, it will 'hurt' more.

Now, before you think we're gonna abandon her, there's no set rule. Obviously if the fall is big, we'll run. But if it's merely a fall on her bum, something that happens often, then it's best we don't set the expectation that we're coming. That way, she'll realize it doesn't hurt.

Memories fade, but the blog still lingers

There's a theory that goes like this: each time you remember something, your mind is actually recreating it.

From scratch. Meaning, there is no place in your mind for memories. You, me, Autumn, none of us actually have a real memory of something. What happens is that our minds recreate the event for us.

It all started with experiments to block memories. Researchers taught a rat that a sound will be followed by a shock. The next time the rat hears the sound, it braces for the shock.

That's a memory. (It's also learning, but learning really can be defined as remembering certain criteria).

Anyway, researchers repeat the experiment, but this time give the rat a drug that stops the memory from happening. The next time the sound comes, no bracing for the shock.

It was thought though, that once the memory got in there, once in became ingrained in the little rat, the memory would be there. For good. Admittedly, no one really knew where 'there' was, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a 'there' there. Then along came an idea.

What if they gave the rat the drug right when they made the sound? Would that rid the rat of the memory? Turns out, it does. And not only in rats. It's been tested on humans. A woman who was raped was asked to remember, and while remembering, given the drug. It didn't erase the memory, but it weakened the emotion impact of the memory.

So, the theory goes like this: you experience something. The next time you 'remember' it, you mind rebuilds the experience. From scratch.

Your brain already plays goofy tricks on you. My favorite is blinking. Every time we blink, we should see black. But we don't. Our brain takes a snapshot of what we're looking at, and pretends it's there. No black. In essence, our brain tricks, well, our brain. The recreation of memories is another trick.

The thing is though, the more we pull up a memory, so the theory goes, the more it will likely change -- and thus not be an exact replica of the original event. Strangely, the most pure event we could remember is one we never remember.

However. This blog, and the digital images and file we have of Autumn will aid our apparently faulty memories. We'll be able to remember events. She'll be able to look back at events. With apologies to Tears for Fears, if the memory fades, the blog will still linger.

I learned all this on my new favorite radio show. Take a listen.

Can you sleep through the night?

Dear Autumn,

It's hot. I can't argue that. Today was 90. But you're room has AC. It's an even 75 in there. Ask the cat, in between me having to give him pills for a thyroid problem, he wants to be in your room.

For the last three nights, you've woken up, on average, four times. Sometimes it's just screaming. Other times, it's flat out wide awakeness -- which even isn't a word, I know. You were so tired, you went to bed tonight at 6:00PM!

It's now 10:00PM. You've been down for 4 hours, and I take it instead of the nap we thought you were having, this is it for the night. Okay then. Sleep. Honestly, it will be good for me, your mom, and even Lucy who isn't sure what to do when we get up at 1:00AM.


Think about it.

Thanks,

Love Dad.

What else do we 'know'?

Stop me if you've heard this one: The Chinese word for 'crisis' includes the symbols for 'danger' and 'opportunity'. Thus, this ancient Chinese wisdom suggests, look for opportunity in every crisis.

Standing on it's own, it's a nice piece of wisdom. But it's completely wrong:

"The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)." Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary. It is not a juncture when one goes looking for advantages and benefits. In a crisis, one wants above all to save one's skin and neck! Any would-be guru who advocates opportunism in the face of crisis should be run out of town on a rail, for his / her advice will only compound the danger of the crisis."

Link

There's no real danger to thinking that in every crisis one should look for opportunity.

One of the best examples of that, I think, was the Tylenol scare. Tylenol bottles were tampered with, and resulted in the deaths of seven people. It's still unsolved. However, Johnson and Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, responded with triple sealed safety bottles to ensure no bottle could be tampered with again. So while Tylenol took an initial hit, it came back aggressively and won back even more market share.

In a crisis, they found opportunity. But not right away. Right away, they had a huge nightmare on their hands. It took them two months to reintroduce their new packaging. And they had a plan to discount the bottles. But when you really think about even this, you wonder what other choice they had. Clearly the new packaging was more expensive, meaning they lost margin. They basically had to respond.

The point is, the Chinese wisdom almost welcomes crisis. Which really is a scary thought. No one is looking for it. And when crisis comes, there isn't always an obvious answer.

But the whole point of this is, what else do we think we know, but actually don't?