Post 609 - May 15, 2024

It’s the morning of a new day.

OK, it’s raining, and it looks like it may keep up until nightfall. I have two phone calls scheduled and nothing else. Yesterday, I ran innumerable errands and ordered a bunch of things we were running low on via Amazon, so I am looking at a free and clear day.

Ordering things on Amazon is a deal with the devil. I know that. It’s so easy, though, that it’s hard to resist. It’s particularly useful for getting the cat’s food which is annoyingly heavy to lug around in bulk.

The cat has a very regimented and specific feeding schedule. I have no idea how it’s ended up this way, but, sadly, it has, and now we are stuck with it.

First thing in the morning, he gets a can of chicken.  I’m on my own for a couple of days, so first thing in the morning for me is about 9:30 am. First thing for Michael is potentially three hours earlier. The cat knows he can’t wake me up, but he also knows that Michael startles awake at the least provocation.

Instinct cat food is the brand that we have gotten used to feeding him. Their cans are 95% meat from whatever poor animal has been ground up and 5% “other wholesome ingredients.”

Instinct was developed by a company called Nature’s Variety. They started in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are now owned by a company called the Agrolimen Group which is based in Barcelona, Spain. Agrolimen is a holding company that controls different, pet food brands as well as food for humans that are sold either through grocery stores or wholesale to restaurants. I can’t find out much about them as they are a privately held organization. They are one of the leading food suppliers in Europe.

With his can of chicken, the cat gets six greenies. Not five and not seven, six. Greenies are these little green pellets that are meant to be good for your pet’s teeth. They are basically kitty-crack. The cat is far more interested in them than he ever is in the can of food.

Greenies were started by a company called The Nutro Company which began as a fox farm in Tennessee in the early 1930s. In 2007 Mars, Incorporated bought them.

Franklin Clarence Mars began making hand-dipped candy at the age of 19. His mother taught him how to do it. In 1911 he started the Mars Candy Factory. Two years ago, Forbes ranked them as the fourth largest privately held company in the United States. They make candy, including Snickers, Mars, and Three Musketeers bars, human food products, and pet food. Two years ago, they reported $45 billion in sales.

Once the morning feeding has occurred, we make ourselves a Nespresso. Dear friends of ours gifted us a Nespresso machine last year, and we have become addicted. No other coffee we have found comes close to it.

There is a Nespresso boutique in SoHo, that I stop into during my walks to stock up on the pods. It seems like a wonderfully small private company, but, in truth, it is just a side brand that was developed by the enormous Nestlé conglomerate.

Nestlé, which is headquartered in Switzerland, is the largest publicly held food company on the planet. They started out in the 1800s as two separate companies that produced milk. Now they have their fingers in everything – candy, cereals, ice cream, frozen food, pet food, and baby formula.

Their involvement in the latter has been criticized regarding their distribution of it to third-world countries. Their powdered formula mixed with locally contaminated water supplies in some places has resulted in countless infant deaths. They have also made a fortune bottling and selling water. After the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the company continued to do business with Russia. The Ukraine then listed them as an International Sponsor of War.

After his morning meal, the cat usually sleeps through most of the day. I, in turn, sit on our American Leather couch and write on my MacBook Air which is a product of Apple.

American Leather is one of several different furniture companies under the umbrella of American Leather Holdings, Inc. They are privately run and own, among several other brands, the Lee clothing line.

Apple Inc. until earlier this year was the world’s largest company. In January, Microsoft pushed past them. In 2022 Apple reported revenues of $394.3 billion.

There is very little in our daily lives that hasn’t been put there or influenced in some way by a massive multinational corporation. Chances are, if you are buying something from what you think is an independent specialty shop, it is probably nothing of the kind. Some people hate Nike and will only wear Converse sneakers and vice versa. Well, guess what, they are both owned by the same company.

Yesterday on my walk, I passed by yet another pro-Palestinian march in front of an NYU building downtown. It was a small group of about twenty people, and they were all women. They were shouting for the University to divest from anything supporting the war. Do you know what life is like for women under the Palestinians I wanted to ask? Forget that, though, what I really wanted to say was, do you know where your sneakers come from?

Most sneakers are made somewhere in Asia. Child labor laws in some countries are few and far between. Nike has been accused, multiple times, of using factories where workers are underage. It’s still likely that a large percentage of our clothing comes, at least in part, from sweatshops. An extremely potent greenhouse gas called sulfur hexafluoride was what was originally used to fill the sacs in the soles of its air-branded shoes. They used tons of the stuff. Until they stopped using leather, most of what they put into their shoes came from kangaroos.

To their credit, Nike has supported some controversial figures like Colin Kaepernick, the guy who knelt during the national anthem somewhere in protest. They are also working on ways to recycle their old shoes which tend to end up in eternal landfills otherwise.

So, in balance, do we wear Nike and Converse shoes, or do we boycott them? Do we use our iPhones with parts that came at enormous environmental expense from mines all over the world and likely have components that were assembled using kid labor, or do we boycott those, too?

The people who own Chick-fil-A have notoriously supported anti-LGBTQ legislation with their profits. That doesn’t seem to stop gay chorus boys from eating their meals there. “It tastes good.” I’m no fan of the Nestlé company but I just had my third Nespresso of the morning (I switched to decaf after the first one). It tastes good.

At 5 pm, the cat gets his second can of food. We rotate flavors for this feeding between, salmon, turkey, and rabbit. He also gets an additional six greenies. At 11 pm, he then gets half a can of duck to keep him from starving to death overnight along with his final instalment of six more greenies.

In between his meals, if he meows pitifully enough, we will give him what we call “shakies” which are some sort of a pet treat in the shape of goldfish crackers. If the cat wasn’t asleep on my lap right now, I’d get up and see who makes those things and who owns them. It can’t possibly be good.

Boycotting companies who support things we don’t like is certainly a noble thing to do. How, though, I ask, can you tell? Unlike Chick-fil-A, most companies are not nearly as transparent in how they are affiliated with controversial causes. I would go so far as to say that there probably isn’t a product we all use in our daily lives that isn’t tainted in some way. How do we choose what’s acceptable and what isn’t when it’s all potentially bad?

As wrenching as it might be for his furry little self, it’s about time for me to get up and take a shower. God only knows what’s in the shampoo and soap I’m about to use or where it all came from. The cat will have to curl up elsewhere. I’ll probably get a good hiss when I start to move.

I am then going to get dressed, put on my Nikes, and go for a walk. I wonder what I’ll see.