OpenSky, and Why Communism Failed

Lainie Petersen of Lainie Sips wrote a blog post about a tea coupon special through a website called OpenSky. This was the first time I had heard of the site OpenSky, so I decided to check it out. Apparently, tea is one of the products that this site occasionally has deals on.

But when I visited the site, it reminded me, among other things, of Communism, which inspired this post.

My memories of Communism:

I've never lived in a Communist country, but I was born in 1980, when the cold war was still very much alive, and I remember, as a child, the rhetoric and public talk of Communism, with the unified "Eastern Bloc" of Communist countries from the USSR through Eastern Europe. And I remember the fall of the Berlin wall, and the breakup of the USSR. My mother, being a German professor, felt that we had to get over to Germany after the wall came down, and I remember going to Germany in the summer of 1990, after the wall came down, but before reunification. We arrived in East Berlin on the day that East Germany was changing their currency to the West German Deutsche Mark; shopping on that day was chaotic and confusing, but to an American at the time, prices were dirt cheap. I was only 10 at the time, but this experience left a lasting expression on me, and I think it helped fuel my propensity to think critically about economic systems.



I did not take any photos on the first trip, but I returned to East Berlin in 1996, and stayed with a host family. The photo above is from this trip; it depicts a Strassenbahn, meaning Street-train, a trolley much like the ones I ride now in West Philadelphia. The pictured trolley is a modernized one, an upgrade from the decrepit trolleys that I saw during my first trip, and occasionally during my second trip.

Even in 1996, East and West Germany were like night and day. East Germany had construction everywhere, although it still looked poor and falling apart. And even to an American like me, it was easy to spot and distinguish East and West Germans by their body language and dress. There was considerable evidence of cultural tension, and I saw the toll that Communism had taken on East Germany and its people.

Learning about Communism:

I've also heard about Communism through other means. My roommate during my first year in Oberlin was Armenian, and talked about his experiences during Communism. I also have known, less closely, numerous Russians, East Germans, and others who grew up in Communist countries, over the years. One thing I learned was that East Germany was by far the most prosperous and functional of the Eastern Bloc Communist countries, and that the level of poverty and dysfunction in other areas was far greater. Add on top of this the authoritarian control of the government, punishing any sort of dissent, and overly paranoid to the degree that it employed people to spy on just about every citizen, and you have a culture and society that created such depressing but beautiful works as Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet. Shostakovich, by the way, was contemplating suicide while writing that work. Have a listen:



Besides listening to Shostakovich, I've also extensively read the works of Marx, not just The Communist Manifesto, but also some of his earlier works, in which he takes a more metaphysical approach, talking about how people are spiritually connected to the product of their labor, and how capitalism results in alienation of people from the product of their labor, through paying for labor. And I've read enough Marx and know enough about Communism to know that Communism in the Soviet Union would have been absolutely abhorrent to Marx.

Why did Communism fail?

I think I have a pretty good idea of why Communism failed. It failed because it was based around the idea of a small core group of people micromanaging an entire society, specifically, micromanaging its economy. This phenomenon is called a planned economy or a control economy. And it doesn't work.

Societies are too complex...they're more like an ecosystem than a machine. And a group of people, no matter how intelligent, simply cannot centrally plan everything needed to make an economy function at all, let alone function well. Even in a smaller country, some sort of decentralized system, like the free market, is necessary, or eventually, massive economic failure results. The only way for a government to be successful at managing its economy is to shape and guide the economy by setting up good incentives, rather than by trying to micromanage it. China realized this, and embraced a market economy and this is why China's economy did not collapse like the USSR did.

Now to OpenSky:

My first impression of OpenSky was not positive. The site immediately displays a squeeze page, a page with little content and few links, which prominently leads you to sign up for something. I wrote about squeeze pages and how they are a common feature of spam / scam sites on my post Tea Spam: Starting With The Most Blatant. This screenshot shows the squeeze page:



What exactly is this site about? Here are two quotes from the site:

"Our tastemakers don't just curate your shopping experience..."

And:

"They'll discover the best products for you."

Really? This is starting to sound a lot like Communism to me, not to mention that it takes the fun out of shopping (I love searching around for a bargain, love evaluating the quality of different products, and I love the process of comparing different stores or sellers against each other!). And also, it's been my experience that there are only three people who know my tastes better than anyone else, and who are consistently best at picking out products that are best for me, and these people are me, myself, and I. And it also has been the case, for the most part, that retail businesses themselves also play an important role in the selection process.

I don't need or want celebrities or specially appointed people (who aren't directly involved in running the business) picking out products. I'd rather just operate as I do...find sellers or businesses that seem consistent in their quality control and fair in their pricing, and buy from them. Didn't Communism establish that having a team of people trying to do a better job of this doesn't work?

What do you think?

Did you live through Communism? What do you think about Communism? How about OpenSky? Have you used it? Do you think it has a spammy-looking squeeze page? Do you think it's a Communist conspiracy to make our economy collapse through central planning?

Top 5 Most Unpopular Posts That May Be Worth Reading

Back in June, I shared my top 5 most popular (most viewed) posts. Now, I'm sharing my most unpopular posts...not necessarily the posts that people dislike (as these sometimes attract extensive attention, but the ones that have received the least traffic.

However, this list is selective; I have carefully filtered this list for posts that I think are actually worth reading:

• Adding Citric Acid to Teas - Critical commentary on the practice of adding citric acid to herbal teas and blends, something that certain brands do.


• Thankful About Tea - Last year's Thanksgiving post.


• Tea, Weight Loss, and Control Studies - A post in which I explore whether or not it is even possible to use control studies to practically answer the question of whether or not tea aids weight loss.


• Sage Tea Made Like Black Tea - The outcome of an experiment in which I bruised the leaves of common sage (Salvia officinalis) and allowed them to completely oxidize, emulating the production process of black tea.


• Antioxidants: Is Bitter Tea Better? - A purely speculative post in which I pose the question of whether or not bitter tea could be healthier than tea that is less bitter.

Enjoy!

Aesthetics: What Purposes Do They Serve?

This post is inspired by a discussion on the Tea Trade Forums about the new East India Company, in which we began talking about whether or not luxury and idealism are necessarily at odds with each other. The general sentiment seemed to be that, to a degree, they are. But this post is not directly about that...it's about aesthetics.

In the discussion, David Gall posted a comment about how he appreciates beautiful objects, whether it be handmade art or well-designed electronics (he gives Apple computer as an example). I certainly think that aesthetics and beauty have great value, both for me and in general.



Some things, like sunsets, seem to be nearly universally appreciated as beautiful. But aesthetic senses, the sense of what things are beautiful, also vary hugely from person to person and culture to culture. One thing I think about a lot is the degree to which our aesthetic sense is culturally constructed, and can be changed. I like to think critically about aesthetics, and ask the question:

What effect is our aesthetic sense having on our lives, on our society, and on our environment?

Aesthetics produce real-world results:

Aesthetics are by no means superficial...they impact nearly all choices we make in life, from which products we choose to buy, to which streets or roads we choose to drive or walk on, to where we choose to live, to which clothes we put on in the morning. And, although some of us may not fully admit it, they also impact which people we choose to associate with. Many of the ways in which aesthetics shape our lives are subconscious...we make decisions to choose one thing over another, and these are sometimes major choices that impact our lives and the lives of other people as well.

An example of aesthetics having ecological impact:

One of the aspects of modern society in which subjective and highly variable aesthetics can have far-reaching ecological impacts is that of the grassy lawn. Pictured here are two patches of grass or lawn in Bryn Athyn, PA. The first:



And the second:



I chose these two photos because they are about as directly contrasting as you can get, at least, in Bryn Athyn at this time of year. Which is more attractive to you? The top picture is more lush and vibrant; the bottom picture is more barren looking, but shows greater diversity, both of color (with the two different flowering plants), and biodiversity. If you know me at all, you'll know that I prefer the aesthetics of the second picture.

When choosing something like which tea to drink, our aesthetic sense is mainly a question of personal taste. But in the case of these two pictures of patches of grass, there are actual impacts of choosing one aesthetic over the other. The top picture depicts an unnatural lawn, heavily treated with chemicals to maintain both a lush green color and a monoculture of one plant (and you know how I feel about monocultures). The chemically-intensive maintenance of this lawn has negative consequences on the environment, and even on humans--that lawn is actually on the campus of Bryn Athyn College, in an area where people often walk barefoot, thus exposing themselves to whatever chemicals were sprayed on the grass.

The second picture of grass, an untreated area, has much greater biodiversity, not to mention that it is less resource-intensive to maintain. More biodiversity means greater ecological value, and most importantly, there are none of the negative impacts associated with using herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. It looks a little bleak if you're used to the aesthetic in the first picture, but there's beauty hiding in the bleakness...the photo is taken during April, after all. If you are at all familiar with Pennsylvania's climate and ecology, you'll know that Pennsylvania does not naturally have lush, light-green colors year-round. April is a time in-between the browns and grays of winter, and the lush green foliage of spring...plants are beginning to bloom, but there's still a lot of brown and gray about. I personally find it beautiful.



This final photo shows a polluted stretch of the Delaware river, viewed from National Park, New Jersey, to remind us that, just as chemicals wash off and flow downstream, our actions flow into consequences. Fertilizers and chemicals used on lawns and in agriculture and industry kill wild animals, devastate ecosystems, contribute to cancer and other chronic diseases in humans, and destroy fishing industries downstream. This stretch of the Delaware river could be pristine; there could be abundant fish here, and it could be safe to eat these fish. In our current world, it is not.

Imagine what it could be like. And now:

You can choose your aesthetic sense:

You can choose which of the two pictures of grassy lawn to prefer. In this case, it's not a matter of personal taste. Choose the second one.

Blog Post Length

Lately I've been writing a lot of posts and really long posts.

Sometimes I start to think that a shorter post format would be more accessible to readers. I don't have a good sense of how people read the posts on this blog, how much of a post they actually read, and how much they think about it.

On the other hand, the post length reflects a certain natural, self-contained progression of an idea that I want the post to encompass, and I don't think it would be easy for me to make my posts much shorter without cutting out essential ideas. And the post frequency reflects the degree to which I feel inspired to write.

What do you think? How much of my posts do you read? Does it vary by the post? Does writing more often make it more or less likely for you to actually read posts?

Perilla, or Shiso, in the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge

One of my favorite hobbies is birdwatching, and one of my favorite places for birdwatching in the Philadelphia area is the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, a large tract of open water and wetlands, with some surrounding forest, located across I-95 from the Philadelphia Airport. Here is one of the smaller, more secluded necks of water in this refuge, to give you an idea of what sort of habitat can be found there:



While walking on the main loop in the refuge, which goes between two bodies of water, I discovered a patch of naturalized perilla, or shiso. Back in september, I wrote about Red Shiso, or Perilla, a plant I have found growing wild in many locations in Philadelphia. This population of perilla was of a green-colored variety, and the leaves were yellowing slightly as the plant had gone to seed and was preparing to die down for the fall:



I want to write more about this particular patch of perilla, but first, an aside about invasive plants.

Invasive Plants:

Humans, through trade and colonization, have brought numerous plants with them, mostly plants that we cultivate for food, but also weeds that hitched a ride with other cargo. These plants often escape cultivation and establish wild populations in the native ecosystems.

Non-native plants are aliens in the ecosystems which they colonize. In most cases, they are poorly adapted to these ecosystems, and they cannot establish stable populations, and die out. But in other cases, they have unique adaptations that allow them to thrive in a new environment, and the other members of the ecosystems they colonize are not adapted to their presence. In particular, plants like perilla, which produce complex combinations of aromatic chemicals, toxic to insects, are often not eaten by as many native insects. The native insects co-evolve with native plants, and are not adapted to eat these strange new plants. The plant thus gains a competitive advantage, as it has fewer natural herbivores. It then colonizes the ecosystem and grows disproportionately, shutting out other plants.

Note that the perilla leaves show no insect damage. Older leaves of plants usually show some sign of insect damage by fall...for an example, look at the black cherry leaves in my old post on tea monoculture and biodynamic agriculture. While this is good for the perilla, it's not necessarily good for the rest of the ecosystem. Fewer insects eating plants means fewer birds to eat the insects, and total biodiversity is decreased. As biodiversity is lost, the capacity for the ecosystem to adapt to changing conditions is diminished.

I'm picking on perilla unfairly here. Although I've seen it growing quite vigorously and establishing large populations, I haven't seen it establishing a monoculture and totally shutting out other plants, the way some invasive species do. Although perilla is considered to be an invasive species in some areas, it is nowhere near the most problematic one in this area, and in the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, it is relatively harmless compared to a number of other plant species. Some more problematic invasive species in this particular refuge are Phragmites, and some of the non-native honeysuckles.

Back to the perilla:

Out of curiosity, I gathered a small handful of leaves, enough for a single cup of herbal tea. The results of drying them can be seen here:




The Review:

I was steeping this tea as I was writing this post, and then I proceeded to drink a cup of it.

This perilla is noticeably different in aroma and flavor from the red-leafed variety. It has a much more minty aroma. The red variety had a strong licorice/anise quality; these qualities are still present, but weaker, and I would describe them as more fennel-like than anise-like. The flavor is much sweeter. There are still skunky and vegetal undertones that, in my opinion, characterize this herb. I also would say this batch was less basil-like, although still somewhat so. There is a very strong quality of fennel or anise that lingers on the tongue, more so than with the red variety. The lingering finish also suggests dried hay.

Really interesting! And different enough from the red-leafed variety that I can see growing both in my garden! Still, I would prefer to grow native herbs, especially given the considerations I talked about above.

Do you think about whether or not plants are native to your local ecosystems, when considering what to grow in your garden?

Safety in Numbers: Perspective, and Not Getting Stuck in Your Ways

A conversation on the tea trade forums, which references an article about how Twinings "New" Earl Grey formulation is not being well-received, inspired this post.

That article is about long-standing drinkers of Twinings old Earl Grey being outraged at this changed formulation...and it's about this phenomenon in general, and what it says about our tastes in tea, and in food, and about how we live our lives in general. The following collage of some of my favorite teas, with a few herbs too, is a sneak-peek of the solution to these problems: safety in numbers, not quantity of anything, but rather, diversity, the number of different teas we drink, which can be an empowering analogy for giving us stability in all aspects of our life:



To be honest, I've never liked Twinings' Earl Grey, even though I think Twinings is a company that, among the mainstream tea bag brands, does British tea well. One of my favorite tea bags is their Ceylon Orange Pekoe which I gave a fairly favorable review--better than some loose-leaf Ceylons I bought from Upton, my favorite tea company. But this is just a matter of personal taste, and is not terribly relevant. What is relevant here is that Twinings Earl Grey was the same for many years, and it changed. And people were upset. This type of reaction is actually rather normal and almost expected, whenever a product that has stayed consistent for so long changes. People get stuck in their ways.

What do we get angry about?

The article describes people as being very angry about this change. "An affront to tea", people posting angry complaints on Twinings' company site. I'll be the first to admit that I get angry about a lot of things. But I don't really get angry about tea. I get critical of tea, herbal tea, tea companies, and their business practices...in fact, if you read this blog a lot, you've probably read a lot of critical posts lately. But I'm not angry.

What do I get angry about? I get angry about injustice, and economic exploitation, especially when people profit through dishonest or coercive means. I get angry about sexual assault and rape, especially when it happens to people I care about, but really, when it happens to anyone. I get angry about people showing blatant disregard for other people and for their community, such as vandalizing common areas such as parks or public buildings on college campuses. And I get especially angry at people thinking that their wealth or social status entitles them to treat others of "lower status" with disrespect. I find this attitude abhorrent and it makes me want to just crush them with my bare hands.

I don't always handle or express my anger gracefully. Sometimes I lose my temper, and, believe it or not, I have actually yelled at people in public, using quite colorful language. More often, I just sit and stew and let it ruin my day or get me into a global, negative mood that makes me quite unpleasant to be around. And, in addition to the things above, I also sometimes get angry about superficial or irrelevant things. I want to make clear that I am not some sort of "enlightened being" who knows how to effectively handle my emotions all of the time.

But I do know one thing. I don't get angry about the quality of tea...even when it changes, and even when tea is really really bad. Why?

A sense of perspective:

It seems silly to me to get genuinely upset about a tea's formulation changing when there are so many other more important things to get upset about. It also makes me wonder who these people are who are getting upset, and what their lives are like.

There are some aspects of my life that I have found very difficult over the years. One of them is friendship, through various moves. I've formed so many wonderful, close friendships over the years, and one by one, I've seen friends move far away, or I've moved from my friends. First, I moved from high school, then my college friends dispersed, then I moved from Cleveland to Delaware, then to Connecticut, briefly to the west coast, and back to the east. Even when I stay in one place, people seem to come and go. Even when my friends stay in one town, they often vanish into their careers, school, family obligations, or other activities that eat up all available time in their lives. This process has been very painful to me, and continues to be painful on an ongoing basis.

And then I read the news and I read about earthquakes, floods, war, violence, and I read about the U.S. and our stagnating economy, and I see the partisan bickering and I see my own feeble attempts to build a consensus between liberals and conservatives, falling on deaf ears or being ignored as I post my articles to the facebook and twitter feeds.

And I sit here reading about people who are upset about tea and I wonder...where are these people's sense of priorities? Have they ever lost a loved one, do they care about war or poverty? I suspect that most of them probably have, and probably do care. But why are they getting upset about tea? Are they perhaps channelling their frustration into something irrelevant in the global picture, because they feel powerless to do anything about the things in life that really do matter, much like I often do?

Back to safety in numbers, and diversity:

While I'd like to think that I don't get upset about tea because I have a better sense of priorities and greater perspective, there may be a more superficial and less enlightened reason that is perhaps more powerful: safety in numbers. I can't possibly be upset if one particular tea changes, because I drink so many different teas. I'm never particularly let down when one of those teas changes or even if it is completely taken away, because there are so many other great teas out there.

But is safety in numbers really so superficial, or does it work because it creates perspective through diversity? If this approach works for tea, can it possibly work for helping us to cope with and address some of the really gory, gruesome problems in our lives, like the ones I touched on above?

Perhaps. I have personally found that when I've had a greater diversity of experiences in my life, and when I've come into contact with a broader range of people, and immersed myself in the lives and experiences of people of different ages and backgrounds and circumstances, it has given me a sense of perspective and stability that I don't have if I keep my life more homogeneous. With this greater perspective, I am better able to think up solutions to a broad range of problems in my own life as well as in the lives of others, and I am less likely to react in non-constructive ways to things that genuinely upset me.

What do you think? Does any of this ring true with your own experience?

HELPS Wellness Teas: Taste and Quality of Herbs

This post is inspired by reading a review of HELPS Teas Organic R&R on Nicole's blog Tea For Me Please. I received a packet of samples from the HELPS brand (owned by the Pharmadus company) at World Tea East. If you want to read my full reviews (I have posted 4 and plan to eventually review all of them), you can read them on RateTea's page on HELPS wellness teas, although frankly, I recommend not reading those reviews and instead just catching the summary in this post:



Nicole was particularly harsh in her review of the R&R (rest and relaxation) tea, but, unfortunately, my reaction to these teas was similar. I haven't posted my review of this specific tea yet, but I've been quite disappointed by the quality of the blends from this company. They range from bland to undrinkable. At $5 for a box of 20 tea bags, such quality is completely unacceptable and is going to spell certain doom for this company in the marketplace.

On the R&R Blend:

Lemon balm is one of my favorite herbs: I drink it frequently, and I know what it tastes like. I've grown it, for years now, harvested it at different times of year, dried it, and brewed herbal tea from both the fresh and dried leaves. You can see a picture of it sprouting in spring of 2010, in my old blog post Four Herbal Teas You May Not Know About.

Passionflower, too, I've sampled on its own, and although it's more "herby", I also find it to have a more-or-less pleasing aroma, and a distinctive one too. Most people I know who have smelled passionflower describe it as strong smelling, but pleasant.

When herbs are bland:

When normally aromatic herbs (like lemon balm and passionflower) don't smell strongly aromatic, it's usually a sign that they're not fresh, and this is often a sign that the active ingredients that would promote relaxation are probably largely lost or decayed as well. Our society unfortunately often creates a strong pressure to drink things because they are "healthy", even if they taste bad. But our senses of taste and smell serve the purpose of ensuring that we only eat what is truly healthy...why ignore the messages that our own bodies and minds are telling us? If our senses tell us that the ingredients are not fresh, chances are, they are not fresh, and will provide little in the way of "health benefits".

This is not to say that all things that are good for us taste great. Some medicinal herbs are strong tasting, bitter, or have aromas that some people find unpleasant. But when you know what an herb tastes like when fresh, as I do with lemon balm and passionflower (and in these two cases, most people generally seem to think they both smell and taste quite pleasant as herbal teas), and your senses are sending you other signals, it's usually a sign that something is wrong.

The "right" ingredients are not good enough:

I think the combination of lemon balm and passionflower for a relaxing medicinal blend of herbs is a sound one in terms of being science-based and also having the potential to taste good. But the Pharmadus company needs to step up their quality control and use better herbs as ingredients if they want to be successful. If you want to drink a blend like this, I would recommend buying these herbs in bulk from a reputable herb company like Mountain Rose Herbs, if you want this sort of blend. Or, better yet, grow these herbs yourself!

I hope this post is not coming across as too harsh to the HELPS brand or Pharmadus company. I always want each company to succeed, and to do so by having a high-quality product. HELPS is obviously doing something right, as they seem to have picked herbs for their medicinal or wellness teas (and not just in this example) that are backed by solid science, and also that have the potential to taste good. But this product is simply not there yet. I recommend for this company to go back and re-think and re-design these products, perhaps starting by sampling herbs provided by other companies that focus on freshness and taste. And let this post also serve as a warning to any company thinking of launching a line of wellness teas...the quality of your ingredients is of paramount importance! People are not going to buy your product just because you tell them that it is healthy.