The sweet truth
This e-mail is in response to the anonymous caller who said that Paczki Day is the mindless creation of "marketing assholes."
Sorry, dude, but you're barking up the wrong tree. Paczki Day originated from a dedicated team of baking-industry personnel at the now-defunct Farmer Jack supermarkets, who were looking for a way to create sales during the month of February, which is traditionally the slowest sales month of the year for corner bakeries of all sizes. What started as a sales promotion for a single grocery chain evolved, through years of hard work at the state, regional and national level within the Allied Baking Industry to turn the sale of Paczki into a "Baker's Holiday." A 20-plus page "how-to marketing guide" was distributed to over 25,000 annually, to teach them how to market this product. Today, Paczki Day and Paczki Week generate more than $500 million, annually, for the allied supply chain.
For the mom-and-pop bakery, this promotion generates more sales in one day or week than many make the entire month of December or during summer wedding cake-graduation cake sales. No one can argue that some bakeries cut corners and sell a lesser-quality version of the traditional Polish recipe. But in a state with more than 10 percent unemployment, you should be damn glad that the concept Paczki Day helps keep a lot of folks in jobs. That stupid jelly donut (which it isn't) has helped keep a lot of people working at their desk or warehouse jobs at food brokers, trucking companies, bakeries, box manufacturers, and more. It's not just another jelly donut! —Claudia Richardson Tusset, Mount Clemens
Contempt for age?
Regarding Jack Lessenberry's recent joke about Sen. John McCain ("Deathwatch," Feb. 18: "He needs to be ignored [by television], other than perhaps by the nursing home network."), Lessenberry displays the baby boomer contempt, veiled or otherwise, for older people whom one presumably cannot trust. The nasty crack about Sen. McCain, is similar to others' in the course of the campaign, including one by prima donna David Letterman about Metamucil. God to Lessenberry: It ain't 1970 anymore, and do television appearances betray a certain wear?
America, for better and worse, is the inversion of the Orient. Old is bad and should be headed for the rubbish bin. New is groovy and, like, man, "now." (Does anybody say "groovy" anymore?)
There are some politicians fit for the bone pile, but how old was Konrad Adenauer when he stepped down in 1963? When asked, I believe, at 80 if he planned to retire, Der Alte replied that he had his retirement under the Nazis. —G. M. Ross, Lowell
Erratum: In last week's News Hit "Supporters in the court" — which looked at the criminal charges brought against local journalist Diane Bukowski — we incorrectly reported the first name of Bukowski's attorney, Arnold Reed.
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