RANT: Another (spongy) nail in the coffin

originally posted by Dave Nelson:
Honestly, it's been getting better. I think I spent about 40% of my time at this year's Toledo gathering discussing beer with folks.

Cheers,

Dave

Is that number up or down from previous years?

I.E. is it getting better because more people are interested in beer or because you are mellowing and talking less about beer? :)
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
Is that number up or down from previous years?

I.E. is it getting better because more people are interested in beer or because you are mellowing and talking less about beer? :)

Definitely up, and it was relatively spontaneous. I don't know that I started too much of the beer talk.

I didn't say, or mean to imply, that it was "better" with more beer talk, just that we covered different ground. As with all such gatherings, they are about the people, with the food and/or beverage of choice playing a supporting (though important) role.

Cheers,

Dave
 
originally posted by Dave Nelson:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I have tasted specialty beers, I recognize the possibility of experiencing them as I experience wine, but I wouldn't so experience them and so, if I were a beer drinker, I would have experienced a poorer life.

Fair enough if you've spent enough time with good beer to make a determination for yourself that it's not worth the effort. That wasn't apparent from your original post, not that it should have been, this being Wine Disorder after all. Hell, I'm married to a woman who can't stand beer (though she very gamely tries them), so it's not a fatal character flaw or anything (jury's still out on whether marrying me is).

Having fought the good fight for quality beer and wine (and whisky - I'm triple-afflicted) for almost 20 years, I still have the occasional touchy response when people whose opinions I respect on wine (which includes you, not to be a kiss-ass for the "ignorant" comment or anything) seem to dismiss beer out of hand.

Honestly, it's been getting better. I think I spent about 40% of my time at this year's Toledo gathering discussing beer with folks.

Cheers,

Dave

It was a perfectly fair comment, and might still be even with the knowledge that I have tasted specialty beers. First, my testimony is based on my relative lack of interest, so I might not have tasted enough or tasted with enough attention. Second, although Rahsaan hasn't answered my response to his objection, he might answer that the game of imagining what I might have been like as someone who was interested in beer (or as a well paid non-professor whatever)is really trying to imagine a different person and thus comparisons with my real self are irrelevant. Leibnitz once said about someone who wished to be the Emperor of China that what that wish really meant was that one wished that he didn't exist and that the Emperor of China did. And he might say to me that I'm just saying that I'm happy I exist and that the beer aficionado doesn't. Counter factuals are heirs to such problems (hence Sharon's objection). I think they are worth the intellectual effort and possible illogic because they nevertheless afford an odd kind of awareness. But I can hardly object to objections to them.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Second, although Rahsaan hasn't answered my response to his objection, he might answer that the game of imagining what I might have been like as someone who was interested in beer (or as a well paid non-professor whatever)is really trying to imagine a different person and thus comparisons with my real self are irrelevant..

I was mainly deferring to your self-awareness. And either way, it seems like it's pretty darn tough to get you to like beer!
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Second, although Rahsaan hasn't answered my response to his objection, he might answer that the game of imagining what I might have been like as someone who was interested in beer (or as a well paid non-professor whatever)is really trying to imagine a different person and thus comparisons with my real self are irrelevant..

I was mainly deferring to your self-awareness. And either way, it seems like it's pretty darn tough to get you to like beer!

Just take me out to the ballgame.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Just take me out to the ballgame.

Here in DC!?

What beer do they serve?

At the stadium, about the best you can get is Heineken, unless you prefer Bud Light. But that's not really the point. One doesn't sing un di felice during the seventh inning stretch either.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

At the stadium, about the best you can get is Heineken, unless you prefer Bud Light.

That's a pretty sad state of affairs. Even in St. Louis, in Busch Stadium no less, you can find selections from two local craft brewers, one of them pretty ubiquitously.

Cheers,

Dave
 
originally posted by Dave Nelson:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

At the stadium, about the best you can get is Heineken, unless you prefer Bud Light.

That's a pretty sad state of affairs. Even in St. Louis, in Busch Stadium no less, you can find selections from two local craft brewers, one of them pretty ubiquitously.

Not to mention PacBell SBC AT&T park.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It was a perfectly fair comment, and might still be even with the knowledge that I have tasted specialty beers. First, my testimony is based on my relative lack of interest, so I might not have tasted enough or tasted with enough attention. Second, although Rahsaan hasn't answered my response to his objection, he might answer that the game of imagining what I might have been like as someone who was interested in beer (or as a well paid non-professor whatever)is really trying to imagine a different person and thus comparisons with my real self are irrelevant. Liebnitz once said about someone who wished to be the Emperor of China that what that wish really meant was that one wished that the he didn't exist and that the Emperor of China did. And he might say to me that I'm just saying that I'm happy I exist and that the beer aficionado doesn't. Counter factuals are heirs to such problems (hence Sharon's objection). I think they are worth the intellectual effort and possible illogic because they nevertheless afford an odd kind of awareness. But I can hardly object to objections to them.
I have no objections to offer, though it is a reminder that Leibniz is older than I generally think, his confusing the navigational question with an existential one. You know, how to get from this world, where Jonathon can blithely ignore the virtues of the barley corn, to that one where he is the Emperor of China.
 
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