@patiodog,
You'd be interested in the Berkeley Consumer's Cooperative aka The Berkeley Co-op.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_Cooperative_of_Berkeley
Quote:During its height, it was the largest cooperative of its kind in North America, with over 100,000 members, and its collapse has provoked intellectual discussion over how food cooperatives should be operated[2].
The CCB evolved out of the Berkeley Buyers' Club, formed on January 27, 1936 by a small group of families active in Upton Sinclair's EPIC and local Democratic Party clubs.[3] In the beginning the co-op operated out of the basement of the parsonage of a local Methodist minister, Roy Wilson, in cooperation with another buyers' club formed seven weeks earlier in Oakland, California. In April 1937 60 families in the local clubs joined forces to open the CCB's first store at 2491 Shattuck Avenue.
By the end of 1937 the store had moved into larger premises on University Avenue, and by 1939 the co-op had grown to 225 families, with sales of $700 a week. In 1957 it was the second largest urban cooperative in the United States, with 6,000 member families, and by 1963 there were 30,000 families enrolled and several stores in operation.
Forty years later and dozens of folks on my high school's Facebook page are still reminiscing and sharing fond memories of their experiences there as kids at one of the suburban stores of the Co-op.
It's midnight in Munich. In less than 12 hours, Mayor Ude will open the Oktoberfest. And just as you would expect, hordes of young American tourists are roaming the nocturnal streets, getting drunk, yelling and chanting.
Or are they?
As I listen in a little closer, I notice that none of those "Americans" yell with American accents, and that all of them are yelling with Australian ones instead. Now I'm wondering if I've been slandering America about this for years. Just in case I have: Sorry, America!
@patiodog,
Could not agree with you on that more. It's been one (or more) of my rants.
@Thomas,
You know......I have just remembered that you're a damn foreigner!
How dare you criticize Australia on this of all days?
Don't you realize this is a day of special grief for all Australians? A day of great sensitivity and distress?
Couldn't you leave us alone just for this one day?
@Thomas,
Thomas wrote: . . . Now I'm wondering if I've been slandering America about this for years.
Just in case I have: Sorry, America!
S'OK, Thomas. We're just embarrassed to be out-yelled by a bunch of Ozzies.
@George,
Not okay. I just hate being mistaken for those Ozzians being mistaken for Americans by those Poles.
If I am not first with this - sorry.
This October has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays.This happens once every 823 years.
@dlowan,
I wish some bastard would ask me what special day it is!
@dlowan,
I qualify...
what special day it is, bun...?
@Rockhead,
It was MONDAY BLOODY MORNING!!!!
@dlowan,
I'd not have guessed that.
it's just now officially monday morning here.
@dlowan,
I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find it on Google. Fie on you, bunny.
@Roberta,
Fie?
is that like a bunny fart?
if so, double fie on her...
@Rockhead,
A fancy form of phooey.
I think I read too much old literature. Old poets were fieing all over the place. They had a fie festival.
@Roberta,
Fieing and forsoothing. Don't forget to forsooth now and again.
Not an observation, but a question that this group may be sufficiently diverse, erudite, and, most importantly, anonymous to answer:
How unprofessional would it be to comment on a colleague's VERY obvious VPL, especially if you're generally on good and fairly loose terms and will only be colleagues for a few more hours? I don't have a good sense of this sort of sociopolitical etiquette....
@patiodog,
Um, this is probably going to sound silly, but what is VPL?
@Ceili,
Not a fan of Annie Hall -- and, more specifically, Paul Simon's cameo therein?
@Ceili,
According to Urban Dictionary, VPL=visible panty line.
