Tragedy: 2,352 Cans of High Life Dumped

Quote of the Week:

“You can cage the singer but not the song.” –Harry Belafonte

Fact of the Week:

The town of Bronte, Italy uses helicopter patrols to spot thieves trying to steal… you guessed it, pistachios.

Bronte, located on the island of Sicily, grows the most sought after pistachios in the world. Thanks to the richness of the soil from the active volcano, Etna, the nuts taste better and hold a bright green color for longer, thus allowing farmers to charge much higher prices. On top of this, pistachio trees only produce a crop every other year—odd years in Sicily.

Because of the high value of these nuts, thieves began infiltrating farms. They showed up in cars in the middle of the night and made off with bags full of pistachios. The problem got so bad that the mayor of Bronte ordered police forces to patrol the farms and survey from helicopters. Since their presence was introduced, the robberies have decreased dramatically, allowing farmers to go about their work in peace as they laboriously pick each nut by hand.

BBC and The New York Times contributed to this article.

News Update:

Via The Wall Street Journal. Credit: COMITÉ CHAMPAGNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In a heart-breaking moment last week, European regulators destroyed 2,352 cans of Miller High Life because of misbranding.

The cases, which were being shipped from the US to Germany, were stopped when they entered a port in Antwerp, Belgium. Belgian authorities and the French committee for the protection of Champagne deemed the slogan on the cans—”the Champagne of Beers”—to be false advertising and ordered the cans to be emptied and destroyed.

The New York Times reported that “the authorities thoroughly documented the operation for the news media, in what looked like a clear warning to the world not to mess with Europe’s most prestigious sparkling wine brand. Pictures of the carnage showed workers emptying the golden and red cans of what they considered counterfeit Champagne before pressing them against each other.”

The European Union has strict rules protecting the designation of the origin of food and drink. Parmesan cheese, for instance, can only be called Parmesan if it is produced in the northern Italian region of Parma. If an item is found to have violated the rules, it is considered counterfeit. Champagne can only be called so if it comes from Champagne, France. Similar beverages from other regions must be named differently, such as “sparkling wine.”

The person set to receive the beers did not contest the decision. Molson Coors, the company that owns Miller High Life, said it understood the decision but remains “proud of Miller High Life, its nickname and its Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provenance. We invite our friends in Europe to the U.S. any time to toast the High Life together.”

Such a loss is tragic, and one can only hope that officials enjoyed a beer or two as they dumped the liquid gold.

The New York Times contributed to this article.

Sports Update:

Via UNC Athletics

The UNC Women’s Tennis team lost its chance at an unbeaten season as they fell 4-1 to conference rivals, #4 NC State. The Tar Heels had won 29 matches in a row before Sunday’s loss. They’re still likely to hold on to the #1 overall seed for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. The Texas Longhorns, ranked #9, are the reigning back-to-back NCAA Champions.

On the men’s side, Texas (22-3) leads the rankings with a week of the regular season still to go. Big 12 conference rival TCU (22-2) is ranked #2. The teams each won 2 of their 4 meetings this year.

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