Ice Cream on a Bed of Lettuce?

USA News and Views ^ | 07/25/03 | Paul Walfield

[political_chick]

Whether you are a school board in California, an ice cream company in Vermont or a fast food place, with outlets across the country, you are in the cross hairs of people who see you, pardon the metaphor, as their meal ticket.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Why can't we outsource trial lawyers to third world countries? They would be happy to settle out of court for 3,000 dolars and all the free ice cream they can consume!

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Whether you are a school board in California, an ice cream company in Vermont or a fast food place, with outlets across the country, you are in the cross hairs of people who see you, pardon the metaphor, as their meal ticket.

Yes but only if juries go along with it. They have it in their power to flush these cheesy lawyers. And ice cream is not tobacco, just everyone about consumes it. So I say let's bring it on and let the humiliation begin.

[Frunabulax]

No, pal, YOU consume it and a lot of the people you know consume it. Not everyone. Watch and learn.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

In a bad mood tonight or what lol? I said just about everyone, so relax.. have some ice cream.

Sheesh you act like the world's coming to an end.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Btw, you wouldn't be a lawyer by any chance would you Frunabulax?

[Frunabulax]

Yes, I'm in an exceptionally bad mood tonight; thank you so much for asking. No, I'm not a lawyer. I'm a smoker in California, so I've heard enough of the old "this can't happen to me", and "they can't do this to us, just look how many we are!", plus I've already heard tonight about how the smart folks told us that this ice cream problem would come up, and how they were so much brighter than we were, even though they didn't get around to actually doing a goddamned thing about it. By the time the steam stopped pouring out of my ears, your thread was the only trace left. Lucky you, huh?

Maybe you meant to say "just about everyone" instead of "just everyone", so I'll grant you that minor point. The trouble is that the trial lawyers will make sure that the jury is packed with people who not only don't eat ice cream, but can't eat it because it makes them sick. Yes, there are plenty of such people. And the rest of the jury will be composed of gigantic fatbodies who think they would have been supermodels if only they hadn't been tempted by ice cream. Many juries will decide against "big ice cream" only to be bitch-slapped every single time by appellate courts composed of real human beings with real working brain cells. It won't matter, though. In the end, the evil ice cream villains will get tired of spending all their money on legal fees, then they'll cut a deal with the fat bastards and screw the rest of us out of our ice cream.

Naturally, here I'll be with a freezer stuffed full of illicit ice cream, listening to folks like you tell me how frozen wheat grass is really just as good, and how you might be brave enough to buy a half pint of ice cream if only you weren't in the UNIQUE, never before heard of position of having something to lose. God forbid YOU should have to suffer some small inconvenience to defend your freedom! After all, YOU have a mortgage to pay. YOU have kids to feed. No, somebody else will have to do it, you've got you're hands full right now.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHGHGHHHHHHHHH!

Oh, and please pardon my insane rant.

[coydog]

But then, many folks would re-discover how to make ice cream at home, with handy-dandy ice-cream machines imported from Asia where they don't give a tinker's dam about American lawyers. It'd be the breadmaker thing all over again.

[Frunabulax]

Yeah, and we'll all be forced to choke down their runny, dribbly, oversweetened creations and pretend it's sooooo much better than the store-bought kind.

What's the breadmaker thing?

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Many juries will decide against "big ice cream" only to be bitch-slapped every single time by appellate courts composed of real human beings with real working brain cells.

If some stupid jury does rule for the trial lawyers, and I do not entirely discount that possibility, then big ice cream settling to make them go away becomes more likely sad to say, regardless of appellate court decisions. The reason is these scumbag lawyers are persistent and will keep suing and suing unless Congress steps in and puts an end to the circus.

Still, despite the risk, I believe there's a better than 95% chance that it's the lawyers who will be slapped down at the trial level. The bad publicity against them is going to intensify, this is a joke. Jurors will be well aware of it, and despite the requirement of impartiality and open-mindedness, I seriously doubt too many will want the stigma of being perceived as stooges for these lawyers and their nonsensical waste of court's time in the name of greed.

Btw, I have nothing against lawyers, just the few scum like those involved with these type lawsuits. They give the profession a bad name and drag down everyone. If the good ones were really smart, they would disassociate themselves from the lawyers involved.

[snopercod]

Just made 3 quarts of fresh peach ice cream the old-fashioned way. (Well, OK, I wimped out and used the electric one, not the White Mountain hand cranked one.)

1 qt. whole cream
1 qt. Half-n-Half
3 cups sugar
4 lbs. ripe peaches

Mmmmmmmmmm!

[texgal]

Wow, a recipie for certain death . . . but, what a way to go!! I'm going to have to try this one! Thanks!

To heck with Ben & Jerry - I'm really going to miss Blue Bell!

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Sounds good... got a recipe for heavenly hash?

[snopercod]

It was from my Mom's 1948 Fanny Farmer cookbook.

Don't forget to add 1/4 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. vanilla. Freeze the mixture partially before adding the mashed-up peaches, or all the peaches will sink to the bottom of the freezer.

[snopercod]

Nope, sorry.

[texgal]

Don't forget to add 1/4 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. vanilla. Freeze the mixture partially before adding the mashed-up peaches, or all the peaches will sink to the bottom of the freezer.

Thanks, will do.

[KevinDavis]

Blue Bunny Ice Cream is the best....

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Nope, sorry.

Oh well, heavenly hash is my favorite, along with about 500 others. Guess I'll have to pick up an ice cream maker with a good recipe book and make it myself. Has no artificial ingredients either that way.

[Scenic Sounds]

Apparently, they are hoping the other 10% will be the ones picked to be jurors.

LOL. Guess again, Paul.

[William Terrell]

Why did you only post a line of an article from this source?

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Ice Cream on a Bed of Lettuce?

By now everyone has heard about the huge settlements lawyers have gotten in their pursuit of the tobacco companies. Never mind that warning labels are on the cigarette packs, personal responsibility is not only not politically correct, it isn’t profitable.

Some lawyers seeking plaintiffs and a means of maintaining their lifestyle have tried, not too successfully, at least just as yet, to go after gun manufacturers. Claiming that the people who make the guns have somehow neglected their obligation to the American public by creating a gun that would function or be available to the bad guys.

Seeing the writing on the wall, and accepting the fact that much of America still views the 2nd Amendment as being part of the Bill of Rights, some lawyers are shifting attention to the food industry. Whether you are a school board in California, an ice cream company in Vermont or a fast food place, with outlets across the country, you are in the cross hairs of people who see you, pardon the metaphor, as their meal ticket.

The Washington Times ran a story on July 25, 2003, entitled “Lawyers scream about ice cream.” The article explains that some trial lawyers have sent letters to ice cream companies warning them that they better “add healthier alternatives and put nutritional facts on their store menu boards or face potential litigation.” Think about it.

Ice cream companies are being threatened to change their ways or be subject to costly litigation and possibly horrendous judgments unless they follow the instructions of trial lawyers and explain to the public, who already know that ice cream is not, generally speaking dietetic, in detail about themselves. The Times article says one of the letters warns Haagan-Daz, “Your failure to disclose such obviously material information as unusually large calorie and saturated-fat loads may violate state consumer-protection laws and/or your common-law duty to disclose material facts, and may invite lawsuits from concerned consumers, legal-action organizations, or even state officials.”

Basically, those trial lawyers are on a mission, a mission to protect us all from ourselves and our ability to see a warning label and ignore it, or know we will be jeopardizing our Adonis like physiques when we swallow a banana slice engulfed in hot fudge and vanilla ice cream. It must bring a dose of the warm fuzzies’ to us all to know that some attorneys’ in search of clients to sue ice cream companies, are really doing it to save us from ourselves.

The common people who inhabit this country, and have made America the world’s sole superpower, are just not capable of understanding the intricacies and minutiae that is involved in making personal decisions about what to order from a dessert menu.

More importantly, the folks that write the menus that are on the wall, or handed to us, actually know more than us, and in fact are evil individuals who have conspired against us all in favor of obesity and heart disease, and have deliberately omitted telling us calorically challenged or otherwise ignorant people that not only is ice cream fattening, it is really, really fattening.

If anyone doesn’t understand that this is a concerted effort on the part of some trial lawyers, the article explains, “More than 100 lawyers and health lobbyists met in Boston June 20-22 to map out a strategy of filing obesity-liability lawsuits, particularly against the food industry.” The article even points out that even a school board has been warned “on the ramifications of its soda contract with Coca-Cola Co. Inc.”

It was pointed out that 90% of the American people do not believe that fast food companies should be held responsible for people getting fat from eating their fare. However, it was also pointed out that lawyers involved in going after the current corporate defendant du jour, are “undeterred.”

Apparently, they are hoping the other 10% will be the ones picked to be jurors. Or as one of the attorney’s says, “even though only a small group of people was outraged over McDonald's failure to disclose the use of beef fat in French fries, the fast-food giant shelled out $10 million in a settlement.”

On the one hand, there are no doubt a lot of people who believe that from womb to tomb, we all need to be protected from the evil sellers of Rocky Road with all its marshmallow goodness because we are too weak to resist on our own. And that having more information presented to us is desirable and necessary to make an informed decision.

Maybe that would be a good thing. However, it doesn’t end there. As explained, some lawyers also want the ice cream manufacturers and sellers to “add healthier alternatives,” to their menus. In other words, the lawyers will be dictating what we all see on our menus or a lawsuit will follow.

It ends up being a no win situation for just about everyone, except guess who?

As Americans will have to have an in your face recitation of why munching on a delicious bowl of walnut encrusted chocolate ice cream surrounded by mouth watering whip cream will not only eventually kill us, it will probably destroy our quality of life for years until our demise. Plus, we get to see other things on our ice cream menu like chilled tofu and sprout carob sundae; that if we contemplate about, spoils anything else we might want to order.

In spite of our miserable eating habits and desire to enjoy food rather than see it as merely “fuel,” life expectancy in America has consistently increased over the years. And what should really irk even the most liberal of us is the idea that not only do we have to contend with the government telling us what is acceptable behavior, we will be soon be dining out or “indulging” according to standards set by private citizens who view personal responsibility as irrelevant.

Paul Walfield is a freelance writer and an attorney with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and post-graduate study in behavioral and analytical psychology. He resided for a number of years in the small town of Houlton, Maine and is now practicing law and writing political commentary.

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