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How to Pronounce First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less
How to Pronounce First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today. There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.” Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease. Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing. By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker. Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential. United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati. When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.” For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor. Read less
How to Pronounce I thought it warranted a response from me. I have always toed the line of "edgy" humor when it comes to my online presence. Over the last 5 year, I've developed a more sarcastic, blunt, and satirical personality. There's nothing about what I've done publicly that I have tried to hide, or delete, or claim ignorance to. I take full responsibility of all I've said and all my actions. I can proudly say that I'm someone who is really open about my life in a space where many hide, not because they are bad people, but because people on the internet love judging and backseating a streamer's life. Someone emailed me a list of problematic things I've done in their eyes and that's making the rounds in the "twitter stan" circles, and normally I would say: "just don't watch my content" - not in a dismissive manner, but simply as, this is just my humor. But it has been brought to my attention that there are literally people crying about it, and even dragging the people I care about (namely my friends in OTV and Amigops) into it by pressuring them and condemning them for interacting with me. Shit on me all you want, but I always draw the line at attacking my friends. So let's take a look: 1. "He's a racist" - In an OTV video from 2 years ago where we did a Don't Laugh challenge, in an attempt to get a subject to laugh, I read out a race joke off a website. It was all bleeped out, but if you go looking for it - you'll find the full version. People seem to think this means I support racism even through my words and actions during the BLM protest, it's clear that I condemn it - even being attacked by people for using my platform to speak up against racism. It's an offensive joke I made to get a reaction from the participant. Trying to educate me that it's offensive has no weight because we all knew it was offensive, that's why it was censored. Is it tasteless, sure you can say that - but it doesn't make me a racist. As someone who was spat on for being the quiet Asian kid in school, being called Jackie Chan all the time, hearing "ching chong" when I go out to eat at a restaurant - I have experienced racism myself. This obviously doesn't make me immune to being racist, but reading an offensive joke doesn't make me one either. 2. "He's a racist off-stream" - In a podcast with Destiny, I mention that privately, streamers say and do things that the public would find distasteful. This is the truth. There's a reason why the majority of streamers keep their lives so private, and try to only show the positives of their lives to their audience. This is really important to understand - you only see what the streamers show you on stream. You don't know what they are like when the cameras are off besides stories and testimonies from people who actually know them. When I say I make racial jokes off-stream, this does not mean I walk around the OTV house dropping slurs left and right. It means occasionally, say we are discussing the next member of OTV, I would say "ARE THEY ASIAN? BECAUSE WE ARE TOO ASIAN. WE SHOULD DIVERSIFY WITH A WHITE/BLACK GUY!". Obviously, we don't pick member based on race - does that mean everyone in OTV deserved to be cancelled and forced to apologies for NOT then running to Twitter and publicly condemning what I said in private? No. 3. "He promotes pedophilia" - During a game of pictionary, the prompt was "illegal" and I drew a stick figure of a young girl, obviously meaning pedophilia is illegal. Some people tweeted at me saying that I want to have sex with children because of it. Some people say they just find it tasteless. Tasteless, I understand - again it just goes back to my "edgy" sense of humor. I don't support pedophilia (I can't believe I have to even say that) and it honestly surprises me that some stans are trying to cancel me for this one. The prompt was "illegal", I'm pretty sure it's clear that even with the worse opinion of me, people can recognize that I'm saying pedo = bad. 4. "I'm a rape advocate" - This one bothered me the most because the others I can understand to some degree of people just thinking my humor is crass and tasteless. Coincidentally, this one is the one where the email didn't bother including any VODs or clips, just a recollection that I said “when a women says no don’t let that stop you cause she doesn’t really mean it anyway, just keep going” - I genuinely do not remember saying this and am surprised that people didn't even bother checking the VOD for it before just blindly accepting it. I do recall saying something along the lines of "if a girl says no, just keep asking till she gives in" - as in keep bothering a girl if she turns you down. And obviously, I hope people have enough social understanding to see that it was sarcastic - as I did it in front of my two close female friends who I know will respond accordingly "TOAST NO, DONT TEACH THEM THAT". When I make satirical commentary, I usually say something purposely ignorant because I know there exists men that do think that way - and I do it in front of people I know who would react in a manner that shows that this line of thinking is not okay. I know doing so without a foil or friends to play the straight role, some fans might actually think I was being serious - which is why I always make sure that it's clear that what I'm saying is stupid. For this particular conversation, I also remember not finishing my sentence and immediately backtracking on it because I realized in the moment that some people might take it the wrong way since I didn't properly convey it. I recognize that rape and sexual assault isn't something to joke about, I like to think my actions during a period of time where friends of mine did go through such trauma shows how seriously I take it. It was a joke about how creepy men can be. I don't think it is fair to label me as a "rape advocate", especially while not showing any clips or VODs of the moment. 5. "He thinks there's nothing wrong with using the R slur" - This one is a complete head scratcher because I don't ever use the R slur, and I am really aware of why it's a word that shouldn't be used, which is why I've never used it in any of my stream or video for the last several years. The email claimed that I said this on a recent stream, but again, doesn't show the clip or VOD of me saying it. It really does break my heart to see people just eat all of this up without asking for at least the clip or context. They just see that the first 3 points had a video so they assume the second two points are valid without needing proof. I even recently did a stream saying how I specifically refrain from using the word despite it being "allowed" by other streamers. And final note, someone said I was specifically attacking some Twitter user when I talked about cancel culture on stream recently and to this I can only say: I have no idea who they are. I usually talk in generalizations of what I see or what people tell me. My friend showed me the profile and I had no idea what was going on, but this person was claiming I was specifically attacking them and that I called them a child. This goes back to what I have always said about parasocial relationships. The stans will try their best to insert themselves into a streamer's life to an unhealthy point, that this person thinks that I, Disguised Toast, was talking about THEM, this special individual. When I talk about children stans trying to cancel people, I'm referring to the toxic ones who tell anyone who disagree with them to kill themselves and are only interested in getting an apology as some kind of victory. If you're not a child throwing a tantrum on twitter, if you're respectfully voicing your opinions like the thread author here - I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU WHEN I TALK ABOUT TOXIC STANS. Take one look at my mentions and you can find the people that I AM talking about. Moving forward, I will try to be a lil bit less edgy. But that type of humor is something I grew up with and do personally find humorous. Similar to Michael Scott's character from The Office or Joey from Friends - it's clear when they make ignorant remarks that they ARE ignorant remarks, and the reaction from the other characters make it clear on that. That's what I try to satirize in my content whenever I do make jokes rooted in racial or sexual nature. If you take it at face value, without context, without knowing me - I can understand why I might come off as a bigot. But even if you don't respect me, at least respect the opinion of the people around me, my peers, people who known me for years. Know that they wouldn't stand for any bigotry or racism or sexism because we hold each other to a very high standard. To the original message author: thanks for taking the time out to properly convey how you feel.. I do apologize to the people who were hurt by my jokes. If you watched my Among Us lobbies, my concern is always whether or not being are having a positive experience, its the same with my fans. With so much new fans coming in from the recent blowup in our friend circle, I'm sure several of them weren't aware that I had a very edgy, dry, sarcastic sense of humor that can definitely be offensive at times. And at the end of the day, if you are uncomfortable with my style of humor, then it's best not to watch me. I will try to be more considerate, but I expect to still make the occasional edgy joke here and there. The one thing I ask is to leave my friends alone. They are wonderful people that don't deserve any hate for associating with me. Boycott my content, cancel me, whatever - but don't drag them into it by pressuring them or demanding an apology from them just because we play games together. (Final thing, if you use my friends' faces as your twitter profile picture or their names in your handle, and you go around attacking other fandoms or use it to cause drama between fan bases - change it. Grow the fuck up. You give them a bad name and they don't deserve that. This goes double for any of my own fans because I've taught you all better than that.)