BRAINSTORM: What Obama-supporting businesses can you think of that would disagree with “You Didn’t Build That!” rhetoric?
[ Click above to embiggen: one of the photos proudly displayed in Sweet Mandy B's is of Joe Biden presenting Barack Obama with a birthday cake from their shop; Obama has said numerous times that he likes the cupcakes from Sweet Mandy B's best. Did Sweet Mandy B's build it's own small business, or did somebody else make that happen? ]
Here in Chicago, there’s a cupcakery (a cupcake-exclusive bakery) called Sweet Mandy B’s Cupcakes up near the DePaul University campus. It’s the least-special of all the cupcakeries in Chicago (four that I know of) and its fare tastes like bake-sale Betty Crocker — which is not necessarily a bad thing, but not professional-grade in my opinion; their cupcakes taste like those that would be made by a girl’s volleyball team and sold in the cafeteria at lunchtime to raise money for their trip to the state finals. I’ve only been in there a few times when I’ve either had to go to DePaul for something or I’ve walked by Sweet Mandy B’s on the way to the movie theater that’s further up the street.
Inside, Sweet Mandy B’s proudly displays photos of Barack Obama and Joe Biden eating their various baked goods products. It makes me wonder what the owner of this small business thinks of Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That!” rhetoric. A few attempts to reach out to Sweet Mandy B’s (whose owner is named Cindy, not Mandy…the store is actually named after her daughter) soured, with no one willing to give me a quote for an article. It seems like they don’t have a good answer for how they can so proudly display the Obama and Biden photos inside the cupcakery…while simultaneously also being proud of the small business they created that “somebody else (didn’t) make happen”.
Can you think of other good examples of this sort of thing: businesses that proudly embrace Barack Obama, feature photos of him on the walls, and yet are small businesses that did indeed “build this themselves”?
It would be fun to press these people for an explanation of how they can both support Obama while also be living proof of how wrong the man is.
Thoughts?
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
Help HillBuzz by Shopping Amazon
"Bee" Advised!
I look forward to your comments. Please follow these simple guidelines:
- Please do not complain about your comment not yet showing up
- Stay on topic of the article ("This is OT, but..." = bad!)
- I will STING if you troll, spam, bait, swear or attack someone
Every rancher in the country would no doubt say Bamey didn’t build that since the feds via the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service have for many years been trying to get rid of those businesses with their needless regulations, permitting, enviromental bs. There’s a reason that much of our food supply raised by ranchers is now coming from out of the country. Those businesses have closed because they cannot afford the legal and endless federal charges to operate.
I think asking businesspeople who support this president to defend the “You didn’t build that” reasoning would come off something like asking people who support the contraception mandate to justify how they can tell people to stay out of peoples’ bedrooms but yet pay for what happens there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aFIkK79Of8
Re the cupcakes themselves … sadly, some people like Betty Crocker flavor cake and cupcakes … I busted my b*** to make wonderful scratch birthday cakes for my husband for several years before he told me that he just likes box mix cakes better because that’s what his mother always made … sigh …
lethargic –
This will make you feel better. A few years ago, I was doing a freelancing event planning gig for Northwestern here in Chicago. I’d done a few assignments for them. I really wanted to be hired on permanently because they have really great benefits (and at the time I also wanted to get a master’s in nonprofit management, and if I worked there I could have gone for half price with some classes for free because they related to my sought-after job). There was a big party and I was invited and it was pot luck. I was assigned to make/bring a dessert and I chose to make cupcakes. I made cupcakes from scratch and iced them in the Northwestern purple colors, using some of the fancy icing techniques I learned a few years before that when I worked for a famous chef here in Chicago (ghostwriting on his cookbooks).
Some other lady made cupcakes too, from the Betty Crocker mix. The Monday after the party everyone raved about the Betty Crocker cupcakes “because Helen made them herself”. They didn’t believe I made my cupcakes because they were “too fancy” and “guys don’t make fancy cupcakes”. Well, gay ones do…especially those with a culinary background (if however limited).
I’ll honestly never go to that much trouble for anything again because people like the Betty Crocker stuff almost always more than anything fancy and taking the time to do fancy icing work is wasted because people will just assume you got it from a bakery. And if you tell them that, no, you didn’t get it from a bakery they just think you are lying.
I never got that job at Northwestern. I wonder to this day if I had just made Betty Crocker mix cakes if I’d still be enjoying all the benefits of working for the university now.
Ouch! At least that helps me to feel less that it’s my fault somehow … :-/ Thanks, Kevin