🍊 Handcrafted, all natural, clinically proven... and absolutely meaningless

We don’t swear in this newsletter, so we can’t use the words we want to to really describe what these terms amount to.

Did you know that, by the standards of product marketing, this newsletter is handcrafted? It’s digital, written on and delivered by computer, displayed on a screen, but I did use my hands to type it. Turns out that’s about the same level of rigor some brands use when they slap handcrafted on their packaging.

In this story by Erik Barnes, GOOD pulled together the everyday labels that sound trustworthy but aren’t actually regulated. Handcrafted is one of the biggest offenders, joined by all-natural and made with real fruit, which can legally mean a single heroic drop of concentrate in a sugar tsunami.

And that’s just the start. The complete list delves into strength claims, scientific language, doctor endorsements, military connotations, and the catch-all premium that promises everything while saying nothing.

If you like knowing when a label is selling comfort instead of facts, this list is a satisfying, military-grade grocery-aisle reality check.

And what did we learn?

Yesterday, we shared the apparently controversial idea that couples should fight more often. At least that’s what experts say. But when we asked if you fought with your partner, nearly half of you weren’t having it.

• Every day. It’s basically our love language. (16.4%)

• Never. Who wants to fight with the person they love? (45.9%)

• Once or twice a week. Healthy debate, healthy heart. (29.5%)

• We go absolutely nuclear, but only a few times a year. (8.2%)

Reader 636Butterfly spoke for the majority. “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Compromise works most of the time.“

Image of the day

🩸 There’s something in the kitchen far more intimidating than heat

This thing is more terrifying than any horror villain ever put to film.

My wife and I enjoy a good horror film, but nothing has us covering our faces faster than the moment a chef pulls out a mandoline slicer during a cooking show. If you’re not familiar, imagine a streamlined food guillotine that creates paper-thin slices of anything, literally anything, that is run over its surface. Food TV producers love this thing. Instant tension, guaranteed drama, and enough danger to make you forget to breathe. It slices, it dices, and it absolutely does not know the difference between an apple and the first inch of your thumb.

As Erik Barnes reports, pros have the scars to prove the mandoline is not to be trusted. Chefs shared stories of sliced palms, missing thumb tips, and ER visits that read like slasher scripts. Even culinary legends advise caution, insisting that knife skills are safer than this bloodthirsty mono-tasker. If you’ve ever considered one of these for your home kitchen, you owe it to your insurance premiums to read this story first.

📰 The 1963 man who said yes to a woman president… kinda

If you’re in the mood for a blast from the past that proves how far we’ve come, this might not be it.

In this story by Adam Albright Hanna, we meet Vern Hause, a Wisconsin guy who found himself in a 1963 Minneapolis Star Tribune street poll that asked, "Would a woman make a good president?" Out of five people, Vern was the only one who did not flat-out say no, and 62 years later, the internet has basically crowned him its king.

It should be noted that Vern’s answer was not exactly a soaring feminist speech. It was more "She could not do any worse than some we have had." That nuance has people online debating whether Vern is an ahead-of-his-time ally, a lovable nihilist, or just the least bad quote on a pretty rough page.

Then there are the other four answers, including a husband who says he does not trust women to run the country and a wife identified only as "Mrs. Tom" who publicly backs him up. The full clipping is a time capsule of 1960s gender norms, complete with people casually sharing their home addresses with a newspaper.

On November 13, 1940, Disney’s Fantasia premiered in New York City. It was a visual triumph, an artistic masterwork, a technical revolution, and, at least at first, a box-office dud. The production teems with images so iconic that even 85 years later, almost anyone can summon them on cue: Mickey in that star-splashed sorcerer’s cap conjuring chaos, tutu-wearing hippos twirling with alligators, and the demon Chernabog raising the dead on Bald Mountain.

True to Disney’s early DNA, the production pushed every boundary it could find. Massive custom camera rigs were built, over 1,000 artists were employed, and the soundtrack was presented in “Fantasound,” the first multichannel audio system. It laid the groundwork for THX and Dolby Atmos, but came at a cost: the system was so complex and expensive (almost $900,000 per theater in today’s dollars) that only 13 cities could host the film in its intended format.

World War II and the film’s avant-garde nature further limited its success. Despite racially offensive sequences that were quickly removed in later releases, Fantasia has earned its place as one of animation’s crown jewels. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, followed 60 years later, so if the pattern holds, expect Fantasia 3 in 2060.

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