06 August 2008

Moronic product of the week.

Meet the Love Bottle.


This is a product I saw being hawked on Treehugger last week and if there's a more glaring example of that site's being out to lunch I can't think of it. The Love Bottle is being peddled as a sustainable way to carry around your own water. The bottle's made from recycled glass, so I have to give them that. However, the idea behind the Love Bottle is this, "Did you know that words and pictures have energy and water is affected by that energy?" That's taken directly from their website. I had to read it a couple of times to make sure I had read properly. It's almost a treat to see that kind of jaw-dropping stupidity. Almost.

I nosed around on their site and sure enough, they are dedicated to the insane fiction that water can be imbued with an intention, and in this case the intention is "love." Apparently, the worker bees who make the bottles whisper sweet nothings while the bottles are in production. Then that love magic stays with the bottles for the rest of their useful lives. I don't know what bothers me more about that. That someone can make such a claim without a challenge or that stupid people will buy a product that makes such a claim.

On a deeper level, where did the idea that you have to lug around your own drinking water come from? This bottle-of-water-in-every-hand-phenomenon came out of nowhere over the last 20 years and seems to be the unholy result of American hypochondria, American self-indulgence and a bottled water industry all to willing to ride those less-than-admirable traits all the way to the bank. Prior to the popularization of water as a beverage, who carried around liquids? When you wanted a drink of water, you poured yourself a glass from the tap and that was that. Ahhh, cool clean water with the twist of a tap. Now there's some real magic for you. If you were at work or at the gym, you went to the water fountain and drank some water. Gee, water fountains. Remember them? But that's too simple I suppose and how can you make gobs of money from a public resource?

So I suppose my big beef with the Love Bottle is twofold. Few things go through me like non-scientific and soft-headed claims regarding the miraculous properties of anything, let alone water. The other thing about it that bothers me is that it further spreads the idea that you need to carry water with you at all times. If the Love Bottle people were interested in a sustainable practice, they wouldn't be adding to an already wasteful idea. Behind all of their fuzzy-headed claims of the paranormal, the Love Bottle's real intentions become obvious when you see the $20 price tag. Aha! The myth of altruism gets exposed again. $20 for a glass bottle. Please.



I have an idea. A billion people in the world don't have access to clean and safe drinking water of any kind let alone magic water in a Love Bottle. But there's a product called the Life Straw that's a solution to that problem. The Life Straw is a hand held water filter that works like a straw. To call it a life save for 1/6th of the world's population is an understatement. If you're tempted to buy a love bottle because you think you're doing something to "save the earth." Stop right there. You can sponsor a Life Straw for $15 through the Rotary Club of Fort Lauderdale and in so doing, you'll be saving a life. Several lives in fact. That will leave you with five dollars and with that, you can buy the nicest water glass you can get your hands on. Leave it on your desk and use it every time you want a drink of water.
Then, if you want to witness a real miracle and the only instance of a thought influencing an object try this. Hold up your right hand. Wiggle your index finger. Hey! That's all the miracle you need.

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