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Broadcaster Ted Robinson made a faux pas about Janay Rice. Defensive tackle Ray McDonald got arrested for beating up his girlfriend. Guess which one got a two-game suspension?

In the wake of the PR disaster caused by the Ray Rice scandal, NFL teams are thrashing around for ways to prove they take domestic violence seriously. They’ll throw anyone under the bus–as long as he’s not a valuable asset on the field.

San Francisco 49ers broadcaster Ted Robinson was suspended for two games this week after he suggested on KNBR radio Monday that Janay Rice, who was knocked out by then-boyfriend Ray Rice in a much-discussed elevator dispute, was “pathetic” for going on to marry Rice after he hit her.

Meanwhile, defensive lineman Ray McDonald was arrested Aug 31st for felony domestic violence, but 49ers CEO Jed York said he will continue to play until “an entire legal police investigation shows us something.” Probably has nothing to do with the fact that McDonald is a starter who made three tackles that helped the 49ers win 28-17 against Dallas on Sunday, right?

Robinson, who made “insensitive” comments but has never been publicly accused of physical violence, will sit out for two games. McDonald, who was arrested on domestic violence charges after police were called to his home and found his fiancée with “visible injuries,” is scheduled to play this Sunday.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the NFL.

Perhaps the 49ers thought they were sacrificing Robinson to appease hordes of furious women. “The comments made by radio broadcaster Ted Robinson on Monday were offensive and in no way reflect the views of the San Francisco 49ers organization,” said 49ers president Paraag Marathe in a statement announcing that the team had suspended their broadcaster. “Our organization stands strongly against domestic violence and will not tolerate comments such as these.”

Translation: “We are SHOCKED at the OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE used here! We have NO tolerance for anybody who doesn’t make us millions of dollars doing ANYTHING that makes us look bad! Plus, we totally respect women. (Pay no attention to that player behind the curtain. Or to his bruised, pregnant fiancée.)”

To be fair, Robinson probably shouldn’t have said what he said. Although no tape exists online, Robinson allegedly questioned why Janay Rice did not leave after the abusive incident, and called her “pathetic” for marrying her abuser, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s not a very nice thing to say, but it’s not the worst thing that’s been said about this incident; a guest on Fox News even advised women to avoid getting abused by not hitting their husbands. It’s also important to note that while football players have union protections, broadcasters do not.

But Robinson is small potatoes compared to McDonald, and a verbal faux pas is not the same as allegations of a violent assault. Even former 49ers quarterback Steve Young said that the failure to suspend McDonald made a mockery of the team’s position on domestic violence. “Fundamentally, if the league is going to have a no-tolerance policy for domestic abuse…we’ve got to back it up,” he said on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown. “Ray McDonald gets arrested and has physical bruising with his wife and felony domestic abuse, violence. Any company in this country, any big company, if that happens, they send you home. They might pay you, but you don’t play, you don’t come to work until we figure this out.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s newly-strengthened domestic violence policy stipulates a six-game suspension the first time a player is charged with domestic violence or sexual assault, and McDonald has not yet been charged legally. But Goodell’s new policy also says that an act committed against a pregnant woman could warrant a “more serious penalty.” And sixteen female Senators sent Goodell a letter Thursday demanding he take it a step further by implementing a complete zero-tolerance policy. The letter, signed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and fifteen colleagues, said “It is long past time for the NFL to institute a real zero-tolerance policy and send a strong message that the league will not tolerate violence against women by its players, who are role models for children across America.” Zero tolerance should mean no excuses, no second chances, no tiptoeing around.

The 49ers refused to comment on the record about the difference between these two cases, but Jed York made it clear in a KNBR interview Tuesday that he has no intention of suspending McDonald until he absolutely has to. “It’s very important that we let due process take its course,” he said. “We want to make sure that everybody is afforded the right that Americans are afforded.”

So by “everybody” he means “players who help my team win” and by “right” he means, “right to play football,” which is apparently written in invisible ink on the very bottom of the Bill of Rights.

The fake wine is suspected to be part of a mass fraud operation

This article originally appeared on Decanter.

Italian police have seized enough fake Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino wines to fill more than 200,000 bottles as part of a probe into an elaborate fraud operation, according to officials.

Italy’s financial police agency said it was investigating an unnamed wine consultant, whom it suspects of orchestrating a mass wine fraud operation that included hacking into government records.

So far, 165,467 litres of wine have been seized, or enough for just over 220,000 75cl bottles, police said Tuesday, after initially being alerted to the scam via a tip-off from the Brunello di Montalcino producers’ council, or Consorzio.

Of the wine seized, 75,620 litres was cheap wine ‘dressed up’ as one of Italy’s most famous names, Brunello di Montalcino, and 89,847 litres was falsely labelled Rosso di Montalcino.

None of the affected wine was believed to have gone on sale to consumers yet. Luca Albertario, head of the financial police in Siena, told Bloomberg that the seized wine was still with distributors.

Officials said they believed the suspect tried to sell poor quality grapes and wine to wineries and trade customers between 2011 and 2013, after falsely claiming the products had been certified under the Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) quality control system.

Police alleged that he abused professional relationships and produced false documents. Officials also accused him of ‘corrupting data’ in regional government computer systems in order to hide his activity. This included hacking into Tuscany’s Regional Agency for Agricultural Payments.

Tuscany’s governor, Enrico Rossi – who is currently under fire from winemakers over a government commissioned report questioning the environmental credentials of vineyards – said the case was a ‘very serious fraud against one of the brands that best characterises Tuscany and Italy’.

He said, ‘We want to give a clear signal. We are on the side of good business, legality and transparency.’

It was not immediately clear what the ramifications of that allegation could be for the region’s wine trade.

Controversy has enveloped Brunello di Montalcino before, when some producers were suspected of topping up their 2004 vintage with unofficial wine stocks in a scandal dubbed ‘Brunellopoli‘ by the Italian press. The US briefly blocked imports of the wines until it was satisfied that proper quality controls were in place.

Of the recent police raids, Fabrizio Bindocci, president of the Brunello di Montalcino Council, said consumers and winemakers were both victims. ‘It is a serious issue that could cause significant damage to Brunello di Montalcino, to its producers and its territory.’

The police investigation is ongoing.

This article was updated on 11/09/2014 to include comments from Fabrizio Bindocci.

More from Decanter:

• Chilean Winemaker to Start Trial Vineyard Near Peru’s Machu Picchu
• Christine Lurton Joins Family Firm but Denies Succession Plan
• Earthquake Cost to Napa Wineries Tops $80 Million

A 72-hour waiting period could have big consequences

A new Missouri law imposing a 72-hour waiting period on women seeking abortions could decrease the abortion rate in the state, increase the abortion rate elsewhere and drive up expenses for women terminating pregnancies.

The Missouri legislature voted late on Sep. 10 to override Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of the law, which requires women seeking abortions to have an in-person appointment at Missouri’s only abortion clinic, wait three days and return for the procedure itself. Abortion rights advocates say the 72-hour waiting period, which is similar to policies in Utah and South Dakota, makes accessing abortion far too arduous and intrudes into women’s personal health care decisions. Anti-abortion advocates say it gives women time to fully consider their decisions and could reduce the number of terminated pregnancies.

Reliable data on how Missouri’s new law will affect either the abortion rate or when in their pregnancies women choose to have them does not exist, but researchers have found that 24-hour waiting periods, which are law in more than 20 other states, cause women to undergo abortions later in pregnancies and travel to other states instead. This is according to an analysis of existing research compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. In a 2009 paper, Guttmcher researchers explained that after Mississippi imposed a 24-hour waiting period in 1992, the number of abortions in the state fell 22 percent and the proportion of women who underwent abortions after 12 weeks gestation increased 17 percent. After accounting for women who traveled to other states to access abortion services, the researchers said 11 to 13 percent of women who would have had abortions did not get them due to the 24-hour waiting period law.

In addition to affecting the timing, location and rate of abortions, waiting periods also increase costs for some women who are forced to travel to clinics at least twice. In a state like Missouri, which has a single abortion clinic, some women will have to travel long distances twice or spend three or four days away from home to make time for an initial appointment, the waiting period and abortion itself. In addition to the basic travel expenses, such trips can include additional costs in the form of childcare and time off from work.

One recent study, which has not been published, examined the impact of Utah’s 72-hour waiting period. In a 2013-2014 survey of 500 women who showed up for their initial counseling visits, researchers found that when contacted three weeks later, 85 percent of women had had abortions. Of those who had not, some had miscarried, others were still seeking abortions and some decided to continue their pregnancies. The rate of women who decided against having abortions was similar to the rates in other studies of locations without waiting periods, according to the study’s lead author, Sarah Roberts, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

In addition, Roberts says the study found that the average period of time between the first visit for women in Utah and the abortions was eight days, not three, due to the need to arrange logistics like lodging, transportation and childcare. She says the average additional cost imposed by Utah’s mandatory 72-hour waiting period was $40 to $50, equal to about 2.5 percent of monthly household income for women in the survey. “The costs are not insignificant,” she says, particularly for low-income women. Roberts says the Utah study also found that the three-day waiting period forced women to tell more people about their abortions, in the course of making arrangements.

As for Missouri, Roberts says it’s impossible to accurately predict what the new waiting period will mean for women in the state. But, she says,“based on our data, I would continue to expect that women would face additional financial costs. Making arrangements to go back would probably force women to tell more people about their abortions.” And, she says, “we would expect additional delay.”

This is not her "Anaconda" outfit

Rapper Nicki Minaj graces a double cover of Dazed magazine, dressed alternatively as a 1950s housewife and a poolside bombshell. The “Anaconda” rapper is used to playing a sexy goddess: in her latest music video, she works out while wearing a thong and then brings fellow rapper Drake near to tears with her twerking before slapping away his hand when he tries to touch her. But it’s less often that we see Minaj dressed so conservatively. She would fit right in on the set of Masters of Sex (and now that we think about it would make a pretty amazing guest star too).

But Nicki Minaj has always been a fashion chameleon. Check out her style evolution:

Her song, 'Run This Town,' will open Thursday Night Football each week

Update: After publication of this story, CBS pulled Rihanna from the pre-game lineup.

After days of debate over the NFL’s handling of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s domestic violence case, the Ravens are returning to the field tonight sans Rice. And as fortune would have it, tonight’s first Thursday Night Football game will kick off on CBS with a song sung by…Rihanna.

Yep, CBS and the NFL inexplicably chose Jay Z and Rihanna’s 2009 song,”Run This Town” to open their broadcast each week even though Rihanna herself was a very public victim of domestic abuse in 2009 at the hands of her then-boyfriend, Chris Brown. According to an NFL press release, a custom opening sequence featuring music by Rihanna with a voiceover from Don Cheadle will play before every Thursday Night Football game this season, beginning with the Ravens game tonight.

The NFL announced this news on Sept. 2, almost a week before TMZ leaked new footage of Rice that got the football player suspended indefinitely from the league. But Rice was arrested in February for the incident on the video, and debate about domestic violence in the NFL has been ongoing for months, which might explain why some people on Twitter are pretty unhappy:

"It’s violent, and it’s misogynistic, and it’s revolting," he said

Since nude photos of dozens of celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, were stolen from Apple’s cloud and leaked onto the internet, several actors have weighed in on the incident. The latest lambasting of those responsible for the leak comes courtesy of actor Andrew Garfield, who shared his feelings on the scandal with The Daily Beast. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 actor called the hacks “disgusting” and “misogynistic,” deploring the man who is blowing up the photos and displaying them in an art gallery in Florida.

Here’s what Garfield had to say:

It’s disgusting. “I have a right to your naked body or images that you’ve sent to your husband, or lover.” It’s disgusting. It’s this violent, abusive violation of womanhood—of divine womanhood. It’s violent, and it’s misogynistic, and it’s revolting, and it’s another example of what this distance has enabled us to do—it’s enabled us to be disassociated from each other. There’s enough awful shit coming from it that hopefully we’ll get to the point of, “OK, wait a second.” What’s scary is that we haven’t reached that point yet, and there hasn’t been a referendum put on it. The Internet is the new Wild West. There’s a guy now taking these pictures and putting them up in an art gallery. What f***ing right does he have to do that? It’s absolutely revolting.

[The Daily Beast]

If this were 1994, the Ray Rice video might never have leaked — but this is not 1994

Two weeks after football star O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson, TIME ran a cover story called “When Violence Hits Home.” Twenty years later, Ray Rice was suspended from the NFL after he was caught on video punching his wife Janay in an elevator, and we’re again embroiled in a national discussion of domestic violence.

So what’s the difference between two football stars, two battered wives, 20 years apart? The O.J. Simpson case helped the country wake up and acknowledge that domestic violence is a problem (even after he was acquitted of murder), while the Ray Rice incident forces us to decide how much we are willing to tolerate it.

TIME’s July 1994 cover story was written with a hushed tone, as if the trove of evidence about domestic violence were a secret trunk in a spooky attic. Jill Smolowe wrote:

The horror has always been with us, a persistent secret, silent and pernicious, intimate and brutal. Now, however, as a result of the Simpson drama, Americans are confronting the ferocious violence that may erupt when love runs awry.

Today, now that the cat’s been out of the bag for two decades, the discussion about domestic violence is louder, angrier and less willing to accept that it’s a “private” matter.

Twenty years after O.J., few Americans can say they don’t know what domestic violence means. Simpson’s trial was one of the most-watched in history, and the raised awareness helped pass the Violence Against Women Act, which then-Senator Joe Biden pushed through the Senate with a mere 61 votes. It was signed 20 years ago this week. “Some of the controversy at that time was about whether or not the federal government should play a role in an issue that many people regarded as a ‘family matter,'” said Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (D-Maryland), who co-founded the National Network to End Domestic Violence and worked to pass VAWA before she took office in 2008. “Nowadays, I think the majority of Americans recognize that domestic violence is a crime.”

The O.J. trial was also a watershed moment for understanding the connection between domestic abuse and murder. Before the Simpson murders, few Americans understood that men who beat women sometimes become men who kill women. (Although there are male victims and female perpetrators, the vast majority of domestic violence is man-on-woman.) Two years later, in 1996, Congress passed a law preventing domestic batterers from purchasing guns, and by 2008 domestic homicide rates had plummeted 53%, according to the Department of Justice.

Most of TIME’s 1994 cover story feels remarkably current; the psychology of violence, the cycles of abuse, the terrified victims reluctant to speak up are all consistent with what we now know to be true about domestic violence. But while the pathology remains the same, the reaction has changed.

For one thing, this week’s Ray Rice incident is less about raising awareness and more about the public demanding retribution. Experts say the reaction to the elevator beating is much stronger than anything they’ve seen before. “We didn’t see this kind of outrage over when that happened with Chris Brown and Rihanna,” says Katie Ray-Jones, president of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “Back then, we still heard a lot of comments saying ‘we don’t know what happened in that car,’ and our hotlines were flooded with Chris Brown fans supporting him.”

“The Ray Rice video really gave a face to the issue — we throw a lot of statistics out there in the field about ‘1 in 5 women,’ ‘1 in 7 men’ but when you see a video like that, you say, ‘Oh my goodness, that is outrageous,'” Ray-Jones says. She also adds that calls to the hotline have gone up 84% since the video leaked Monday.

Another major difference between O.J. and Ray Rice is that 20 years ago there was no Internet, and now it’s everywhere.

It’s true that when it comes to partner abuse, technological advances can cut both ways. While social media provides a valuable outlet for survivor support, and the Internet helps victims learn about resources they can use to escape, Ray-Jones says “technology can be a victim’s friend or it can be her enemy.” That’s because abusers are using GPS in their victims’ phones to track where they are, or using spyware to monitor whether their partner is reaching out for help, or threatening violent consequences if text messages aren’t immediately returned. “Technology allows survivors to feel empowered and to get her voice out in the conversation,” Ray-Jones said. “But there are a lot of ways people are using technology to further control an individual.”

Still, If this were 1994, the video of Rice beating Janay that was leaked to TMZ might not have ever been released. And social media allows ordinary Americans to make their voices heard, which means that abuse has major consequences outside of the legal system. Ray Rice was canned from the NFL, and some are calling for commissioner Roger Goodell to be next. The story has dominated Twitter and Facebook, spawning victim-driven hashtags like #whyIstayed and #whyIleft. Thanks to technology, there are now major social and professional consequences for hitting your girlfriend, where once there were only legal ones. It was always wrong; now it’s also bad PR.

Read the 1994 cover story on domestic violence here, in TIME’s archives: When Violence Hits Home

The world's most famous soccer player on fitness trackers, Michael Jordan and the Women's World Cup controversy

Mia Hamm has been a role model for girls since she established herself as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. Hamm held the record for most international goals scored by a soccer player — male or female — until 2013, when fellow American Abby Wambach broke her record. She won FIFA world player of the year twice.

Since her retirement from soccer, Hamm has been active in other pursuits: participating in an ESPN documentary about the 1999 American soccer team that won the Women’s World Cup, heading up the Mia Hamm Foundation and raising her twin daughters.

But now she’s teaming up with LeapFrog to promote the LeapBand, a fitness tracker for kids that lets them play games while staying active. Last weekend, Hamm and LeapFrog met with 400 kids and families in Santa Monica, Calif., to promote family activities. The group set three Guinness World Records for most people making sand angels (292), most people hopping on one leg (321) and most people performing a swim dance (318).

TIME caught up with Hamm to talk about controversy surrounding the upcoming Women’s World Cup, what it was like to race against Michael Jordan for a Gatorade commercial and how to get more kids to be active.

There’s been a lot of renewed interest in America in soccer after the World Cup this summer. Do you think people are going to be as invested in this upcoming Women’s World Cup as they were in the Men’s ?

I think so. I think with this World Cup what made a huge difference is that people have access that they didn’t have 10 years ago or 20 years ago. I could go home right now and find four channels that have something about soccer going on, and I definitely could not have done when I was playing. I believe Fox Sports 1 has all the coverage [of the Women's World Cup], and they are taking it very seriously in terms of the reach that they want to obtain. In the end that’s how you get to the masses is with that type of coverage.

With regards to the U.S. team and the tournament, it’s going to be the best soccer that’s been played to this date. The game’s naturally evolving and getting better.

Some of the women’s players in the U.S. and elsewhere have expressed concerns about playing on turf for the next world cup. What are your thoughts on the turf vs. grass debate?

I would much rather play on grass. I’ve played on turf, and it is a different game. I completely understand why certain venues have turf because of the amount of play, the wear and tear, the weather. But I would love for this tournament — it’s the best of the best in the world, it’s senior players, it’s not a youth world cup — for FIFA to remain consistent, and right now that means playing the game on grass, on a natural surface.

My favorite commercial growing up was the Gatorade commercial that you did with Michael Jordan — the “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” commercial — and several female athletes I’ve interviewed since have cited it as an inspiration as well. You were one of the first women to send the message, “I can compete with the boys.” Were you aware that you were a female role model at the time?

Definitely. I took every opportunity as a responsibility to not only help our sport grow but also to support female athletics. I felt it was important. And it was also a way for me to say thank you to all the people that invested in me and who, whether I knew them or not, made changes to compete at this level — whether it was playing in college and the birth of Title IX and making sure that not only did I have access to being able to play in college but I had access to an education.

What was so wonderful was during the taping of that, I wanted to be better than he was at whatever we were doing. It was actually very intense. There was a natural competition. And I love the fact that he was accepting and open to that. We had a blast making it.

You’ve done a lot to encourage young girls in athletics. Why has that been an important cause for you?

I just know how it empowered me. I was a really young, shy kid who was also from a military family, so we moved every 2-3 years. And sports was an easy way to make a connection when we moved to a new base, a new town to people with similar interests. And I think it really helped give me confidence not only with that move but with feeling that I could contribute.

We’re finally starting to see more attention paid to women’s sports. Do you think we will ever reach point where there’s as much encouragement for young girls to play sports as young boys and as much interest in women’s sports as men’s?

I hope so. You just look at women in high-powered positions in top 500 companies and a lot of them will attribute their time in organized sports as something that really made a difference and had an impact in their lives. And I see the confidence it has built in my daughters when they work really hard at something, let’s say it’s soccer. They’re working really hard on passing or shooting or a certain move, and then all of the sudden it just clicks, and you just see this big smile come on their face.

And to see that confidence grow in a young girl is so important because I think boys are naturally encouraged to do those things, and the opportunities to do it for our daughters is so important.

I know that your 1999 World Cup win had a huge impact on my generation in terms of the number of girls it inspired to play soccer. But soccer’s continued to grow in popularity in the U.S. for boys and girls. Why do you think that is?

I think kids who grew up playing and it was part of their everyday lives are now parents. I would probably say if we hadn’t lived in Italy when I was 2 or 3, my dad would have been like, “What is this game? What are these kids playing?” because he didn’t grow up around it. We’re parents now, we understand the game, and our kids are playing.

I also know when I was younger, it was a relatively inexpensive sport to play. You didn’t need a lot of equipment. I was one of six kids in a military family, so it was perfect. Times have changed with club soccer and all the traveling and high-level coaching, but it’s still a sport you can play on a field used for many different sports — football, lacrosse or even the outfield of a baseball field, which is what my daughters do here in California when they play in their little AYSO league.

Obviously you and your husband [former baseball player Nomar Garciaparra] are athletic people. Have you passed those genes to your kids? What do you guys do to stay active?

We want them participating in some type of activity. And they’re motivated to be with their friends. Whether it’s dance or playing soccer or softball. At home, we want it to be fun. We’re not standing over our kids saying ‘give me ten pushups!’ Two days ago, my daughter wanted to play two square, so we put that in the space between our family room and kitchen. And we did that for 20 minutes, just laughing and I think she was talking a little trash at one point. So just having fun with them.

Why did you team up with LeapFrog?

Seventy-five percent of kids aren’t gettingthe 60 minutes a day of physical activity, whether it’s due to cutbacks in their school’s physical education programs, and you know childhood obesity rates are skyrocketing. We just really want to help families and kids understand that physical activity is not necessarily about work. LeapBand is not a calorie tracker or counter. It’s little bursts of activities like jumping in place and popping like popcorn. I know for my kids, they’re always laughing while doing it.

Have you tried any fitness trackers?

Yeah, the Nike FuelBand, I’ve used that. I was more curious: how many steps do I take in a day? I kind of had an idea of my calorie burn when I was playing, but I have no idea right now. I do a camp with a couple of my teammates, and we’ll go out and motivate each other, see what we can do.

It's time to walk back from the Peak Pumpkin ledge

There is a specter haunting America — the specter of the pumpkin spice latte, henceforth referred to as the PSL.

It’s like The Walking Dead up in here, but instead of zombies, every other person, bros and basics alike, is a Starbucks PSL drone. You can’t wear so much as a flannel scarf out of the house without fending off wild-eyed PSL lovers raving about the onset of autumn and the arrival of PSL season.

We used to call it football season, people. This used to be football season.

But lest you take comfort in the oddity of human nature — “oh what cute goofs we can be with our whims” and so forth — know this: the success of the PSL is no accident. It’s a covert campaign on the part of a multinational corporation to pervert your affinity for the holiday season into a manufactured desire for a (gross) beverage, and in so doing subvert the most American of all holidays, Thanksgiving. Yes, I’m talking about a secret army of un-American zombie drone PSL drinkers.

All this hysteria despite the fact that a Starbucks PSL tastes like neither pumpkin nor pumpkin pie (nor for that matter anything that could reasonably be called “pumpkin spice,” whatever that means) and have about as much to do with an actual pumpkin as a cat.

If a PSL doesn’t have to taste even remotely like an actual pumpkin then neither does my hypothetical and far more interesting Beet Spice Latte have to taste like a real beet. And if we’re going to have these abominable pumpkin impostors foisted upon us, I demand additional options. (Aside: pumpkin flavored beer walks a thin line but gets a pass because this is my list and I can make it how I want).

Here, via free association, are fall-inspired lattes I would rather have right now than a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte:

Brussels Sprout Spice Latte

Celery Root Spice Latte

Potato Spice Latte

Turnip Spice Latte

Horseradish Spice Cappuccino (feels a little aggressive without the foam)

Hay Spice Latte

Hayride Spice Latte (Hay, dirt, upset stomach bile)

Halloween Spice Latte (candy, fear)

Candy Corn Spice Latte (sugar, sugar, sugar)

Cavity Spice Latte (flouride, antiseptic, other unidentifiable dentist-related tastes)

Dental Insurance Spice Latte (paper)

Job Spice Latte (stale coffee, lunch at desk)

Toil Spice Latte (sweat)

Political Campaign Spice Latte (beer, fried everything, rubber chicken)

John Boehner Spice Latte (not going there)

Etc.

Do you see now where this road leads, pumpkin spice lovers? Nowhere good.

Now we can all call a truce and switch back to real pumpkins. Or better yet, try an apple. You don’t even need a scientist to manufacture apple “spice” this time. Apples are delicious on their own!