Buy Local, Live Longer

If you're like me, you're not worried overmuch about food contamination. Sure there's the occasional media flurry about hepatitis spinach or salmonella peanut butter, but these are isolated incidents so there's not a lot of danger.

The pet food recall gave me more reason for pause than any human food scare. After all, the FDA keeps our food safe while pet food is relatively unmonitored.

But a little research into the matter has changed my mind considerably. There are many factors involved in food safety - is irradiation really safe? What kinds of meds are we giving to livestock & what are the consequences? How is my food being fertilized, nourished, handled & shipped?

These are just a few of the major concerns that consumers face. And trying to educate oneself in these matters is pretty overwhelming. But there's one huge safety risk that's largely been ignored: The US is seeing a continual increase in food imports but we lack the ability to inspect most of them.

According to this very informative article in USA Today, the FDA is responsible for about 80% of the nations food supply (the USDA takes care of the rest because it oversees meat & poultry).

Each day, we receive over 25,000 shipments of food from more than 100 countries but the FDA only inspects about 1% of these imports. That's pretty scary, considering that many other countries have far less stringent regulations than the US.

Even more disturbing, this AP story on MSN tells us that of the 1% that are checked, many are found to be "unfit for human consumption." Very scary indeed.

What's a consumer to do? As the Chinese wheat gluten investigation widens, we're learning that even foods considered to be low-risk may be seriously dangerous. The best solution for now at least, seems to be: buy local. Know where your food has come from. Buy locally grown produce & baked goods from your neighborhood markets -- which we should all be doing anyway to support our local economies.

We have the right to eat food that hasn't been poisoned. Manufacturers are probably buying foreign because it's cheaper. But if consumers ask questions & then spend their money based on those answers, manufacturers will be forced to meet a standard of quality to maintain their customer base.

For now, you're not safe if you're eating imported foods. Do some research & ask questions. Spend your money wisely & safely. Only then will we see manufacturers & importers improve their practices enough to make foreign foods truly safe for U.S. consumption.

Please, Allow Me

A friend called this morning to ask if I've responded to an invitation yet. No, I haven't. I've been busy plus I seem to have misplaced my invitation. I've got to find it but I've had so many more urgent matters to tend to . . . Pushy friend cut me off about there.

"Well, since you have to call anyway, you can accept for both of us to save me a phone call."

I wanted to point out that it did not in fact save her a phone call since she had to call me specifically for this reason. But there was no point in dragging this call out any longer. I'm kind of busy here at work so I really don't have time to teach my friends manners.

People like her are so lucky that it's not possible for me to teleport, because if I could I would have done so just to kick her in the shin. It smarts & it's uncomfortable but won't do any real damage so it's not too violent & that makes it ok.

And a Good Morning to You

There's an annoying Access van driver that idles for extended periods of time near my house. He also litters while he's loitering, which is one of my personal pet peeves. He idles for an hour or more on any given day, sometimes leaving & returning with a snack. While he's hanging, we get to listen to his motor running the whole time. (And a Happy Earth Day to you.) When he finally leaves, my neighbors & I get to take turns cleaning up the garbage blowing in his wake.

A few months ago, someone yelled at him for littering. Whenever that guy steps out of his house, the van takes off, but the vigilante is back to working day shift so the van is polluting our quiet street unmolested once again.

Until today. I was walking my dog & the van pulled up. The driver got out, looked at me, made a huge production of sighing & trudging around his van as though he were being forced to climb Everest. Then he WHIPPED IT OUT & PEED RIGHT ON THE STREET.

Not in the grass. He didn't walk off into the woods. He just peed right there on the street, on the concrete. In the same spot that we all pick up his litter. That kind of did it for me. I'll be the first to admit that when you've got to go, you've got to go. We all have to pee in the woods or on the shoulder of the road sometimes. But I personally strive to find a private place so as not to offend anyone, flash anyone or pee where they play with their children. Who pees on the asphalt of a residential street during morning rush hour?

I phoned the company & complained about all of it - the PEEING, the littering, the loitering. There are countless public bathrooms, parking lots & businesses within 1/2 mile of my street. If he wants to loiter somewhere, he should do it at the gas station, fast-food place or strip mall. The friendly & sympathetic customer-service rep promised to take this matter to his supervisor right away. Hopefully, he'll be told to hang out elsewhere from now on.

But just in case, I'll have my camera in my pocket tomorrow morning. And if he's peeing on my street again, the whole world will get to laugh at his morbidly obese physique, microscopic wang and horribly bad toupee.

Conspiracy to Piss Me Off

A few years ago, I became hooked on stock car racing. I used to think it was the most mind-numbing thing a person could watch on TV, although I'd never given it a chance. Once I actually watched it, I really enjoyed it. Hey, I like cars & smack-talk & rivalries & explosions as much as anyone.

It can be tedious to watch at times, as some races are far less eventful than others. Luckily for me, I live in a technologically fantastic age that has given us the DVR. This wonderful device allows me to see everything I want to see while saving precious time by forwarding through all the boring stuff, like green-flag pit stops, commercials & post-race interviews with whiners.

One of the most appealing things about a race is that there are so many drivers to root for. It's the only sport that starts every meet with 43 potential winners. I generally like most drivers in the Nascar circuit, so having 30-40 drivers to root for should bring me pretty good odds.

Except that there seems to be some sort of Nascar conspiracy that allows the jackass pretty-boys from one certain team to skirt the rules. Every single time. I hate Hendrick Motorsports. Yes, it's a strong word but I really mean it.

Say what you will about the dirty cheaters of decades past because honestly, I wasn't a viewer back then & can't argue about it. And I've heard all the stories & read the news reports. But I maintain that the 48 crew are dirtier than anyone who has ever raced the circuit. They repeatedly cheat & get only a little slap on the wrist each time, while other teams face far steeper penalties for minor infractions that may not even be intentional.

The icing on the cake for me was when they refused to use their radios, instead passing notes to keep their "strategy" under wraps. Yeah, everything you do in the pits is so enlightened & modern that nobody else has ever thought of it before & everyone is going to immediately copy you. Not. It was just another attempt to keep their cheating from discovery.

Now it seems that the torch is being passed back to the original HM golden boy in the 24. Yes, I know that Johnson's been stealing the spotlight for a while & they desperately want Gordon to live up to all the hype we've been hearing about him for the last 5 years or so since he really accomplished anything.

But there's just no way I can believe that somehow he managed to avoid the lap-down penalty in the pits last night. Every other car in the pits when the caution came out lost a lap, except Gordon. Once again, it's as though the rules just don't apply to Hendricks.

If Nascar wants to see the fan base continue to increase, the France family needs to start thinking about clarifying the rules & levelling the playing field. The drivers have been pleading for as much for years. The fans want it. If a team isn't willing to face the competition fairly, then they don't belong in the race. Period.

Back With A Vengeance

Months ago, I abandoned this blog because I had a lot of things going on in my life & didn't have time to keep it up. The main things that kept me from it were my other blog & my website, but I'm done with those. One day it hit me that I was posting the same kind of content on those that I did here, but gave them both a lot more time because I'd been doing them longer & just couldn't give them up.

Well, why not? I had to ask myself. To be honest, my website was really lame. My best friends weren't even giving me pity visits anymore. I'm no webmaster & it shows. Yes, I had a very cool web address but beyond that, it sucked.

And while the other blog was cool enough, it wasn't really serving it's purpose anymore so there was really no point to it. So I've returned to the site that started it all. There's no ulterior motive here, no attempts to impress. It's just me expounding on whatever crosses my mind, when I'm not too busy or lazy to type about it.