I eat. I confess I eat. Probably more than I should. No, make that definitely more than I should. So it is reasonable that I’m concerned with the quality of my food. I was pretty sure years ago that my travels around the world had built up a substantial collection of anti-bodies that made me resistant to most common digestive upsets. Hell, I drank the water out of the tap in Thailand, Turkey, Syria, Morocco and even the Ritz Hotel in Paris. I like to walk on the wild side. But, I recognize the value of a watchdog over the quality of my food.
What happens, though, when the watchdog bites the neighbors, the mailman and the UPS guy? Do I simply look at his pleading eyes and accept his, “My bad,” whimper? Or do I seek some sort of accountability? Bites cause damage. They can cause irreparable repair. Someone is usually liable. There’s got to be recourse. Generally true, but not when the watchdog is the federal government.
Remember Alar? That was the suspected carcinogen that was being sprayed on our apples. The feds discovered the threat. They defended us aggressively. They drove apple orchards out of business and then admitted sheepishly that they were wrong. Sorry!
Now we’ve got this:
Sorry 'Bout That!
Once again apparently the cries of wolf were erroneous. No wolfs involved here. It was pussy-cats. The people got sick. They ate salsa. It must have been tomatoes. Yeah, that’s the ticket…the tomatoes. Attention America: Stop Eating Tomatoes!
Then the lab rats went to work. Gotta isolate the source. Protect America. Refine the threat. New announcement, the evil tomatoes come from here, here and there, but not this place, that one or the other. Frantic mothers are looking for squirreled away shipping boxes to determine the tomato source. Salads are going begging and tacos are showing up very dry.
Never mind, it isn’t the source, it’s the type of tomatoes. All of you farmers with crops rotting in warehouses and on vines, we apologize for the inconvenience. It’s really round, red tomatoes and not those with vines on them or Romas or hot-house varieties. So, look for vine stems and those flavorless, expensive ones and you’ll be OK. The government extends its apology to those truck farmers planning on taking produce to market this month. Hamburgers are drier and the salads continue to be colorless. And the estimate of cost to the tomato industry is set at $495,000,000. That ain’t salsa!
Put another way, there have been just over 900 cases of salmonella reported since mid-April. That would average out to 10 per day in a nation of more than 300 million people. Scary epidemic, heh? And with a cost of half-a-billion in lost revenue to the produce industry and no valid linkage found, that means about half-a-million dollars per case of unrelated salmonella! It raises government damage to an entirely new level.
Now, look at that article. It isn’t tomatoes at all! It’s the jalapenos! Maybe. Or, maybe cilantro. Or possibly serranos, not jalapenos. Tell Henny-Penny, Turkey-Lurkey, Ducky-Lucky and the others. But, your crack government protectionists also concede that the source seems to be locally prepared salsa, not commercial products. But, they aren’t sure. Might as well just brand as many industries as we can. After all, it’s for the public good.
And, regular as clockwork, Colorado super-liberal congress-critter, Diana Degette seeks more government intervention and spending of more money to provide us more protection. I’ll bet there are a lot of farmers and produce wholesalers who would rather see some damage payments flow their way rather than more regulations to screw up another product they depend upon for their livelihood.
What will it take for us to learn what Ronald Reagan tried to tell us, “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem”?
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