From Los Angeles Times: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in its history Sunday, calling for the destruction of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef produced by a Chino slaughterhouse that has been accused of inhumane practices. However, the USDA said the vast majority of the meat involved in the recall — including 37 million pounds that went mostly to schools — probably has been eaten already. Officials emphasized that danger to consumers was minimal.”

What sorts of things should we be doing to decrease this? Some ideas:

• Become more vegetarian?
• Stronger regulation?

Paper or plastic? We know what to answer of course –ANYTHING but plastic — but lately I’ve been discussing this choice w/ the cashiers who give me the option. “Geez,” I say, “those plastic bag are awful. They’re killing the earth. Why do we even have them?”

Yesterday I was in the local thrift store and the cashier — a toothless woman in her 60s — and I had this discussion. When I said “plastic bags are awful” her reply was “Why don’t we go back to paper, like we used to?”

Couldn’t argue w/ her –in fact I’d found a comrade. Of course opting for paper is its own problem, albeit not as troubling as plastic.

Target is a different story altogether. Now I haven’t tried calling corporate and demanding they switch over the paper, but somebody has, because now on their plastic bags is printed a list of things you can do “Reuse your Target Bag”

1. Tiny Trash Can Liner

2. Doggy Duty

3. Water Balloon

4. Road Trip Rubbish

5. Soggy Laundry

You get the idea. At least they’re thinking about this, but do any of these solutions do anything but DELAY the inevitable throwing away?

That rhymed, but I didn’t mean it to.

I mean, you can go to Target and walk away w/ five or ten such bags — how you gonna reuse them all?

You’re not. So why take ANY away?

That’s the best solution. Take your own cloth bag/s to Target — tell them to keep their bloody plastic to themselves.

Jim

Topical, non-ad link:

This, after following Jim’s link ( Scientists fear ‘tipping point’ in Pacific Ocean) , I was chilled, as I read further:

“Only once during the past seven years did the strong northerly winds of spring and summer go away — and that time, in spring and early summer of 2005, the pendulum swung wildly the other way, with little wind at all until partway through summer.

That set off a chain of events that scientists concluded were responsible for a startlingly widespread wave of seabird deaths — from the Farallon Islands off San Francisco to Vancouver Island.

After that, researchers from Oregon State University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife looked intensely at waters off the Oregon coast for the research announced Thursday. And the same thing is happening off Washington’s coast.

Mary Sue Brancato and her colleagues first noticed it on a visit to the coast in 2000 or 2001.

We were out there for another (research) project and we were like, ‘What is it with these thousands of dead crabs?’ ” said Brancato, a marine biologist who works at the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

Those were Dungeness crabs. Later other species were affected, Brancato said, leading scientists to surmise it was some widespread cause. By 2004 they were taking measurements to document low levels of dissolved oxygen, the kind of oxygen sea creatures can use.

Holy shit.