On the Nature of Terrorism

Thinking about whether it is possible to have a "war" against "terrorism," the thought "the only thing we have to fear is fear, itself" came to mind. If the term "terrorism" describes the use of fear to motivate and control, aren't we obliged to make war on it by refusing to be controlled by illogical fear? Isn't terrorism at its essence really the rule by fear, whether in supervising, advertising, lawmaking, or for whatever minor or Machiavellian motive?

Who "wins" if we succumb to terror of paranoia, refusing to insist that our leaders bring our troops home, because we are unquestioningly cowed by the illogical assertion that if we accept the hard truth that there is nothing to "win" in Iraq, "they" will follow us home and blow us away by the thousands?

In contrast to the vague threat of unknown violence, the there is no doubt of the lethal consequences of staying. The longer we remain, the number of dead and wounded among our bravest and brightest will continue to rise. Ironically, evidence suggests that resentment of the US military presence may be a factor motivating terrorist involvement.

Don't believe the Iraqis would be able to handle or would even welcome US departure? Think about this. How would we feel in America if military forces from another country decided to use violence to overthrow our existing leadership (no matter how much we might disagree with its policies?) then ransacked the Smithsonian, told the army to take their guns and go home without jobs, cut off our basic needs like utilities, food and shelter, then tried to tell us how to run our country, even though after four years we still didn't have water and electricity?

I'm just saying…

On Poisoned Food (a rather lengthy cat story…)

Thanks for finally mentioning the situation that has scared, sickened and appalled me for more than a month. Waiting for discussion of this issue to hit the Real Time radar may has given me too much time (about 7 weeks since the initial recall announcement) to think about it, so this part's a little long…

While poisons in their food sickened and killed thousands of pets (or in the opinion of Menu Foods, sixteen test subjects,) our "kitties in the coal mine" have been warning us of a far greater dangers yet to be discovered.

Of course, the FDA assures us that human food is safe, although new reports emerge nearly daily with evidence that the contamination of one of the staples of our pets' packaged food supply has been an open secret for some time in those markets from which manufacturers have chosen to source grain glutens, despite the fact that it would seem that farmers in this country could use the business. Not only have dangerous chemicals entered the food supply with seeming ease, dumping them on the market has hurt our farm economy in the process. Ironically, one of the first plants known to have processed the tainted pet food was in Kansas, too. What's wrong with this picture????

As more pets suffer with crystals in their kidneys, more brands of food are still being recalled almost daily, along with the new warnings about more ingredients, possibly only hints of just how deep, and (the FDA wants us believe "diluted") the contamination really is. (Read this transcript to see just how far this went--Don't miss pages 30-31.)

Fortunately, our three cats are very smart and had variety in their food, although according to Petsmart's database, they were fed more than thirty assorted pouches and cans of potential poison over a month and a half, not counting what we bought at the grocery store.

At first, we thought their increased thirst was because of 100 degree March Phoenix weather. Our smallest cat, eight-year-old, six pound, Mrs. Dorothy Parker (aka Meep) was throwing up, too--We thought she might be a little bulimic because of stress, or coughing up hair from her winter coat..

Fortunately Wiley, our nine-year old tortie cat and mother of the other two knew better. She refused to eat certain foods, and began to make sure her children didn't either. When she got tired of chasing the other two cats (both her kittens, now 8 years old) away from tainted food, which we later learned were from the recalled lots, she actually barfed on it on at least two occasions. Several times she even put her little toy shaped like a vet right by the food bowls when they contained certain kinds, and by Meep when she got sick.

Of course, this all made sense to us in retrospect, Good thing Wiley was paying attention. It probably saved Meep, who could barely keep food down at one point. Even her 20 pound brother Mercury got sick on the stuff, even on the small amount of his share of the two cans a day split among the three cats he managed to sneak by Wiley.

After we humans finally caught on and recognized the threat, the cats enjoyed a couple weeks of indulgent human foods like tuna and mussels, while we, wracked with guilt that we had poisoned our beloved pets, wondered if any cat food was safe, did extensive research and thorough label checking and tried to keep up on the latest additions to the recall list. Fortunately, social media sites like Dogster, Pet Connection and itchmo have empowered pet parents who refuse to ignore this threat.

On the importance of logic and information

To add insult to injury, we as pet parents had given our furry family members the poison thinking that we were doing the right thing because we were feeding them the expensive brands touted as "premium" and "nutritious" by trusted vets, some of whom (not ours) sold the food themselves.

Turns out, the premium quality of these brands was limited to the price, since the cuts and gravy in the pricey packets, turned out to be the same stuff from the same plants as the stuff in the generic packets sold at a big box store chain at which we would never shop.

Twenty-some years ago, I worked myself out of a four-day summer temp job at the Purina plant in Davenport, Iowa in a record two days by apparently figuring out the fastest way ever to count stacks of coupons into bundles of 100, a step designed to make it easier to account for them before they were dropped into bags of freshly made Dog Chow. The reason I mention this is that remembering that temp job prompted me to draw the distinction between two business models in use in the pet food industry.

Purina runs its own 17 plants in the US. The most memorable thing about the Purina plant in Davenport back in the late 70's (and my motivation for counting quickly) was the smell. That pervaded even the office areas of the plant. The smell was not only from the Dog Chow production--The factory was located near the Oscar Mayer kill floor facility, enabling the plant to use by-products of the hot dogs, ham and bologna processed for humans to make food for the dogs.

On the importance of following the money

Although a somewhat gross memory, recalling that smell was a reminder that Purina is a food company at its core, and that it runs the majority of production in its own plants, with components of its business model designed to best use by-products of human food production, ideally using by-products produced nearby.

A similar stench surrounds industry response to this issue. Take this document, for instance. Over the past 7 weeks, reports have trickled out of new recalls. Several major premium pet food brands have recalled numerous varieties of tainted foods and expanded their lists as time passed. Is it a coincidence that the largest of these premium brands are owned by multinational soap and chemical companies?

Purina says it had only outsourced production of one type of canned dog food to Menu Foods, which it voluntarily recalled. Purina has proactively communicated with pet parents and the company has posted its policies recently enacted for testing purity of ingredients on its Web site.

A particularly reprehensible aspect of this latest inexcusable failure by government to recognize which threats are real, the failure to protect our food supply from contamination, was again followed by another attempt to hide the truth about the true nature and extent of the threat.

The idea that the government is not protecting us from contaminated food that could poison my family and my loyal pets who trust me to take good care of them. (and of eating plastic chicken, myself) scares me far more than the potential for swimming terrorists.

On Dem Debate 2.0

One Democrat who was hearing clearly during last week's debate was refreshing in his candor, voicing the words that many Americans undoubtedly wanted to when he confessed that he found some of the folks with whom he shared the stage scary.

"Who are you afraid of?" the gentleman from Alaska challenged.

After Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska essentially invited us to notice the emperor's nudity during the Democratic debate last week, I've enjoyed watching his interviews on Real Time, the Colbert Report and other talk shows. (It seemed that he was on nearly as many talk shows as Bill, last week -- BTW Scarborough really should at least let guests finish a sentence when they attempt to answer a loaded question...)

Watching Gravel's unapologetic run at the "Colbert bump" it occurred to me that he and Sean Penn are two of the guests best at getting the better of Stephen on the Report and at connecting with the lucrative, intelligent and engaged target audience of Report fans..

Gravel is beginning to appear on social media sites, too. Just this Friday evening, for instance, I noticed the start of a meme on Digg designed to unseat Stephen Colbert for the highest search ranking for the phrase "greatest living American" by linking the phrase to his Web site, www.gravel2007.us..

Real straight talk -- and already working Colbert, Digg and MySpace, too. Imagine the possibilities.

Since I've just recently become aware of him, I'm not ready to commit to Gravel as my favorite Democratic contender, although Gravel's pull-no-punches style might be an effective complement to my current favorite, the hard-working and increasingly polished http://www.squidoo.com/Dennis_Kucinich/Dennis Kucinich.

With engaging banter that actually answered questions, Kucinich got much better play on the pre- and post-debate shows (including his Real Time appearance last week,) than during the debate itself. It was so much more effective to see a candidate live in the studio versus via satellite, too. But I digress.

Undaunted by the campaign stuff, haircut controversy and wardrobe planning issues that have challenged other candidates in recent weeks, Kucinich continues to show up on the Hill to do his job.

Demanding accountability on tainted pet food from the FDA, advocating his plans for peace and health care and introducing articles to impeach the VP for the machinations that precipitated US involvement in Iraq are among the action items Kucinich is currently executing in Washington.

Instead of working the phones and functions for special interest funds, the Kucinich campaign used the Web to ask a million Web contacts for $50 each and Kucinich worked on the issues.

Here is a politician who is not afraid to use common sense and recognize that using social media and PR to create conversations to engage and empower voters to take action based on a solid agenda can be the most sustainable, effective and honest way to win votes. Plus, communicating using these low-cost tactics means candidates need not spend months with their hands out so that they can pay for thirty seconds of airtime to berate the opposition.

Authentic communication stretches the real impact of every dollar and million raised much farther than any TV ads, since conversations with people we trust delivered in context are no comparison to thirty seconds of buzzwords and noise interrupting the talking heads in Scarborough Country or the Situation Room.

Kucinich - Gravel?

If the idea were to catch on…might the bees be persuaded to return?

On Blaming the French

It was the they who forced me to turn this post into a novelette.

All I can do at this point is quote the late, great Warren Zevon and say:

"So long, Nor-man."

as I leave to go place my bets on Cowtown Cat and Scat Daddy in today's Kentucky Derby.