How do we ensure food safety without sacrificing environmental quality? That is the question scientists, government regulators, environmentalists and members of the fresh produce industry are trying to answer.
At the Coordinated Management of Water Quality and Food Safety Conference, held in San Luis Obispo April 23-25, more than 100 leaders in water quality and food safety from throughout the nation gathered to develop strategies to protect both the environment and fresh produce. The problem is complex because scientists haven't definitively identified how disease-causing bacteria has gotten onto leafy greens, and how changes in farming practices thought to reduce incidence of the bacteria might affect other parts of the ecosystem.
In the interest of consumer health, buyers of fresh leafy greens have set rules to prevent crops from being contaminated with disease-causing bacteria including E. coli O157:H7. Some of these rules seem to conflict with farm management practices designed to preserve water quality. For example, leaving 800 feet of bare soil along a field enables growers to spot the footprints of animals that may carry harmful bacteria. With this in mind, growers have been asked to remove vegetation between their crops and streamsvegetation that helps keep soil from eroding into the waterway. While everyone desires a safe food supply, situations like this have prompted growers, conservation planners, water quality regulators and environmentalists to ask for scientific data demonstrating the effectiveness of such measures.
"Sound science is critical to developing preventive food safety measures that are in concert with promoting water quality and conservation efforts," said Sherri McGarry, acting center emergency coordinator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "This conference was an important step in bringing the stakeholders together to identify and prioritize the research needs in these areas."
Even before E.coli O157:H7 in fresh spinach and lettuce resulted in illness and death in 2006, the fresh produce industry has sought to reduce the potential for pathogen contamination. Policymakers have debated regulations to promote food safety. Growers do their best to produce a safe crop without affecting the waterways. Researchers try to advise on best practices based on science, but have found scientific data gaps. At the conference, the different groups explored the challenges they face and current scientific information, promoting a better understanding of the issues involved in safeguarding leafy green vegetables and water quality.
Participants discussed cooperation to help others achieve their objectives as well as their own, and identified critical areas where additional research is needed to support regulations and industry policies.
The conference concluded with a consensus that additional short-term and long-term research is needed with respect to pathogens including E. coli O157:H7, the effectiveness of soil and water conservation practices, and the role of domestic and wild animals in transferring pathogens to crops.
An important result of the meeting was the collective recognition that the complex nature of food safety will require the scientific, regulatory and food distribution communities to coordinate with people they traditionally haven't worked with.
"The value in each person striving to connect beyond their current sphere of influence cannot be underestimated," observed Mary Bianchi, University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor and one of the conference coordinators.
The three-day conference, which included farm visits, was organized by UC Cooperative Extension, the Southern San Luis Obispo-Santa Barbara County Agricultural Watershed Coalition, and the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis. Planning partners included the Agricultural Water Quality Alliance, California Department of Food and Agriculture, California Department of Health Services, California Lettuce Research Board, Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Davis Fresh Technologies, International Fresh-cut Produce Association, Produce Marketing Association, Raley's Fine Family of Stores, Scientific Certification Programs, United Fresh Produce Association, UC Riverside, and Western Growers Association.
Representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service and Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service, California Department of Food and Agriculture, State Water Resources Control Board, Regional Water Quality Control Board, as well as growers and other interested individuals also attended.
Conference attendees will be surveyed to prioritize action items and research. Results will be published in the conference proceedings in October.
An Oklahoma man suspected of seeking to sexually prey upon a 15-year-old girl got more than he bargained for when he entered a backyard and approached a tent that he thought contained his intended victim.
According to KOCO, a father in Del City, Oklahoma, discovered that his teenage daughter had been carrying on a sexually themed conversation through phone messages with an adult male, and realized that the two were planning to meet to have sex.
Though the father immediately notified the police, he and his family also took matters into their own hands and set up a sting operation in their own backyard that ended with a nightmarish result for the would-be sexual predator.
Surveillance video showed the moment the suspect entered the family’s backyard and approached a tent he believed was occupied by the 15-year-old girl. Instead, another woman was inside the tent as bait, and outside the rest of the girl’s family were waiting. The man was tackled to the ground and had his hands and feet zip-tied by the father and other family members while they waited for the police to arrive.
“The family took it upon themselves to pretend to be her and invite the suspect to the house to meet her in the backyard in a tent for the purpose of having sex,” Major Jody Suit of the Del City Police Department told the station. “Just before he enters the tent, the father and three family members … tackle him and zip tie his hands and feet and hold him until the police get there.”
According to KOCO, the girl in question was in the house the whole time, and unaware of what her family had planned.
Suit said police generally don’t recommend actions like the family’s sting operation, “But as a parent, I don’t blame him. I think it’s your right to protect your children.”
The man was arrested and faced charges of unlawful communication using technology and using a phone and social media to communicate with a minor.
According to KWTV, the suspect has been identified as 33-year-old Jeremy Dwayne Gibson. He was freed from the Oklahoma County on $15,000 bail, according to CBS.
Gibson told the police that he only intended to meet and talk with the girl, but the presence of a condom in his pocket would seemingly contradict that excuse.
More likely is that this man thought he had an easy victim to help fulfill his sexual fantasies waiting for him in a backyard tent, but little did he know that the girl’s father was on to his scheme and was lying in wait to literally catch him in the act.
Though things could have easily taken a turn for the worst and become dangerous for the family, their plan to catch a sexual threat was still pretty awesome.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter so everyone can see what this father did when he found out an alleged sexual predator planned to meet up with his daughter.
For most Americans, Christmas represents such concepts as peace on earth and goodwill toward men … er, humankind.
But the feminist critique is determined to shine its light on every nook and cranny of American culture to ferret out and expose the oppression of American women — including the sexist, rape culture-promoting holiday of Christmas.
Feminists agree that the first things that need to go are the demeaning Christmas songs. According to Anita Sarkeesian, author of “Five Creepy And/Or Sexist Songs” at the Feminist Frequency website, at the top of the offending songs list is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
“Occasionally referred to as the Christmas Date Rape Song, this duet was written by Frank Loesser in 1936,” she said. Sarkeesian suggests the male visitor in the song lowers the woman’s defenses through slow and sustained pressure by refusing to accept her insistence on leaving. And “he may have even drugged her.”
“These lyrics are a perfect illustration of the way men pressure women into experiences that they don’t want, aren’t ready for or aren’t interested in. Songs like this work to normalize this problematic male behaviour, a behaviour which contributes and perpetuates rape culture in general.”
Also on the suspect list is “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Again, eagle-eyed Sarkeesian sees through the proffered romance and offers to do a woman’s thinking for her.
“On the surface it may seem cute and romantic but there’s a nasty little message embedded in the lyrics,” she wrote. “It’s the tired old, all women need is a man myth.”
In addition to the fact the pathetic female singer appears to have no desire, needs or interests in anything other than “being gifted a man for Christmas,” it’s not “any less creepy when a man sings it because the lyrics could be interpreted as bordering on stalker territory.”
Then, there are the worn-out, sexist gender stereotypes when it comes to toys. Maureen Shaw, in her article “Sexism at Christmas is as American as Santa, Sugar Cookies and Santa,” explained:
“And toy aisles — which are notoriously gendered already — use the winter shopping rush as an excuse to leverage amped up and oozing stereotypes that may have lain dormant during the summer and fall. This is especially evident in annual toy catalogues, like this year’s Toys ‘R’ Us ‘Book of Awwwesome.’ Boys are predominantly featured playing with innovative toys and electronics, while girls appear enamored with princess castles. And the color-coding throughout the pages not-so-subtly indicates which toys ought to appeal to which genders.”
Shaw laments the entire sexist holiday, and says, “Upon closer examination, Christmas in the West is like the 1950s on steroids.”
Christmas in the West? Meaning Europe and countries whose history is strongly marked by European immigration, such as America and Canada, and influenced by a Judeo-Christian worldview? Perhaps Western civilization itself is to blame for the oppression of women and Christmas is a hallmark of its mistreatment. Is it time we look to “the East” for appropriate Christmas traditions and more egalitarian models for women?
Even Saint Nick has not escaped the proposed feminist purge of offensive Christmas traditions. After generations of children with fond memories of men who volunteered their time to play Santa, it’s clear to feminists that such behavior is suspicious.
“By taking our little girls to go see Santa we are teaching them that they need to ask men for what they want/need. It’s also promoting rape culture and misogyny to tell them they need to sit in a man’s lap in order to get what they want. Do we really want the next generation of strong, independent women bowing down at the feet of men? Feminists and Equal Rights Advocates alike are outraged. This has gone on far too long without anyone raising their voice. I ask that you share this with your family and friends to raise awareness and take back Christmas for women.”
Dana Lawrence is a former writer and editor for Prevue Guide and TV Guide Networks and has a background in public relations. Her current writing focus is on religious liberty, the persecution of Christians, and Leftists who go out of their way to make the average American miserable.
George RR Martin, author of the bestselling series A Song of Ice and Fire, appeared at this year's Boskone science fiction convention in Boston. Martin read from A Dance with Dragons, the series' upcoming fifth installment, participated in several panel discussions on writing, and partied with one of his fan clubs, the Brotherhood without Banners. Boskone's special guest, author Cory Doctorow, also read from a forthcoming book and discussed both his past work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and current developments in technology. Doctorow presented a list of style tips he hopes bloggers will adopt that include writing a descriptive headline and presenting a brief AP-style summary for people with no previous background in subject at the start of each entry. Cory, this paragraph is dedicated to you. ;)
Friday: I headed over to the Con on foot from the Med school and arrived a bit before George Martin's appearence in a panel on "Non-traditional Structures for the Multi-volume Novel". I was waiting outside the room for the previous panel when George arrived, so I welcomed him back to Boston after such a short absence, and he chuckled about how it seemed he'd hardly left. The panel topic might seem to be something he would be well suited to comment on, but the discussion got side-tracked into the mechanics the back end of publishing and distributing books. There was some interesting stuff in there: For example, apparently any book that's going to be much over 400 pages requires special high capacity binding presses that are less common and therefore more expensive to book time on, driving up the cost of the book. The upshot being, unless you have either a track record or something your publisher thinks is going to be the next Harry Potter, expect to have to keep your book around that length by the time it's finished with editing. We also learned that the way the Evil Barnes and Noble empire allocates shelf space is dependent on the number of copies of the book they order, which is generally going to be capped at whatever number of copies your last book sold, so expect less and less prominent display space unless your book makes it big and sells out at launch.
I asked the panel a question about how an author deals with no longer being able to revise portions of a multi-volume epic because they're already out in print. It was clear from their faces that this issue is the bane of their collective existence. George expressed envy for Tolkein having the luxury to finish all of LotR before taking it to be published. One of the other panelists lamented that he'd have to go back and re-read all of his old stuff one of these days because his tale has gone from being 90% one point of view character to over half of the book told from various other viewpoints. He said that he was now having to weave an arc where the protagonist discovers that people have been lying to her in order to justify changes to plot points from several books back. George snickered a "Been there." George also remarked that, however much it makes sense to do so, Stephen King going back and revising older installements of the Dark Tower series now that it is finally complete strikes him as slightly cheating.
stegoking stopped by this journal after my three Vericon reports (Note: reports discuss what info we were able to drag out of George about the fifth book at the Con) to mention that the Brotherhood without Banners, one of George's fanclubs, would be at Boskone. (Apparently one of his fellow posters has a Mr. Universe setup from whence he trawls the web for any and all tales of George Martin. Hi Stego's friend, if you're reading this.:)) So I wandered up to the party, where I promptly obtained a pretzel, figuring that it counts as a bread-like product and has salt, thus making me safe for the evening as a guest by the customs of Westeros. :)
That matter out of the way, I was served a drink called "drowned man" by a girl answering to the callsign "Goat of Nymeria", and I met Stego, Stego's wife, and a number of other people who were good company and whose names I have no chance in heck of remembering. (I'm terrible with names in general and large rooms of people none of whom I know in particular, so I did my best to socialize. :)) Stego wanted to know whether I had recorded the Westeros Celebrity Jeopardy skit (Book 1-4 spoilers) from Vericon, because he found it hard to imagine that anyone would remember the dialog that well without a recording. (My girlfriend refers to my memory as freakish that way. It probably won't help my defense to point out that I didn't actually write everything I remembered down, just the funnier stuff, or that I still remember a decent portion of it even though I only saw the thing once approximately three weeks ago.) George himself arrived shortly clad in the Squid Sigil of House Greyjoy. We subsequently had to explain to a random con-goer who came in how this did not mark us a cult of Cthulhu. Anyways, I was a bit tired and planned to be up early the next morning, so I headed homewards.
After that, it was off to George's next panel on the use of death and sad events in stories, which the moderator described as being about "Why George Does Such Awful Things To His Characters". George was chuckling maniacally through a fair portion of this panel, and joked in his introduction that his worst nightmares envision being on the Jerry Springer show and having a bunch of his dead characters show up to air their grievances, head literally in hand. He did draw a distinction between killing a character early on to "establish that you're playing for keeps" (i.e. so that the reader will feel suspense in future dangerous situations) versus killing a character towards the end of an arc towards more of a bittersweet/tragic ending. There was some discussion amongst the other end of the table about how sometimes one doesn't WANT to kill off a character and/or is prodded in that direction by an editor, but it was agreed that George needs no such encouragement. Asked at the end whether he regretted offing a character, George thought for a minute. His eyes narrowed, he stroked his beard thoughtfully, and he replied confidently - "No." If he and Joss ever get together, the world may end.
Next up was George's reading. I was speculating on what character we were going to get. George had commented at Vericon that he was having trouble with the Jon chapters, he'd read the first Davos chapter there, and the first Dany chapter appears as a preview at the end of book 4, so I guessed that we were going to get Tyrion. The day was mine, but I won't spoil it here unless people want more details. George took questions afterwards, and revealed some interesting tidbits. Tyrion is his favorite character and, despite the "no regrets" sentiments he expressed at the previous panel, he admitted that he feels hesitation over how to write him - George feels conflict between not wanting to make the guy seem like a dick because he likes Tyrion and portraying someone who has been through what Tyrion has been through, along with all the hurt, confusion, and betrayal that comes along with. George also admitted that he had a hard time writing the "Red Wedding" scene in the third book - indeed, he had to skip it, write the rest of the book, and force himself to come back and do the deed. He claimed it was perhaps harder on him than on us because for him all of the minor characters who perished in the massacre were also people he created and plotted and now they too are gone. Could it be that George Martin, like Veronica Mars, is a Marshmellow? .... Probably not. ;)
After the reading, I tried to offer the Brotherhood some local expertise on restaurants, but we quickly determined that it's hard to seat a party of 15 on Saturday night on short notice in Boston. Given that no progress would be made on this until the group re-convened at 6...
With the con events that I was after wrapped up, it was back to the Brotherhood, who'd settled on Jasper White's Summer Shack primarily because it was prepared to seat all of us. It had the added advantage of being across the street, since it was bleeping cold out. After dinner, it was back upstairs to an impressively full bar (George and Stego donated various prizes to be raffled off in order to fund the refreshments) and a bathtub full of ice, soda, and beer. A lot of fun was had.
... But the BWB were good company in general. George wandered by again to chat, have drinks, etc. I learned how the process of bidding for the right to host WorldCon is not unlike the Olympics (bribery in the form of parties apparently both welcome and expected), and in turn had to explain the old "Jesus Saves, everone else takes full damage" gaming gag because people didn't get it and were staring at an ICon poster wondering if it was some sort of weird Christian Con. (Good work, vampedvixen. ;))
Overall, both the party(-ies) and the Con were a lot of fun. I hope stuff like this lands in my neighborhood more often. :)
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