Pink Slime and other random bits

Images of pink slime has been dancing in my head. If you haven't yet heard about the rage over pink slime it is made from fat and other dregs from beef (which includes spinal and rectal tissue according to Wikipedia). This former garbage is then zapped by ammonia gas and sold as "boneless lean beef trimmings" or "lean finely textured beef".

Yes, that's right, fat and other nasty bits of beef rendered and returned to market as lean finely textured beef. Only in America. Or is it happening in Europe, or down under, too? It is enough to make me gag. Apparently it made enough other people gag they started pushing back. Grocery chains heard the customers and have removed it from their ground beef products.

This, of course, means the industry has to shut down production. If you can't sell it you might as well stop manufacturing it. If you stop manufacturing it you have to start laying people off. In our economy that creates hardship. What I don't see happening are the producers asking themselves what useful product can we produce. No, instead the wealthy business owners go to their best friends--the politicians in their pockets. So our beef producing states have champions in the government. The governors and industry leaders are saying, "you don't get it," and pointing their fingers at reporters and their critics.

Rage, divisiveness and finger pointing is alive and well in America. Is it exhausting? Yes. One thing that boggles my mind are the number of my generation--the generation that protested so much in the sixties and seventies, including the establishment--are now the establishment.

Are there things happening around you that boggle your mind?

Oh, do share.