Cape Karen
I'm not chicken. . . but, in light of the news coming out of Turkey today, I think I will give up eating chicken, or any potentially fowled fowl. The poverty-ridden areas overseas, where raising chickens is done daily in family coops and sold in the open marketplace, feathers and all, is where we are seeing the Avian bird flu erupting in humans.
When children go out to play with the severed heads of infected chickens, left festering in their dirt-covered yards ~ yup ~ they're apt to get sick and die. But, I don't see any of the neighborhood children here playing with severed chicken heads today, so ~ not to worry!
With the rapid connections these days, between such marketplaces and our own, I'm not about to take any chances. The FDA will now be testing 11 out of every 35,000 - 55,000 chickens slaughtered in our US chicken factories. (Oh, good! That makes me feel much better!) Purdue, and others who sell such poultry, you're in for a major slow-down if this keeps up.
The lesson here: Don't boil, sell your chicken stock!
I don't have a lot of faith in all those groups with initials who are deemed to be the "protector's" in our society, especially after seeing the folks in New Orleans and Mississippi last summer. If this virus does eventually mutate and make the big leap from birds to humans, well, I'm afraid that in spite of the CDC and the FDA's claims that they are 'keeping tabs on it,' they might behave just as well as FEMA did, and if that's the case~ then we are all f- - -ed !
If it's not one thing, it's another. There's danger in our food, our air, the weather, over-due volcanoes, fault-ridden ocean floors, a warming planet and terrorists. Such reports are enough to make the hardiest soul shudder. I don't ever recall even having to even think about such matters when I was growing up.
I can't imagine, by the age of 15, having to deal with the twin towers hit by terrorist airplanes, a war in Iraq, hurricanes devastating entire city populations, tsunami's rolling over thousands of vacationer's and residents in Indonesia, miners dying in a rat-trap of a coal mine, and having to learn that children are dying of something called the 'bird flu' in Asia; a flu that could wipe out millions of people world-wide. . . just to mention a few of the recent, mind-blowing news events.
It makes me wonder; just what is all this negative news doing to the minds and spirits of our children? It's one thing to be an adult and have to deal with all this crap - but the kids - how do they psychologically and emotionally process all this doom and gloom?
I hope they are all happily sitting at their computers, playing Nitendo games, and having some innocent fun.
And, Mom, just in case ~ please ~ don't let them play with those discarded chicken heads!