Inhumane Conditions In The Slaughterhouse Since 1993?? They Told Us California Cows Were Happy Cows!!

With this week-end’s meat recall, 143 million pounds of beef, the largest recall in history, comes an even more disturbing possibility. A video has surfaced that shows inhumane conditions may have occurred since 1993. That’s 15 years!! Did the government do anything to safeguard that consumers eat healthy food? Did the greedy big business slaughterhouse have the least thought about the public school children who would eat tainted meat? Are California cows happy cows as the advertising slogan claims? You decide.

Check out Tad Cronn’s article and look at the video he posted.

Thursday Thirteen #14 — I Spy Amtrak

Here are 13 things I spied people doing on an Amtrak ride which was running four hours late.

1. Read/study. Lots of reading books, textbooks, newspapers, comics, magazines, documents. A few books were even traded.
2. Write. I wrote this post, and a few other people were writing, too.
3. Knitting. One woman was knitting with snow white wool and dragging it all over the tables, seats and (yikes) even the floor. By the time her project is done, I think it will have become public places gray.
4. Play cards. Some Germans were having a really great time at it and laughing all the way.
5. Use laptop. Can a battery really last this long? It did for a woman applying to graduate school. Actually it turned out she had found a lone electric outlet right by her seat. How lucky!!
6. Listen to music. And recharge the iPod in the scenic car, too.
7. Sleep. From babies to seniors and every age in between, it was really tiring to wake up at the crack of dawn and be delayed by four hours due to poor weather throwing tree trunks and mud on the tracks. We had our own cleaning crew precede us all the way through the trip.
8. Talk on cell. To make new plans, to let concerned people know we were alive and well, to check on middle of the night bus and cab service, and sometimes just to vent.
9. Eat. So much waiting makes people hungry. Even those who had a sack lunch or even dinner found themselves having to make a trip to the dining car or the snack bar.
10. Play video games. The 7 to 27 crowd was armed with video games to pass the time.
11. Watch scenery. We shared the train with an Amish family who watched lots of scenery, spending most of the time in the scenic car. They spoke and laughed with each other, and they were much more polite than most people are these days. (And they were carrying/guarding the most gigantic bag of Cheetos I had ever seen — a gift???)
12. Watch DVDs. The batteries ran out, but while they lasted, a few people watched movies.
13. Talk to strangers. After several hours “in the same boat,” people didn’t think they were strangers anymore and common points of interest started being noticed all through the train.

Happy Thursday!!

Visit Thursday Thirteen for a list of more participants.

USDA Approved Our Eggs

The United States Department of Agriculture agent approved the eggs I bought just moments before I picked them up. You see pictured here the USDA tag. It was a hot topic of conversation at my husband’s work, and in the decades we’ve been alive, neither of us has ever come across one of these before, nor have any of the people we spoke with. It was so unusual, in fact, that the customers at the store were all looking at the tag suspiciously and refusing to take these eggs. My husband and I grabbed them all the faster. I have no idea what it is the USDA inspects when the agents are looking at eggs, but obviously these passed the test and have the initialed tag and the #5 scribble on the carton itself to prove it. Besides, I thought it would be an interesting tidbit to share with all of my blog readers. Have you ever bought anything sampled by a USDA agent? The USDA knows eggs, because these eggs were very good indeed!