Don't any congressmen care about the text in [food products] labels?

Several months ago I wrote to the headquarters of a large supermarket chain regarding their importing apple juice concentrate. I received what I should have expected, "Juice Concentrate Letter #37" -- one of an assortment companies use to reply to disgruntled customers, it's easier than writing a real response, and gets the irate customer off your back momentarily.

Well, I still shop at that supermarket but I haven't given up on reading labels or trying to decipher the electronic imaging on containers--and believe me, that is not always easy--try it for yourself.

Apple juice is one item - now meat products have been added to our import list. Here is the copy of some meat packages (labels) in the stores: "May be a product of U.S., Canada, Mexico." Fine! Now I have to be concerned about what might be improper slaughtering and processing technology in a foreign country. The track record for governmental quality control is scary and now we are seeing the meat packaging industry enlarged to include Canada and Mexico. Botulism may be our next crisis if meat packers become careless or too casual.

Upon seeing this label at my big-time store, I gave the meat cutter my disappointment speech about buying imported products, put the package back in the case, and went to another store. I knew the next store would have good meat! I didn't even bother to read the label -- I was that sure. Wrong! The same story in my second choice of a smaller chain grocery store. Today we found another large food chain using the same identification: Product of U.S.A., Canada or Mexico on some meat products. This may be honest and legal packaging information. Apparently no one knows which country any one package comes from, and it gives no choice to the buyer to approve or disapprove of the product's origin - at least if we see grapes marked "Product of Chile" we can take it or leave it on the display! Sounds something like "three bullets may be in the chambers, but which chambers is not known."

Now I ask again, "Don't any congressmen care about the text in food labels?" Could it be that our government has also become bedfellows with food markets all around the world?

I didn't believe the excuse (Response Letter #37) about apple juice concentrate, and I don't believe supplier products, meat or apple juice is that unavailable right here in the United States. It is hard enough to tie down lax regulation of infractions in America without involving a foreign country whose sanitation procedures and product performance principles alone may be light years behind our sanitized country. So this is global economics! I vote for more local farm markets and meat packers! We have a little "country meat shop" that still wraps up the meat in paper and uses a pencil crayon to write the price; yep, they buy their meat locally, right here in Fairfield County, Ohio.

At one time in recent history America was producing more wheat than we could use and we were the one selling agricultural products offshore. Now the tables have turned, and it is America who is buying products "grown offshore". Apparently America is becoming a third world country and we are dependent upon any foreign country who can obviously beat our hourly wage standards.

Again and again we are told our congressmen are concerned about our country - how deep that concern unfortunately stalls once those senators and congress persons assume their Washington offices and get their plans in gear to become re-elected. Our local purported concerned representative has failed to respond to at least three requests for simple yes and no answers, but he does continue to have telephone conference calls.

I recommend American citizens become discriminating shoppers. Read the product labels. For good reason, the law requires point of origin, production, processing information on all the products on the shelves. Apparently our elected servants are hoping we are as apathetic as they and feel safe we will never notice apple, pear, prune, cranberry juice by the zillions of gallons being unloaded regularly at shipping docks.

Don't we have enough beef cattle, apple trees, and anything else in our land of the free, and home of the brave? Is this what "global economy" is all about?

Are we to believe America is not big enough to take care of itself?

Are our congressmen being paid off, or have they been paid off, along with our president(s) for the past several decades and America has been sold out and some kind of deal with foreign nations that forces us to accept food products from countries, period, no exceptions? Seems to me we are leaving ourselves wide open to every kind of stray ingredient that exists. What if something turns up in our tri-country processed meat products? The word "sabotage" is no stranger to terrorists. Are we to believe we are supposed to trust every country to be as concerned as we claim to be?  The next "bomb" could be spelled "botulism" -- it won't make a lot of smoke but it will be just as devastating. It is a fair observation our elected representatives would pay more attention to us electorates IF their loved ones died from tainted imported meat.

An American insurance company claims, "You are in good hands with [their name]."  Can that be said about every foreign country we buy from? REMEMBER -- we have a right to know.

Count me one dejected and demoralized American citizen!

William B. Venrick
aka Bill Venrick
Lancaster, Ohio

Posted by Bill Venrick at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RESPONSIBILITY and LIABILITY
Contributed by T. J. Ray, Oxford Mississippi

Imagine a news story reporting that a fellow committed suicide by shooting himself witha Glockenspiel .45 automatic. The surprise in the story is that its purpose is to tell aboutthe liability of the pistol's maker. In its negligence the company produced a device with which an individual is able to harm himself. A jury of good and true citizens take almost an hour to convict Glockenspiel and award the family of the "victim" 17 gazillion dollars.

If that supposed story doesn't exist, think of a recent one in which a South Florida juryordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker. In their judgment, the company's negligence caused her emphysema. Now $300M is along way from 17gazillion, but the premises of these two cases are identical. In one, a man puts a pistol into his mouth and pulls the trigger once. In the other a woman puts a cigarette in her mouth and smokes it, over and over and over and over again for 25 years by her own admission. A mere $300M, of course, is small change compared to the $145 BILLION fine rendered in a tobacco class-action case in Florida in several years ago.

Very recently a jury in Oregon awarded a 19 million judgment against the Boy Scouts of America for negligence in not preventing a pedophile for molesting one of Scouts. Five more trials have been requested, which will likely result in millions more being paid by BSA. Granted the former leader should be punished, but to require such a fine--in fact, any fine--from the organization is arguably wrong. In recent years when child molestation cases have become prominently reported, I can't recall a single case in which a city has been given a punitive fine for the actions of one of its officer. Nor can I think of a single school district being fined for negligence after one of its teachers has been convicted of pedophilia. How then does such punishment of BSA make any sense?

And just last week came a ruling that opens the floodgates for settlements by the folks at Walmart--a class-action suit filed on behalf of six women. One thing is certain: the millions reaped from this suit will not go into the pockets of all the women who join the suit, but many lawyers will get rich. Until our courts and legal system are reformed, it will continue.

As with most sensational and deplorable situations, this one has many facets, not least of which are (first) the linkage of an organization to the criminal acts of an individual and (second) the astronomical size of the fines. Of course, if reason prevailed in the first place, the second would be null.

Sadly, our country faces two extremes, exorbitant penalties against organizations or corporations and slaps on the wrist for many, many elected officials. My poor memory can't recall the name of any Senator or Congressman who has actually gone to prison because of malfeasance and milking the public money cow.

Probably I must over-tenderize the dead horse I'm beating. Too many Americans feel and in fact KNOW they are entitled to such settlements. Greed and a quick buck will continue to drive our system. Until our courts and legal system are reformed, it will continue. And service and products will cost the rest of the public more and more.

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THANKS T. J. RAY, for your tenderizing a subject all too familiar in our litigious society. May we, somehow, find a way to pick more sensible judges who will do more than throw good money into greedy hands. THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After getting words on paper for the most recent essay, "Have we got it right, yet?" and the near dismal consensus uttered in the introduction, "One wonders if we will ever get it right under the Sun." it compels me to express one more thought - namely, I join the millions of believers who are able to say, "Praise the Lord, I am saved by grace!" Yes, admittedly there are doubtless many hundreds of "routes" mankind has tried to open up, dig out, plow open or whatever other kind of effort to have some kind of assurance, approval and contact with the Almighty.

"Favor and blessing" are words used to define "grace". Isn't it coincidental that the little prayer many Christian and Jewish believers (there may be other beliefs unaware to me) offer at the table is called "grace". Certainly no less than three times a day we are confronted with visual beneficent favors and blessings from our Creator God; we would be remiss in not "saying grace" at the table.

Sure, we were the ones who toiled at the job (in the field, in the office, at the plant, in our cars) to be paid monies that made it possible to provide the food on our tables but let's never fail to remember our body, with its awesome mind, its wonderful parts and learned abilities are God's creations. All this becomes a cooperative effort in the biblical principle the Apostle sets forth in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." As God provides abilities and circumstances for our toiling we therefore cooperate with Him in the divine plan.

We even have visual examples of severely handicapped individuals born without hands or feet and are prone to say, "What about them God? How are they to take care of themselves?" Those same people do not even let God have a second to explain or comment. One person, seen by many on TV and on You Tube: Nick Vujicic, of Melbourne, Australia, has overcome what appeared to be impossible obstacles. He is a happy man, not a complainer. He has even become an ordained minister and travels worldwide to testify of his acquired blessings and the abilities he has developed in order to be just about as normal as many despite his physical losses. In fact, many almost feel ashamed of their oft complaints or grumbles when they see him on TV or in personal appearances. He can "kick a ball", swim, walk and nearly run - the only appendage he has like a leg or foot is a small movable part that somehow developed and his mind took over (the matter) and that little part of his body (he calls a "chicken drumstick") became the flipper he uses to move or walk about. When he swims he moves his body in a "snakelike" movement that impels him through the water, perhaps more like a seal swimming (but without flippers)!
http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/

Desperation should never be claimed or leaned upon when thinking about our position in the kingdom of God. The Old Testament is explicit with example after example of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humankind, therefore some religions feel compelled to refer to our condition or position as having original sin and therefore doomed because of our "sinful nature". That in itself is a complex subject but that too has explainable concepts when we read the Bible with an open heart and mind. The prophet Isaiah compared our righteousness to filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and the Apostle Paul picks up that thread as he writes Romans 3:9-12; 22-24. -- "ALL have fallen short..." so no one is without guilt or sin but our situation or position is not desperate or without hope because God provides GRACE.

A comment included in the previous essay, "Nothing has ever occurred to God," is a truism that explains God was not destining us to Hell or any other horrible place or abode without making available a "way out" or a "different path". This subject too is plenteous even in the Old Testament, even though most like to think the Old Testament philosophy is a "works related" plan - Grace was greatly manifested long before Christ was born. When Abraham and Sarah tried to hurry along God's promise to give them a son to begin their seeds that were to match the sands of the seashore, they involved a gentile woman and Sarah, like any wife, did not like the competition and demanded Abraham send her away. God showed grace on that gentile woman and her son - and remember, she was not of the chosen race. Hagar said, "You are the God who SEES ME." (Read about this in Genesis 16:7-14) Doesn't that at least hint that God's grace reaches further than most of us think it does? Just who are we to limit anything God chooses to do? Further along in the events of the civilizations around the Israelites, God chose to offer grace to a nation as undeserving as any probably on the face of the earth. The Ninevites were extremely wicked people but God wanted Jonah to preach to them. And for a time, the great city of Nineveh turned their backs on their idolatrous gods and worshiped the God of Israel. We can never outguess God as to whom he chooses to bestow blessings and grace.

The Scripture teaches God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Man (and woman) have always thought themselves to be "in charge", a trait that goes back to the Garden of Eden. Whether we believe in an actual Garden of Eden or the mere principles of "that great day of decision" when Eve chose to obey the Serpent instead of God marks the beginning of something much of Christendom calls the depravity of man, at least the essence of depravity. One five letter word is intentionally left out in this situation I am referring to: "total". To be "totaled" anything is serious. Totally under the water, without air or oxygen is to drown if submerged long enough. Totally naked is just that, not a thread of clothing. Totally blind, no light of day is recorded on the retina of our eyes. But the God of grace does not allow man to be totally depraved, unless man chooses total depravity. We do have a choice in the matter and that is the essential or deciding point of this argument. To those who claim God punishes sin in an everlasting Hell and all the "Hell-fire damnation bit" preached with such positive assurance, there is no contradiction: let there still be a Hell and the degree of its intensity and longevity. Quite simply, if man (or woman) is so determined to refuse or reject God's grace they have chosen their own consequence, not God!.

Some biblical scholars have reduced Hell to the simple lack of the presence of God, and that would be horrible enough in anyone's eyes. That is if we are correct in acknowledging it is God who allows the rain to fall on the good and the bad. That is if we are correct in acknowledging that ALL GOOD THINGS come from God. That is correct in acknowledging that GOD IS LOVE--and an existence without love and goodness is Hell enough for me.

As long as man exists, someone, somewhere will always be coming up with "another" creed or dogma. It matters not how simple or involved dogmas of men are, there will always be the circle that "includes" or "excludes". May the God of grace enable us to be grateful simply to be able to say "THANK YOU God for your inexplicable Word, that became Flesh and dwelt among us and those who believe call Him Savior." God is infinitely capable of sorting out the chaff from the real seeds of worship and beliefs.

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This is a far deeper subject to expect or try to settle in fourteen hundred words--so do not think I can explain it satisfactorily to everyone's approval; but do let God be God--He is completely capable of taking care of choosing or excusing without our help.
THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)