Incredulity #2.

I hate having such negative information to give out.  I really do.  I don’t want to  spend my blog posts writing about items that I feel people should know.  Well, I DO want to, because I want you to know.  But I’d much rather have a healthy mix of good and bad.

I really have been feeling lately like I’m in the Twillight Zone and this cannot be the world I’m supposed to exist in.  The slam of the recent jaw-dropping topics (plastic in the ocean, mercury in vaccines, the San Fran oil spill, and my next blog post topic - 5M emails ‘missing’ from the White House) just have made my brain spin, wondering if I really am seeing all of this happen. 

Let’s not forget that China has had numerous exports pulled because of lead contamination, and one toy pulled because the chemicals in it become a date-rape drug when ingested.  From a NY Daily News article about the guy they executed (let me say that again - that they EXECUTED) who was the head of their food and drug administration -

 China is caught in a PR catastrophe after a series of export scandals: toothpaste tainted with antifreeze; contaminated pet food that killed as many as 4,000 American dogs and cats; lead paint on Thomas the Tank Engine toys; eggs colored with a carcinogenic industrial dye and frozen fish laden with pesticides.

Honestly, I can’t decide if I think it’s an effective retribution for potentially poisoning millions of people or human rights issue.  I’m leaning towards the former.  Perhaps fewer things like this would happen worldwide if your life was on the line.

Is this the world I really live in?  Has this sort of thing always been happening?  Or are we at some tipping point where I feel like the whole world has gone NUTS?! 

Anyway…back to my topic…the oil spill in lovely San Francisco Bay.  Yes, 58,000 gallons of oil is washing up on the beaches, spreading around the Pacific.  Probably going to join some of the plastic in the Pacific Trash Patch and have a little toxic get together shindig. 

This is me, holding my head in my hands.

And someone on NPR said something I’d not yet voiced.  How do these things HAPPEN?  Seriously - everytime I turn around there’s some oil spill endangering wildlife and ecosystems and I always think - Why?  Why does this have to happen?  It almost always ends up in some idiot who was being lazy or confused or drunk (in the case of the Exxon Valdez).  And I have to wonder - is this how we do business?  Is this who we have behind the wheels of our cars and our planes and our ships? 

This became something of a rant.  I’m sorry.  I’m just beside myself.  Onto the next incredulity.