Wild-Born or Fish Farm Fakers?
Summer is the season for wild salmon. And, as the seafood sleuths at Consumer Reports recently discovered, if you’re springing for “wild” outside of the Alaskan salmon season (May through September), you might be the victim of some fishy fraud.
Staffers of the consumer research magazine put a handful of unnamed stores under scrutiny, testing wild-labeled salmon purchased at various markets during November, December and March. And the verdict? Out of the 23 fillets claiming natural birth, only 10 proved to be truly wild-caught. Based on the synthetic coloring agents the testers found in the other 13 fillets, the rest were farm-raised fakers. “Without coloring, farmed salmon would be gray,” the magazine explains.
Seafood vendors aren’t required by law to label their salmon “farmed” or “wild,” but if they do choose to use the label (encouraged, no doubt, by the allure of a higher price bracket — wild salmon sells at nearly double the price-per-pound of its farmed-raised brethren), they’re obligated to be telling the truth. And FYI diehard organic shoppers: there are no federal standards for labeling seafood “organic.” Of the two “organic” fillets tested by the fish fraud task force, both were farmed.
There are good reasons to pay extra for truly wild-raised fish; in addition to being less flavorful, farmed salmon are more likely than wild to contain contaminants like PCBs and dioxins. But as Consumer Reports notes, if you’re looking to get your omega-3 fix year-round, stock the deep freeze with wild fish during the months they’re most likely to be truthfully labeled, and save your winter pay checks for omega-3 alternatives like fish-oil supplements, walnuts or flaxseed. — Eliza Thomas
My Coffee Table Books, Myself
Although Love, Eric: Delicious Vegan Macrobiotic Desserts by Eric Lechasseur, pastry chef of West Hollywood’s divine M Café de Chaya, is technically a cookbook, its so sumptuously photographed that it would be a shame to hide it away on the shelf ( LoveEric.net, $27.95).
Artfully documenting the intersection of sustainability, function and high style, Green Design poses the question: can designers save the world? (Edited by Buzz Poole, Mark Batty Publisher, $34.95).
Endless hours of eye-candy for home improvement junkies, Green Kitchens: The Ultimate Resource for Creating a Beautiful, Healthy, Eco-Friendly Kitchen by Jennifer Roberts truly lives up to its title (Gibbs Smith, $29.95).
Nurses Aim to Inject More Democracy Into State Elections
In discussing the pivotal role librarians played in keeping his book Stupid White Men from being shredded by his corporate publisher, Michael Moore once remarked with awe, “Do not mess with librarians.”
Add nurses to that short list of professionals not to antagonize. “After seeing HMOs, drug and insurance companies and other moneyed interests distort public policy to the detriment of patients year in and year out, we’re completely fed up,” says Charles Idelson, spokesman for the Oakland-based California Nurses Association. He’s explaining why the Association garnered 620,000 signatures and won Prop 89 a place on the upcoming November ballot.
The Clean Money and Fair Elections Act gives the state its best chance at establishing a fair, universal health care system, the association believes. If passed by voters this fall, the measure would go into effect in 2007 and work like this: candidates with a certain number (750 for an Assembly seat, 25,000 for the governor’s office) of signatures and $5 donations from registered voters would get the option of funding their campaigns with public instead of corporate money. Extra money could be given for races against non-clean/big money candidates to keep spending competitive.
Modeled after laws already on the books in Maine, Connecticut and Arizona, Prop 89 would fund “clean” candidates by raising state taxes on corporate profits by a gentle-seeming 0.2%. These candidates would then be free to serve their actual constituents instead of the big donors who lobby to keep healthcare reform and other progressive laws from taking shape.
With Arnold Schwarzenegger raising $75 million from big pharma, big energy, real estate and insurance in hopes of out-tarnishing his millionaire Democrat rival Phil Angelides, who’s beholden to a slate of competing and, in many cases, the same corporations, the need for campaign finance reform is as clear as ever.
According to Idelson, clean money elections in Arizona have given the state higher voter turnout, more diversity in their candidates (more women, minorities and non-millionaires) and more progressive, people-oriented policy getting passed there, like prescription subsidies for seniors. Here in California, Idelson says members of both major parties have expressed interest in public-funded elections. “They get tired of fund-raising all the time. Many would just rather worry about policy.”
Operating under the name Californians for Clean Elections (cleanmoneyelections.org) the nurses expect opposition on the measure from the California Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying group. Count on them, or some other pro-business interest, putting together an organization calling itself something Orwellian like, Patriots for Freedom in Government. A spokesman for the CCC confirmed their opposition to Prop 89 but said he was not at liberty to discuss their plans to fight it.
If voters make Prop 89 victorious in November, it could be a giant step toward healthcare reform, and a shot in the arm for democracy at the same time. — Todd Spencer
Newsom Adopts Rival’s Campaign Promise: Tide Power
Gavin Newsom’s campaign found more traction in San Francisco’s 2003 mayoral election for his promise to clean the homeless off of the streets than Green Party rival Matt Gonzalez did with his idea of burying turbines under the Golden Gate Bridge. After all, it was a platform item that probably sounded a bit pie in the sky.
Surprisingly, the dapper, pro-business Democrat is now talking tide energy like a born-again environmentalist, though critics might suggest he’s doing so mainly because the feasibility study that has the mayor excited was funded by one of his seemingly favorite corporations, PG&E.
The study conducted by Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) shows that San Francisco Bay is the single best locale in North America to harness the kinetic energy of natural tides. The first local project being proposed by Newsom would bury turbines (like those pictured above) 200 feet under the Golden Gate Bridge and connect them to a relay station at the Embarcadero by a subsea cable. The second is a small-scale wave power project that would place a floating cable along Ocean Beach.
The electricity the water projects could generate has been exaggerated in at least one local media report. Instead of producing enough juice to “keep the entire city lit,” (San Francisco Chronicle) EPRI estimates that the Golden Gate tide power project could generate 35mw of clean electricity per day. PG&E estimates the Ocean Beach wave power generator could create another 30mw per day. Together, that’s eight percent of San Francisco’s total daily usage of 800 megawatts. Still, this is totally clean energy — saving tons of carbon emissions and loads of mercury from entering the environment over time.
PG&E says it is highly interested in winning rights to the projects. This is probably to keep its monopoly on The City’s power grid and also to help it meet rising state standards for clean energy offerings. There’s also a chance The City itself or a Florida-based company, Golden Gate Energy, could take the reins.
Mayor Newsom and PG&E might be pushing tide power for some of the wrong reasons (political back scratching, territorial pissings) but the end result — this country’s first tide power plant — is reason for optimism. After all, the “mainstreaming” of clean energy is what needs to happen if any significant progress is going to be made in the fight against climate change. And any time new, experimental forms of clean energy are being endorsed by major parties and pursued by big energy, it’s hard not to get excited. — Eugene Ackelhandel
HIGHTOWER LOW-DOWN
Axing National Parks
America’s network of national parks is a natural resource so beloved by the public that even George W has posed in parks for photo-ops in his two presidential campaigns, promising to bolster funding for these treasures.
Once the campaigning is done, however, our park-lover-in-chief goes after them with a double-bladed budget ax. This hypocrisy is so blatant that, in the 2004 election year, Bush’s spinmeisters instructed park guides not to use the phrase “budget cutbacks,” instead substituting the euphemism, “service level adjustments.”
Now Bush is back with his ax, quietly directing each park superintendent to prepare a five-year budget that will slash appropriations by up to a third. This at a time when the backlog of park repairs now tops $6.8 billion, an increase of $1.9 billion in George’s five years.
And, once again, Bush political operatives have distributed “talking points,” telling park employees how to spin the cuts to park visitors who will, of course, notice the reduced hours, discontinued services, deteriorating facilities and increased fees. When visitors ask why they’re paying more for less, the memo tells employees to respond with this sentence: “The National Park Service, like most agencies, is tightening its belt as our nation rebuilds from Katrina, continues the war on terrorism and strives to reduce the deficit.”
Holy Ansel Adams! The administration that totally botched the response to Katrina, that has us mired in a bloody $300 billion war of lies and that has been the worst deficit bloater in US history now wants to use these debacles as its excuse for gutting our public parks!
To fight both the cutbacks and the rank dishonesty of the Bushites, call the watchdog group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility at 202.265.7337.
© 2006 Jim Hightower and Associates, jimhightower.com
