For an Eco-Friendly Home Aquarium, Keep It Small and Track Your Fish

Fish leave tracks? Who knew?
In my opinion, I feel that it would be far easier, and perhaps even cost-effective, to fit each fish with a small transponder similar to the home detention bracelets nonviolent offenders wear. This would have the added benefit of providing your fish with a convenient excuse for not jumping out of the tank and gasping on the counter there, or refusing inappropriate date requests from, say, the cat. Some of these bracelets are not unattractive, and while it may be thought to be gilding the lily to add jewelry of any sort to a tropical fish, the purpose this device-fish safety-transcends such concerns.
Alternatively, we could choose to leave these fish in their natural habitat, and acquire an aquarium screen saver. This would dovetail nicely with the current Back to the Bay movement many fish are joining. The influx of petitions-arduously inscribed, no doubt-from tropical fish is said to be small but growing, as word gets around that there is indeed a campaign to allow these fish, having served their time as human entertainment, to return home to their friends and family. I think this is not only entirely appropriate, but far too long in coming, for the emancipation of tropical fish is clearly an integral part of the current transition in public thinking which is encompassed by the term 'green'. Fish, tropical or otherwise, are NOT our playthings. They may have feelings, and who knows what cool thoughts pervade their ganglia as they move, around and around in their circumscribed worlds, patiently fulfilling their charge to maintain motion, colour, beauty, for our pleasure? Enough! I say.
Drain the tanks, send them home. Return them to the bosom of their reef and relatives.
 
Unless, of course,they have grown to pan size... 

It seems like most tropical fish these days are farmed raised anyway, and probably much happier in a large aquarium. I remember a rather large aquarium I had in my youth, and every now and then feel the yen to get back into it. Something about that bubbling sound that is infinitely relaxing.

Olivia, You are right-as-rain-Roy-Rogers ,and as usual, way ahead of the game.  Why even in my little community we have established a Halfway Pond for these little beauties before they are reintroduced to the wild.  I've volunteered to take all the tropical fish back to their homewaters and am currently looking for sponsors.  Peace out

I froze my turtle to the bottom of his plastic turtle pan when I was 17.  I've never gotten over killing that poor thing. I put in on the ledge by the window in a lower level room, I thought he would like some sun. But then it began to snow and snow.  And then it snowed some more.  And more, even.  This was in Chicago, in 1967, and it snowed for three days as anyone who lived there then remembers.  And it covered up that window, the snow, and it covered up the entire side of our house to the roof. And that's no lie.  Another no lie is that my mother thought I should get out there and keep that driveway cleared in case my father ever came home again.  Which he did, but three days later, and I've never shoveled so much snow in my life -- the point of all this being that there was much ado going on and I forgot  about my turtle in his little plastic dish.  When the snow stopped and I remembered to check on him, he was frozen to the bottom. God, I am a horrible person!   And because I was and am a horrible person I've never had a watery kind of pet  since that time four decades ago.  (This is my seque into being on topic.  How'd I do?) So, I've never had fish as pets or hobbies or anything else.  Other than sprinkled with dill and on a dinner plate.  I knowed I'd kill them.  If a fish could drown, then that's probably what would happen to my fish if I kept them in a bowl or tank.  I'm with Olivia on this:  Free The Fishes! And keep them away from the likes of me.   

On a related note, Olivia, has "Shoot and release" quail shooting come to your area yet?  I don't mean "released birds" that are raised one place and shot another shortly thereafter. I mean an exciting new program where quail are fitted with kevlar vests ( only volunteers, of course) and allowed to frolic with shorthaired pointers in a controlled environment. To ensure the dignity of each bobwhite, the vest design includes a cutaway for, um, in-flight elimination. Unfortunately, this brings new meaning to the phrase "CYA" as now and then an eager hunter may fire at a retreating ( unprotected) bottom. Still any quail who fly 20 succesful missions are released permanently to frolic with the hawks, foxes and domestic cats in an uncontrolled environemt.  They have to turn in their vests as they leave, however.                                                                  Speaking of vests, early prototypes were offered with varying degrees of padding. Hens invariably chose the vests with the most padding in the area of the breast meat, while males chose padding lower down.

Why just pick on these fish who have known nothing but domesticity being raised on the farm. With all this zeal about freeing creatures, why don't we just unlock all the cages at the zoo. Get rid of all circuses. Greenhouses. (Plants have feelings too.) Cattle. Dogs. Cats.  

"fish are caught using squirt bottles filled with cyanide, which stuns the fish" Well, I would imagine the embarrassment wears off after being caught in that situation more than once or twice.  If they don't want to get caught, why do they keep using?   Does anyone offer rehab programs for these fish? Has anyone looked into the root causes of cyanide use? Who is supplying the stuff?

 I guess it is true about things happening in threes:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529328,00.html

Must be a sign of the end of days.

PARK4, I too have a tragic tale involving a turtle.  We lived on the fourth floor of our South-Side aprtment building and put our little turtles tray on the kitchen widow sill so he/she/it could enjoy the breeze and get a little sun. He never tried to escape before that day.  Maybe he could smell the lake from the open window and was just trying to go home.  We'll never know what drove him over the edge, four stories down to the gangway below.  He didn't leave a note. People of the EyE..... don't let this happen to you! or your turtle!  

 (laughing) Peter:  was your turtle reading Bleak House at the time of his disappearance?  Here:
 
"I only ask to be free.  Butterflies are free.  Mankind will surely not deny to me what it concedes to the butterflies!"

That could have done it, your turtle wouldn't be the first being who took a dive out of a fourth floor window while reading Dickens. 

He has that effect on me too.

Stoney:  I just read that 15 minutes ago.  What a surprise, and how sad.  There is no cause of death noted yet, is there?

PARK4: It appears to be either from not wearing a seatbelt during an airplane misshap on Saturday.

may rainbow and brown trout considered my living fish bowl....?

William-An interesting topic, and I'm sure much-needed jobs for poultry in motion during this difficult economic downturn. No doubt the skeet are relieved to have some of the pressure taken away...
My concern here is that these field workers have adequate medical facilities and other basic benefits, and that the legal documentation for their participation is in order. The CYA consideration also gives new significance to the more direct expression 'shit and git', if that's not too vulgar a reference...
PETA notwithstanding, the time for the extension of animal rights is near, since many humans-even Americans!-have at least some basic rights at this point in time.
The development of new forms of entertainment coupled with job creation at all levels is a noble pursuit. Why, I was reading just the other day that a group of wealthy businessmen have begun a new sport whereby camouflaged portly gentlemen with paintball guns hunt former beauty queens and Playboy (TM) bunnies in a sylvan setting. What could be more wholesome for the exercise of body and mind? I investigated this practice with an eye to participation, but I was disappointed when I learned that I would not be allowed to carry my own paint weapon and return fire. I feel a level playing field is only fair, not to mention adding an exciting component to what must surely be a rather one-sided pursuit. Alas for them, for I feel certain that I could take the contest to a new level hitherto undreamed-of. Anyroad, my dream of bagging a rich old dude will just have to wait, I suppose...
Sorry, rambled a bit off topic there. I would hope the equipment for shoot and release is thoroughly inspected and that these birds receive the utmost in consideration and hazard remuneration. The workmanlike contribution of the dogs and so forth should also be taken into account.
I've long practiced catch and release between marriages...  

I love the accounts by James Hamilton-Paterson, the British expatriate essayist and novelist, about dynamite fishing in the Phillipines.
 
South Korean cinema has exploded in recent years with a proliferation of high-budget action and spy thrillers related to evil plots by North Korea. In one of these, Shiri, which I highly recommend, aquarium fish play an elemental role in spying.

Possibly combining last night's conversation with today's topic (you decide); Swedish red fish make marvelous substitutions for green olives in martinis.
Surely, TheSepia train has these stocked in the club car?

Penn:
 
As in
 
One fish
two fish
red fish
blue fish
 
?

Olivia:
 
Are you saying that poor Holly and Bridget and Kendra, booted out of the mansion, are now getting paintballed?

swami,  uh huh...double fish...especially after a couple martinis. 

Stoney, surely you do not mean that Billy Mays belongs in the "washed up celebrities" category... I was amused to see that someone called him a pioneer in his field. What older ( well, other than the obvious) profession and technique is there beyond setting up where people are looking and hollering at them to buy something?  I can't say that I have witnessed Mr Mays, at least consciously, but I have seen his predecessors, hawking knife sharpeners, eyeglass cleaner, Fuller brushes, and just about everythng else in the world.    Did they go to Ron Popeil for a quote?                      

Mark-Not if I have anything to say about it! These poor girls have a lot to give, great innate talents, and I've looked into the possibility of getting them into nursing school. I'm sure that they'd do a great job at nursing, and probably bring great joy to many an oldster in the Home, not to mention all the babies they could help! I'd bet anything that nursing would come so naturally to them, with their big, um, hearts, that they'd quickly distinguish themselves with their generous natural gifts. I'm assuming natural...wait, let me check something, and I'll get back to you.

Mays appears to have died from an epidural hemorrhage, ie, in the same way that a celebrity female died earlier this year in a skiing accident (was it Natasha Henstridge? can't remember)

The interweb seems to be letting loose today with all kinds of tasteless variations on Mays's pitches ("Billy Mays's Suicide Putty!"). Ironically, CNBC fairly recently did a documentary about TV pitchmen, including Mays.

Since we know that the shamWOW guy (a) consorts with prostitutes and (b) beats up said prostitutes, who will now sell us Raelian cult costumes called Snuggies, Mighty Pens and clap-on lights that you can place anywhere.

Hey Trask, I think they stopped hawking knife sharpeners when they started hawking....the Ginsu steakknife!

William-I am reminded of the amazing late-night TV products Bag-O-Glass: hours of bloody fun for kids, and the inimitable BassMaster fish blender. I know there were others. Oh, the Pocket Fisherman, which my husband called me when we were courting-I wonder why? *blank blonde look*
 
Don't you just love tangents? I know I do. And the double entendre, which penetralia we entered lustily a while back. *cough*
And I know we just love jokes, especially 'dirty' ones. Especially CORNY dirty ones. The royal 'we', I suppose I'm using. As a culture we love those things too, I'm thinking. Let's see-what else? Cars, money, food, sex-oops, there's that again. Oh, and breasts. Yes, we are the People of the Breast. (I wonder how one says that in Yanomamo?) I sure love mine, and come to find out, some other people do too! Who knew? It's humbling.
Suppose I'd better jiggle on off now...while I can still suppress the giggles.

If you eat salmon in a restaurant in the U.S., there's high probability that what you are eating was raised on a fish farm in the Scottish highlands owned by Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull). I have often made the nondisprovable assertion that I am his greatest fan in the world. ("Greatest" not being a self-assessment but an attestation to depth of admiration).

I have never before heard of Swedish Red Fish.  Candy, huh?  Like gummy bears?  My mother was from Sweden.  Her mother too, of course, I guess that would be obvious, and my grandfather too and so on way back to Viking times.  And so I was raised by Swedes and I heard Swedish all around me, and I've eaten Swedish foods, and when it came to Swedish candy, I thought I tried all of it at one time or another. But now there's Swedish Red Fish and I found some at Amazon, get this, 3 used and new from $22.99.  Used?  Used candy?  I know Swedes are frugal, sometimes some even call them tight, but used gummy fish?  Everyone gets to chew a little and then pass it on?   Say it isn't so. Also, $22.99 for these Swedish Red Fish?  No self respecting frugal Swede would spend that much on a pile of candy.  At least my self respecting frugal Swedish family wouldn't.   What happened to marzipan? That's my idea of swedish candy.  We used to go to the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago and get so much of that wonderful sweet stuff in their fanciful shapes -- oh, my cousins and I would eat so much marzipan our teeth would hurt. Oh.  And I'm sure marzipan came in the shape of fish, although I never saw one.  But I needed a tie-in to the topic du jour, and that's all I can come up with.   

Ooh-I think I may have had some of Jethro's salmon at a concert a long time ago. I got a backstage pass (at least that's what he called it) from a roadie 'cos he liked my halter top, but the memories get a little hazy after that. It was really smoky and the vitamins everybody was taking made me feel funny. I woke up alone in the Marriott the next day, really hungry...

PARK,
 
Yes, very much like gummy bears.  My local drug store has Swedish Red Fish in 5oz. packages 2 for $3. I will send you some. Then maybe I will get on Amazon and sell the other packages...dang I can even give em a little fin clipping and still sell 'em!

    An old high school friend of mine lives in Puunene, HI and does a lot - A LOT - of scuba diving. He has a passion for reef fish asking all his friends to sign this petition:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/reef-fish-arent-ornaments

Here is a link to some photos he has taken over the years. Hope you enjoy:

http://philipt.smugmug.com/Scuba%20adventures

karma swim swami:  Natasha Richardson.  The actress who died after a fall on the slopes.  Wife of actor Liam Neeson.  Daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave. Richardson's death unlike Jackson's really did get to me, and I don't know why.  Other than the "every man's death diminishes me" idea that Miss Blue quoted yesterday -- it really saddened me.  She was so vital, it seemed; very much alive and a part of this life.  You could see that spirit and joie de vie in her photos.  Maybe that was it.   Mays was like that too.  He seemed to love his life, and it's tragic that he didn't get more years to live it. 
 


   

PARK4, I have to agree with you.  Natasha Richardson's death was much more upsetting to me than MJ's.  She was very much alive, very much connected to the people and the world around her and she loved it all. It couldn't have taken a lot of thought to see how things would play out for MJ. It was easy to see his fear of losing his fans, his place in the world, dislike of himself... whatever it was that drove MJ to change his appearance so drastically would take him to an early grave as well. 

Olivia, to answer your question about the Yanomamo, I believe the term is Oom- ba'zoombatittyeatemup, or something similar. Could I have learned that from Wayne and Garth's National Geographic Special?

In the immortal words of Wayne and Garth from neighboring Aurora IL, Sha-wing!

Gentlemen, I thank you.
My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, sisters and brothers thank you too.
And all the Yanomamo children, I'm sure, thank you in chorus...can't you just hear their little birdlike voices piping through the rain forest?
Must check Blockbuster for that NG Special. I do remember how avidly my brothers perused every National Geographic issue when it arrived each month. At least they told me that's what it was. I never got to see past the plain brown wrapper with my dad's name on it. They just loved the articles about the indigenous tribes and their sartorial habits. I'll bet they still remember a lot about how those tribal people lived.

Returning for just a moment to aquariums.... Don't every buy freshwater crabs as I once did.  I quickly discovered they liked to climb out of the aquarium and explore my living room.... After a couple of adventures, my surviving crab disappeared.  A couple of months later, while vacuuming in the downstairs bedroom (yep, a flight down, and at least 50 feet away) I found the dessicated remains of my curious buddy.  Like so many creatures in my life, I now consider him a a wrang-wrang.  (Cf Chapter 36, 'Meow', from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle')  Much better are the foul but predictable 'bottom feeders'.... I had a deal with a local petshop owner who would sell me an inch-long plecostomus and a couple of years later take my EIGHT INCH plecostomus in trade for another one-inch long one..... I once asked him, 'How big do they get?' 'Well, if you have a big enough tank, I think they just get bigger and bigger,' he replied.   Now, as I jog the 3/4 mile track around the local 'lake' I often wonder if there are 12-foot long plecostomus's swimming on the bottom because their owners couldn't think of any other place to put the ever-growing fish...  http://universityaquarium.com/257210_plecostomus_2.jpg  Oh, before I leave, do other aquarium owners have the same reaction I do when asked, 'Do you have a pet?' and -- after a pause -- say, 'Yes, sort of'....  And then the other person asks, 'Do you take them out for walks every day?'.... I always feel guilty if I say, 'No...'  I finally decided to 'fess up.... 'Nah, my fish don't seem to like taking walks....' Bye, ya'll.

Thank goodness the discourse has returned somewhat to our erstwhile habits of inside jokes and high camp. The elevation makes me positively giddy!
Next up: food.

MJ's physician, Conrad Robert Murray, graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville.
He completed a residency in internal medicine (3 years) in Loma Linda, CA, in 1992, but his record shows that he was not board-certified in internal medicine until 1998. Board certifications in internal medicine or its subspecialties are valid for 10 years, thus his board certification has lapsed.
 
Murray did a cardiology fellowship in Tucson, followed by a one-year interventional cardiology fellowship in San Diego. A cardiology fellowship may teach you to do diagnostic cardiac catheterization. To do angioplasty and coronary stent placement, some time in interventional cardiology is needed.
 
Murray, however, is not now and has never been board-certified in cardiology. Taken together, this all suggests to me that he failed the internal medicine board exam more than three times. You can take it as many times as are required to pass, but if you fail it three times, you lose eligibility to sit for a board exam in a subspecialty of internal medicine (e.g., cardiology, pulmonology, nephrology, gastroenterology. &c.)
 
My biggest nit to pick with him has to do with professional boundaries. When you reside with a celebrity whom you formerly managed, objectivity swooshes out the window.
 
MJ was found in respiratory arrest, but with a pulse. Why was Narcan not given? If Murray was being such an uber-concierge doctor, why did he not have some on hand? Jackson has OD'd before.

Peter Lake:
 
I thought the etymology of Wayne and Garth's famous one-word utterance came from
"Schwing," a crane company whose machines are seen in a certain tell-tale upright position on the horizon.

Doc, I am highly indignant at your insistence on discussing your plecostomus in public. No matter how big it is, and I have seen many an 8-incher in my time, I do not think the subject a fit topic for social intercourse. I do NOT understand why men have this obsession with their plecostomi, but once they get past sports and the weather and female anatomy, well there it is.
In future, please leave such references in the locker room, where they belong.
Sincerely,
Miss Olivia

Having just returned from the parade and grand finale of our local Swedish Day's Festival, I am happy to report that I did not observe any Swedish Red Fish being abused.

On a much sadder note however, I was compelled to picket and protest the insanely inhumane practice of allowing adults and children, for the meager cost of twenty-five cents, stand outside of a tent and toss ping-pong balls into glass bowls containing water, and yes,....live gold fish.

I can only imagine how they must have felt being surrounded by the cacophony of all of the carnival rides, loud music and screaming.... And then being surrounded by folks with faces painted in chocolate and buttered corn-on-the-cob, trying to throw ping-pong balls into their little glass houses where there is no place to hide.

And then it gets worse...........

If someone successfully tosses a ping-pong ball into a gold fish bowl... like that takes a lot of training and skill...... they win the goldfish!!..... but not the fish bowl. They get to carry their alive-but-not-long-for-this-world-trophy around in a clear plastic bag filled with water and tied off at the top. O M G !

How many of these poor creatures get forgotten in the back seats of cars along with left over popcorn, french fries, elephant ears, juju beads, glow sticks and giant stuffed turtles! How cruel is a life with nothing to look forward to but being flushed down a toilet while the kids sing "Born Free".

This has to stop and the time has come to rise up and let our voices be heard across this great nation. Save the carnival gold fish!! Its only fun when you are not the one in the bowl!

John-This is indeed a sad story. I can only imagine the terror, the psychological stress and turmoil these poor creatures endure to provide a moment's amusement for the whimsical and heedless carnival reveler. They could and should live long and happy lives keeping limpid pools clear, engaging in society as only the ever-growing golden koi can, giving Doc's plecostomus a lesson in humid tumescence while living to ripe old ages in their liquid environs.
This is as it should be: the world according to carp...

That's just another traumatic memory...my childhood friend won a goldfish at our town's "Days" festival, like Glenview DAYS, as if there weren't any days other than those for Glenview, but anyways:  we're walking home with the fish in the bag and the bag springs a leak and I'm sure I don't have to spell it out for you. We didn't know what to do with the fish once the water all leaked out.  I remember wanting to just run home, but we didn't want to take the bag with the poor little goldfish in it, without water, struggling for breath -- we didn't want to carry it home it was one of those little girl yucky! situations, but we couldn't just drop it and run, that would be awful.   So we hid it under the big evergreen in front of the Carhann's house.  And then we ran like hell all the way home and swore never to tell anyone what we did with that poor fish. Which I haven't, until now.

  

Mark, there's a great local band called the Ginsu Wives. Their gigs are never dull...

When I was 12 and my brother 11, we used to go down to the pier with our fishing poles. One day with much excitement we caught a small shark. I ran home to get a large plastic bucket. My brother, James stood guard over our foot long catch dangling from the hook just barely below the surface. We filled the bucket with fresh ocean water and hauled our treasure home.
At the time my dad was a saltwater aquarium aficionado. He had a 30 gallon tank set up, and we begged him to keep our cool new friend. He reluctantly agreed. If we wanted to keep the shark however, we would have to collect 20 sand crabs a day to feed him. I don't remember how my dad came up with 20, but that was the deal.

It had been a couple weeks and our gray friend was doing well. We thought about releasing him. Collecting 20 sand crabs before breakfast with each passing day, seemed less and less fun. It had become a chore, and 20 seemed more like 100. And the crabs seemed to be on to us. They started forming clever escape plans when our hands would scoop into the wet sand.

There was talk among the kids that sharks would eat anything. Surely, a hot-dog falls into this category. That morning we plunked one into the tank. He ate it! Success! We can go watch cartoons!

The hot-dog would be our friend's last meal. R.I.P.

Maybe we should have a 'fish wake" on TheSepia train tonight.

Olivia:
 
The Ginsu Wives? That sounds as if one could deplecostomize or deschwing one quickly. I think that was Lorena Bobbitt's legal defense. Being Ecuadoran and unskilled in the argot of her new domicile, when her husband pled with her to "whack it off" that's exactly what she did. Damned language barriers.
 
Ever seen the Paul Verhoeven film "The Fourth Man"?

I once had lunch at a special, and somehwat unusual, restaurant in Tokyo. It had a giant saltwater aquarium from which you chose a fish for your party. The fish would be wrangled from the water, and taken to a backroom where its head would be thwacked violently on a table top. Wiggling, jerking and seizing, the incompletely dead fish was then brought to your table and rendered into vivsectionary hyper-fresh sushi. My slice was actually making minor leaps into the air off my plate. I did as the Romans were doing, and gulped it down ere the wiggling stopped.
 
Since then, I have harbored a fear that I have anisikiasis from that fish. 

And for PARK and PL ...a 'turtle wake' too.

Penn:
 
You mean the hot dog killed the shark?

I wish the Eye Master would introduce as a topic for discussion the issue of politician carnal misdeeds. Media platitudes about these clog the pores of everyone's mind. In light of Laura Kipnis' hopelessly absorbing book Against Love, and Sandra Tsing Loh's remarkable confession in the current Atlantic Monthly, there are bound to be lots of opinions about this that some people are keeping to themselves. One maxim has it that crime is against man, and sin is against God. I cannot help but wonder if much or most of the coverage is pandering pan et circenses to a public that will seize, like Penn's shark to hotdogs, on lowest common denominator stuff.

That was our conclusion... based only on the timing of it all.  I've been leery of hot-dogs ever since.

If only Police Chief Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper, and of course THE shark hunter Quint knew about the power of the hot dog...... they could'a saved the boat with an eight pack of foot-longs.

I've got a real hankerin' for a Friday Night Fish Fryon Monday ...... just for the halibut.

Anisakiasis is a good excuse to forbear from eating sushi.
Trichinosis warns us from Sus domestica, even if the cook is pushy.
The candiru should give one pause before bathing in the Amazon.
For fugu tasting we are cautioned to bring our favourite doc along...
 
And these are perils mortals may observe with only naked eye.
The microbiologist tells a thousand ways and more that we may die. 
 

PL... I think you're onto something!  "How to Swim Safely in Shark Infested Waters"   The 2009 manual.  Maybe we can get Michael in on the composition.

Mark-If memory serves, the Bobbit resection was followed by a timely anastomosis, successful enough for that paragon of manhood to star in a porn flick, if I am not mistaken.
I have not seen The Fourth Man in some time, but The Third Man is doing a grand job entirely, so he is. The Second Man has definitely lost his way, and The First Man is but a distant, though special, memory.

I once watched a urethral endoscopic retrieval of a candiru, and it was horrifying because of retrograde spines. Hot dogs, raw or undercooked ones, are frequently contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. It will kill you. It will probably kill you if you are a shark.
 
Hot dogs are probably more dangerous than fugu. Fugu eats seaweed, from which it amasses small quantities of tetrodotoxin, a general shutter-down of all neural activity, and allegedly the secret ingredient that zombifies zombies. Fugu fish sequester all that tetrodotoxin into their livers. No liver nick in preparation, no problem. Anyway, the way Japanese people eat it is first to dunk it into chili oil. If you stop tasting the chili hotness, you will do a Michael Jackson. When I've eaten fugu, it's just all an exercise in everyone around the table having a Godzilla-size flopsweat and towelling off their red diaphoretic faces very 30 seconds or so.
 
To Park4: thanks for correcting me on which Natasha it was who died of an epidural hemorrhage from a skiing accident (the way Sonny Bono died, also). I can't help but somehow massively agree about the tragedy of that death trumping those of the last 3 days. Farrah Fawcett was extremely extremely unlucky in her outcome, and I suspect there was an element of medical bungling in her initial diagnosis. Irradiation for anal cancer is a miserable, messy, horrible thing to undergo, and the videotape of those German doctors embolizing her liver metastases---that was just plain silliness. That approach NEVER EVER works, imbued the patient with an utterly unfounded sense of hope, and is not infrequently complicated by biliary sepsis and liver failure. But with Farrah we knew it was coming, and we have grieved in increments.
 
Michael Jackson got exactly what he wanted. He suffered his entire life, and desperately wnated the pain to be taken away. That should be far more of a private matter than anyone is letting it be. I am sorry that he died, but I cannot wail in the manner seemingly expected of me over someone who made so many mistakes that he never learned anything from.
 
A coup has taken place during the weekend about 75 miles from where my sister and her seven children live, and the utter incontinence of the media over one story, to the exclusion of a central American burg called Honduras, to the ignorance of a de facto Iranian revolution (likely being fomented by our own CIA, and perhaps in that way ARGUABLY not a bad thing since Taepodong = Shihab)...I am not wailing, but I am gnashing my teeth.

Is it Listeria, then? Ha! I'll see your Listeria (uninhibited by refrigeration), and raise you:
 
Yersinia enterocolitica (pestis species is the BLACK PLAGUE)-not just diarrhea and maybe renal failure and a horrible death, especially for KIDS (let's get a Happy Meal!), like all the rest, but bloody diarrhea. Now you know...
Cryptosporidium
Campylobacter jejuni
Salmonella
Staphylococcus aureus
Clostridium perfringens and botulinum
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
E. coli 0157:H7
 
All are opportunistic organisms from meat, seafood, and dairy. In other words, animal products, cow feces in your hamburger, that sort of thing. They can cross-contaminate stuff like tomatoes, spinach, peanuts, fruit juice.
Be afraid...be VERY afraid. Stay safe by washing everything with hot soapy water, cooking thoroughly, or what the heck-just AVOID animal products that must be handled like glowing hazardous waste before you, before you...ack...eat it.
Just sayin...

I am so laughing: after I wrote the above rant or whatever, I lifted it verbatim, tweaked it a bit, and folded it into the bacteria unit in my Microbiology and Infection Control course. Next year's class will just EAT IT UP!.