Molly Ivins is a columnist and activist based in Austin Texas. While I haven't read her columns, I have caught some of her public appearances on the radio and CSPAN. She does a good job of mixing advocacy and humour, and as a life-long Texan she has particular insight into the current White House regime. Bushwhacked covers a wide variety of subjects. The familiar: Bush's questionable sale of Harkin Energy stock, the true distribution of the Bush Tax Cut, Enron and the California energy crisis. Some less familiar: Child abuse at religious schools in Texas (the same kind Bush wants to use Federal tax dollars to support), and the negative impact on groundwater from methane extraction in Wyoming. A chapter on food safety includes a government memo about beef inspection that made me actually try a vegetarian hamburger. The following are excerpts from a USDA Kansas memo to its beef inspectors. The book presents the memo in full.
"You must understand the responsibility you accept when you stop the company's production process by stopping the line...
Stopping the line for "possible" cross contamination from split saws and trachea removal is unjustifiable unless you can verify that there is direct product contamination. Verification is OBSERVATION of gross contaminate not SUSPECTED contaminate. This is the only criteria for stopping production....
You are responsible for the time the line is off. Turning off the line must be justifiable and verifiable if we are to support your action. Remember YOU are accountable for this very serious responsibility of stopping the company's production for the benefit of food safety. Be sure that supervisors can support your decision."
So the bottom line is that beef inspectors will err on the side of lower production costs, or be fired. Remember that the next time you sink your teeth into a juicy burger. During the recent Mad Cow incident (here in Washington State), I was watching a guy from the National Cattleman's Beef Association saying how they were not going to allow "downer" cows into the food supply. Yet prior to the outbreak, the organization opposed such restrictions saying the danger to the public did not warrant such actions. The sad truth is that food safety only increases when companies demand it from their suppliers, responding to public flight from their product. No "preemptive action" on food safety.
I think more than anything, Bushwhacked attempts to personalize various national issues, showing how specific people are affected. For example, the Enron scam was not presented in the abstract, but how it affected the retirement savings of Tim and Donna Ramsey who worked for Portland utility PGE which was acquired by Enron.