Short Cuts

*Quote from my 70 year old Ukrainian immigrant mother - "How come no one has ever told me how good salsa is with sour cream and corn chips." (This is a woman who reads the paper everyday and a menu at least three times a week...and still this magical combination never seeped into her consciousness.)

**There is a developing scandal at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India where over 50 swimmers have come down with what they are calling the 'Delhi Belly'. It's a cute name unless you have it and are stuck on the toilet for 5 days.

Why does it seem to me that the gap between the First World nations and the Third World nations in terms of health and safety standards is only growing. You would think that someone knew that maybe filling the pool from the tap would have negative consequences for athletes without the superhuman immunity to resist local parasites.

I know India wants to be viewed as a progressive nation that is moving forward (and in many ways they are) but incidents like this don't help that cause at all.

***Twice this week I have watched shows that showed what driving was like in Third World nations like Ghana (The Amazing Race) and (coincidentally) Delhi, India (Ice Road Truckers).

The roads are death traps especially the mountain roads of India which have no rails (to keep vehicles from plunging thousands of feet to the valleys below) and many many blind corners and barely standing bridges.

People drive like they are in the movie 'Death Race 2000' and think nothing of risking their lives and the lives of others just to get to their destinations.

I have been scared while driving through parts of the Rocky Mountains on the Trans Canada Highway but that is a picnic compared to the white knuckle terror ride that are the mountain roads of Northern India.

If they were hoping to get me to visit their charming lands, they really need to paint me a more appealing picture. As it is, I was left scared to death from my comfortable couch without any desire to leave it and get on a plane.

****Of course, being a First or Second world nation does not allow a nation to escape environmental disasters from the negligence of companies operating in their sphere of influence. We only need to look at the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the recent spill of Aluminum waste product in Hungary to see that this is true.

Watching the footage out of Hungary is beyond sad. In many places the land will be rendered uninhabitable for generations and we won't know the true impact of the spill for many years to come.

I am angry that over 800 million barrels worth of this toxic sludge was allowed to be stored in one place.

I am angry that government regulators weren't more observant of the danger. There is no way this was a freak accident.

I am angry that we haven't figured out how to dispose of the the toxic residue (aside from dropping it into the oceans or down deep holes on the land) that goes along with producing a metal vital to our lives.

I did see today how a form of plaster cement has been used to neutralize the effects of the sludge that have already leaked into the Danube River. Why hasn't such a substance been invented that makes many of the harmful effects of this sludge and many other dangerous industrial by-products inert? Why wasn't the sludge treated with this plaster before going into the big tank?

Don't get me started at how angry I am that that beautiful river may affect many of the places along it that I love to have visited like Vienna.

I have a hope that the Europeans (who are much more environmentally conscious than us in North Am) get angry enough to start a movement of change that spreads across the globe. It will be difficult for nations like China and India to stop the damage they do to the Earth. Such concern flies in the face of their rapid industrialization policies.

*****We just learned that it was HEAT that causes Lithium batteries to explode. WOW - HEAT makes things explode?? Who knew? I will tell you who - any kid who has throw a can of beans into a bonfire.