The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:20:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Germany Pretty Sure It Has Figured Out That E. coli Thing This Time, Maybe http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/germany-pretty-sure-it-has-figured-out-that-e-coli-thing-this-time-maybe http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/germany-pretty-sure-it-has-figured-out-that-e-coli-thing-this-time-maybe#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:20:16 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/germany-pretty-sure-it-has-figured-out-that-e-coli-thing-this-time-maybe Vegetables bad: "After days of confusion, German authorities finally concluded on Friday that an E. coli infection, which has claimed at least 29 lives, unsettled the nation and thrown European agriculture into disarray, had been caused by contaminated bean sprouts and not, as first was feared, by other produce. But, at a news conference here, Reinhard Burger, the head of the Robert Koch Institute — the country’s disease control agency — said the outbreak was 'not yet over' because 'there will be new cases coming up.'"

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

6 comments

]]> Vegetables bad: "After days of confusion, German authorities finally concluded on Friday that an E. coli infection, which has claimed at least 29 lives, unsettled the nation and thrown European agriculture into disarray, had been caused by contaminated bean sprouts and not, as first was feared, by other produce. But, at a news conference here, Reinhard Burger, the head of the Robert Koch Institute — the country’s disease control agency — said the outbreak was 'not yet over' because 'there will be new cases coming up.'"

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

6 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/germany-pretty-sure-it-has-figured-out-that-e-coli-thing-this-time-maybe/feed 6 Where E. coli Comes From http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/where-e-coli-comes-from http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/where-e-coli-comes-from#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:50:30 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/where-e-coli-comes-from "People become ill from E. coli by eating shit. Simple, right? Little attention is given to the likeliest reason so many people have been affected by the German strain—they probably ingested unusually large amounts of the bacteria. Whatever (bean sprouts or cucumbers or whatever) was contaminated was really contaminated. But try getting Anderson Cooper to explain that your illness is due to the fact that too much bacteria from an animal's colon have ended up in your stomach."

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

10 comments

]]> "People become ill from E. coli by eating shit. Simple, right? Little attention is given to the likeliest reason so many people have been affected by the German strain—they probably ingested unusually large amounts of the bacteria. Whatever (bean sprouts or cucumbers or whatever) was contaminated was really contaminated. But try getting Anderson Cooper to explain that your illness is due to the fact that too much bacteria from an animal's colon have ended up in your stomach."

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

10 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/where-e-coli-comes-from/feed 10 E. Coli Is The New Credit Crunch http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/e-coli-is-the-new-credit-crunch http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/e-coli-is-the-new-credit-crunch#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 14:10:33 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/e-coli-is-the-new-credit-crunch "In an opaque interconnected system, once toxins are identified then all goods become suspect. As with 'toxic' subprime assets, so with suspect vegetable products, there is an indiscriminate reaction against anything and everything that could be contaminated. In the same way that many 'good' mortgage-backed securities became unsaleable, so farmers selling cucumbers from Spain suffer because of a problem with beansprouts at one German farm."
Is the European E. coli crisis—which might not actually be bean sprout-related—just like the financial crisis? Sure, why the hell not.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

0 comments

]]> "In an opaque interconnected system, once toxins are identified then all goods become suspect. As with 'toxic' subprime assets, so with suspect vegetable products, there is an indiscriminate reaction against anything and everything that could be contaminated. In the same way that many 'good' mortgage-backed securities became unsaleable, so farmers selling cucumbers from Spain suffer because of a problem with beansprouts at one German farm."
Is the European E. coli crisis—which might not actually be bean sprout-related—just like the financial crisis? Sure, why the hell not.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

0 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/e-coli-is-the-new-credit-crunch/feed 0 Nature Strikes Back http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/nature-strikes-back http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/nature-strikes-back#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:20:08 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/nature-strikes-back
Oooh, blue lobster! God, remember when all we had to worry about were different colored lobsters? Those were more innocent times, back before the new killer E. coli—a "mutant strain was so virulent that sufferers risked spreading the infection to friends and relations through close contact"—or the new strain of MRSA that either we are giving to cows or cows are giving to us, or before the climate decided that it was tired of being nice to us and now it was time to have some fun. Yes, you might as well just enjoy this blue lobster. Because pretty soon it's all going to be over.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

3 comments

]]>
Oooh, blue lobster! God, remember when all we had to worry about were different colored lobsters? Those were more innocent times, back before the new killer E. coli—a "mutant strain was so virulent that sufferers risked spreading the infection to friends and relations through close contact"—or the new strain of MRSA that either we are giving to cows or cows are giving to us, or before the climate decided that it was tired of being nice to us and now it was time to have some fun. Yes, you might as well just enjoy this blue lobster. Because pretty soon it's all going to be over.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

3 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/nature-strikes-back/feed 3 Frugal New Yorkers Will Finish Their Salads, Loose Doody Be Damned http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/frugal-new-yorkers-will-finish-their-salads-loose-doody-be-damned http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/frugal-new-yorkers-will-finish-their-salads-loose-doody-be-damned#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 09:00:25 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/frugal-new-yorkers-will-finish-their-salads-loose-doody-be-damned "I'm scared. But I already paid for this."
-Queens resident Sai Lawrence, before tucking into a salad of romaine lettuce yesterday. Lawrence had just been informed of a romaine recall in the metropolitan area due to an E. coli contamination, the health effects of which range from diarrhea to kidney disease to death.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

18 comments

]]> "I'm scared. But I already paid for this."
-Queens resident Sai Lawrence, before tucking into a salad of romaine lettuce yesterday. Lawrence had just been informed of a romaine recall in the metropolitan area due to an E. coli contamination, the health effects of which range from diarrhea to kidney disease to death.

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

18 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/frugal-new-yorkers-will-finish-their-salads-loose-doody-be-damned/feed 18 Are You Really Still Eating Hamburgers? http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/are-you-really-still-eating-hamburgers http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/are-you-really-still-eating-hamburgers#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:25 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/are-you-really-still-eating-hamburgers THIS COW WILL GO INTO 90 DIFFERENT BURGERS"A deadly outbreak of E. coli has been traced to a large producer of ground beef that stopped testing its ingredients years ago under pressure from beef suppliers."

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

41 comments

]]> THIS COW WILL GO INTO 90 DIFFERENT BURGERS"A deadly outbreak of E. coli has been traced to a large producer of ground beef that stopped testing its ingredients years ago under pressure from beef suppliers."

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

41 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/are-you-really-still-eating-hamburgers/feed 41 The Food Hunters http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/the-food-hunters http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/the-food-hunters#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:20:35 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/the-food-hunters DoodytimeMeet Team D: "Like telemarketers, Team D works in a giant cubicle, armed with telephone headsets and questionnaires geared to specific pathogens. The team consists of six to eight students from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. They are intensively trained and work an average of 20 hours per week with close oversight from MDH epidemiologists on more than a thousand cases each year." These plucky young students are responsible for helping to identify the culprits in the recent cookie dough outbreak. Also, the "D" stands for diarrhea!

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

4 comments

]]> DoodytimeMeet Team D: "Like telemarketers, Team D works in a giant cubicle, armed with telephone headsets and questionnaires geared to specific pathogens. The team consists of six to eight students from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. They are intensively trained and work an average of 20 hours per week with close oversight from MDH epidemiologists on more than a thousand cases each year." These plucky young students are responsible for helping to identify the culprits in the recent cookie dough outbreak. Also, the "D" stands for diarrhea!

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

4 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/the-food-hunters/feed 4