In my Top 10 list of favorite movies is “Casino,” released in 1995 by director Martin Scorsese. One of the reasons I like it is the stars played the roles of real people and the scriptwriters adhered as much as could to the real story.
Robert De Niro is the main character as Sam “Ace”…
No less than the 9/11 Commission said border security should be a cornerstone of national policy. After all, the 19 hijackers who killed 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others in 2001 got into the United States by acquiring visas and gaining admission without challenge.
Time was when we were demanding to know how…
When I began in the business, there was a question that editors would ask when considering someone for hire. That question was: “How good is his (or her) rolodex? I admit the first couple times I heard this I thought it might be a polite substitute for a different kind of measurement, but then I…
China was the United States’ largest supplier of goods imports in 2010 and was our 3rd largest supplier of agricultural imports at $3.4 billion.
Leading categories include: processed fruit and vegetables ($811 million), fruit and vegetable juices ($386 million), snack foods (including chocolate) ($190 million), and fresh vegetables ($132 million).
China’s food safety record is …
At one point during my seven semesters at South Dakota State University, also known as the Harvard of the Prairie, one of the history professors tried to talk me into going for a third major.
“Why settle for only writing the first draft of history?” he said.
I passed because it would have meant adding …
There is no other calling than the news business where the professionals sit around talking about “the dog days of summer” like it’s an inevitable occurrence.
Our patronage of this annual rite stands in contrast to the reality we’ve all experienced. My only man-attacks-bear story occurred during the last half of the summer, but I …
Early during the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I found myself in a small Mississippi take-out restaurant nearing the order counter while still reading the menu when I noticed there was a “Catfish Po Boy” on the menu.
Suddenly it was my turn, so I asked: “Domestic catfish?”
“There is no other …
Several times in the past year, we’ve used this space to inform readers on the approach we were taking to this news site.
For the most part, the course we set has not changed. Food Safety News is now coming up on its first anniversary on Sept. 14. We do not anticipate much of a …
As the joint DOJ/USDA workshop on antitrust issues in the meat industry got underway in Fort Collins, CO Friday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder said something that caught my attention.
These hearings are about concentration in the beef and pork industries, and about whether the four ownership groups that control more than 80 percent or …
The President, with his traveling family in tow, will be enjoying this weekend on the Gulf of Mexico in the sunshine state of Florida. One of the First Family’s missions in Panama City will be to consume Gulf seafood and pronounce it safe.
So much of this safe talking has been on the agenda that …
