Thursday, October 14, 2004

Under The Radar

Yet another "morning after" a presidential election debate and a few items are lost in the shuffle.

First, my poor former employer got slapped with some bad press yesterday. A customer reported finding "rat parts" in his plate that seemed to be in the turnip greens.


MORROW, Ga. Oct. 12, 2004 � The Piccadilly restaurant
chain has recalled a brand of turnip greens sold at some of its 132 restaurants after a customer at a Georgia outlet bit into greens containing rat body parts.

The parts came into the restaurant in Morrow frozen with the greens, which were supplied by a vendor, the chain's regional manager, Clint Celestin, said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the local health department, Sheryl Taylor, said her agency's investigation was inconclusive as to the source of the contamination.

Celestin did not know exactly how many of the restaurants, located mainly in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic region, were affected by the recall.

"We had all that product removed from all of our stores that day," he said of the Sept. 1 incident. "Anything that was opened was thrown away. Anything that was unopened in the freezer was picked up by our supplier and sent back to the vendor."
The customer, Collis L. Warren, said he was halfway through his meal when he said to himself: "That looks like hair or fur." The 40-year-old truck driver added that he may have inadvertently eaten some of the rat.

His lawyer said Warren plans to sue. Mike Misuraca, Piccadilly Cafeterias' risk manager, said he could not comment on the pending lawsuit.

The health department identified the vendor that sold the turnip greens as Magic Valley Fresh Frozen Inc., of McAllen, Texas.

Larry Griffin, the company's president, declined comment Tuesday on the incident.

This incident occured over a month ago, but the news just got published. I am left wondering why the time lapse between the event and the reporting? Not being a conspiracy nut, I can't buy the notion that some group is out to get the company, but the circumstnces do make me want to say "I smell a rat." Somebody may be using blackmail to improve an out of court settlement. Hmmm.


* * * * * * *

Next, and not related to the first item, I came across a reference to what was supposed to be a "private email" from a (now former) WSJ journalist. This document is being passed around the internet but has not made it to prime time.

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being undervirtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that
could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush'srosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' aforeign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad.

"What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.


I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate thatalmost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here. Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotageand oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.


I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate
inthe Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some
degreeelect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"



Google the name Farnaz Fassihi and see what comes up.

The first comment mentions the Riverbend blog. I have followed that blog intermitently for some time and found it to be predictably anti-American. The woman seems to be grinding an axe, but her insights are worth a look. No one doing homework on Iraq should ignore any source of information.

Update: The Iraqi elections in January, 2005, were a different story. The same reporter had a glowing column in the Wall Street Journal, copied for the record in a blog.

3 comments:

pictruandtru said...

Greens, always a danger zone to watch for hiding organic matter.(cardboard box tabs, occasional cricket every couple of years) This is not good press for any restaurant, like lots of other charges, the mere release of this info gives the perception of truth to the general public. They have no idea about what goes on in the food chain before it reaches the end user, most beyond the control of the operator. The only hope is to have sharp employees to watch for the thankfully rare incident.

On Iraq, check this blog out: http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

vietnamcatfish said...

Hello Hoots, I have not seen the parts of the rodent < seems they were shown on television > but how could greens and rat parts fit into one small veggie bowl. And no other guest found rat parts in his greens? The hypothesis: One man received claws, tail, fur, and greens in a small vegetable bowl. What are the odds? A billion to one. Was it planted? The guy wants to win the lottery. That goes w/o saying! The media is jumping on this like a vulture on a carcass by the side of the road. And sales are going down....down....down.

Has anyone in the media given this any thought? Has the hysterical public given this any thought?

We survived Ronnie and bankruptcy. We may not survive this. This may be the final curtain. v.c.

P.S. And where's the damage control?

Hoots said...

Long ago I learned never to question whether or not there was a hair in food because it was always there. It could have been served, but the chain of custody for a dish of food is out of management control after it is served. Who knows? Maybe it was a setup. Maybe not. I'm like you: where's the damage control?
On another note, people eat hotdogs and think nothing of it. If they had any idea what was in them they might become vegetarian. Eyelids and sphincter muscles have to go someplace, don't they?