DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Persistent beeping from the front of the house roused me from the deep concentration that marks my typical work days. (No, really.) We don’t get many callers out here, so I had to investigate. I found a cherry-picker parked in my driveway, and an anonymous hardhat peering up at a utility pole.

The hardhat guy thought I intended to ask how long he’d be blocking my driveway. I imagine that’s the sort of inquiry he gets all the time: “do whatever you want, but don’t get in my way.” He couldn’t predict that I have concerns of a different sort — I rarely go anywhere, but I have extreme reservations about unannounced meddling on my property.

He said he would be upgrading the cable hardware. “We’re not customers,” I pointed out. “There’s no need to upgrade the hardware.” He said, “this is the end of the line,” which seemed to prove my point more than his: if this is the end of the line, and I’m not using it, why upgrade the hardware?

I asked him for ID. “I don’t have it with me,” he said, providing an early contender for a mental competition I judge called “the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.” I told him, “I’m afraid I can’t let you go up the pole then.” He called his supervisor, who showed up with no ID, no papers, and no uniform. He did have a sidekick, who was fashionably dressed in a track suit.

His explanation: “We’re making new IDs, but they haven’t been sent out yet.” I can invent better lies than that with one brain hemisphere tied behind my back. I asked whether they had any papers authorizing the work, hoping to find some official work orders from Comcast, the alleged employer. The supervisor said that all such papers are kept at headquarters. Sigh.

Then he pointed to the magnetic “Comcast” label on the door of their rented Penske truck, as if that should authorize them. I said, “I can buy a sticker like that for five dollars.” In truth I could probably print one on my inkjet for less. “OK, so you have no ID and no papers, no proof at all. Why should I believe you’re from Comcast?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t Comcast provide uniforms?” Even the guys who spray for bugs have corporate logos on their shirts.

He said, “my orange vest is my uniform,” which made me wonder, what about the guy in the track suit? He offered to show me drivers’ licenses as IDs. I agreed. I fetched my digital camera.

I was pretty bothered by the whole episode. They’d interrupted my morning, annoyed me with their inability to satisfy a fairly basic security inquiry, triggered my paranoia by promising to interfere with data cables, and beyond that they were doing something I didn’t need or want done. Add to that the close proximity of their cable to my ISDN line; there was, as far as I was concerned, some risk that through carelessness they could knock me offline.

One of the crew managed to produce an ID — a generic vinyl-covered hanging badge with a photo and name. I snapped a picture of it. My camera took about 10 seconds to make the exposure. That’s a clear indication that something is wrong, but under the pressure of the moment (I was facing down four irritated-looking linemen with leather gloves and helmets at this point), I ignored it. I shot a picture of the guy’s driver’s license next. It took another 10 seconds. Stubborn to the last, I shook off my doubts, ignoring the accumulating evidence that I’d overlooked something (e.g. “why can’t I see anything in the camera’s LCD besides a reflection of my nose?”) The crew then dispersed, and the supe offered his driver’s license. “Sure,” I said, “I’ll have the whole collection.” And then it hit me… my lens cap was still on.

This may be why I never went to law school. I’ve mastered the part about righteous indignation, but I missed out on some of life’s lessons about basic preparation for a fight.

But I rallied. I salvaged what was left of my indignation and snapped a picture (with actual light coming into the camera lens) of the supervisor’s license, and another of the truck’s license plate.

Comcast has an opportunity to improve its public relations here. Their website shows no obvious telephone numbers, and the “contact us” area seems to dead-end in a feedback form. I resorted to directory assistance and found the corporate telephone number.

After about three levels of voice-mail navigation I found an option to list the maintenance crews in my area. Ten minutes later, I hung up; the voice was reciting the name of every street in every town within 25 miles.

Comcast needs to furnish IDs and business cards to their linemen. Sure, such credentials can be faked, but that’s a lousy argument for not bothering to make them.

So anyway there’s a decent chance that my unrest is being closely monitored, keystroke by keystroke, by a team of Ashcroft’s minions. See, an hour after the cable crew left, a second unit showed up. This team had company uniforms and trucks that weren’t rented. And they didn’t know who the first crew was. What are the chances that two separate crews from one cable company need to work on the same pole on the same day?

The Environmental Working Group’s report that farmed salmon contains PCBs is just the latest development in a trend. It’s been a tough year for the salmon farming industry. Let’s review.

In January, the European Union issued limits on the amount of the chemical compound canthaxanthin that can be added to poultry and salmon feed. Canthaxanthin is a pigment that’s sold as a feed additive and chemical tanning agent.

If canthaxanthin is so safe that companies sell it over the counter in pure form as a cosmetic, why would the EU ban it? Because it’s not as safe as everybody thought: it causes crystalline deposits in the retina. The EU knew this since 1997; the data is given in the minutes of their 107th Meeting of the Scientific Committee for Food. It just took them five years to act on the findings.

Why would fish farmers add a chemical pigment to salmon feed? Because farmed salmon isn’t naturally pink, but grey: farmed salmon is dyed pink because nobody would buy gray salmon. Salmon farmers pick a dye color just like you’d select paint, from a chip chart called a SalmoFan.

In April, Seattle law firm Smith & Lowney filed lawsuits against three major US grocery chains: Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, demanding that farmed salmon be labelled “artificially colored.” Among other useful resources, Smith & Lowney’s salmon-dye lawsuit website shows a picture of a SalmoFan.

In May, all three grocery chains agreed to label farmed salmon as artifically colored.

So now, with the new labels in place and the publicity from the lawsuits, consumers are becoming aware of the risks of chemical additives in farmed fish. But there’s more to the story.

A November, 2000 report entitled Farmed and Dangerous: Human Health Risks Associated With Salmon Farming [PDF; 184k] details some of the problems. For example, antibiotics fed to fish lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant disease in humans.

A February, 2003 report entitled The Hidden Costs of Farmed Salmon (also available as a 511k PDF) details additional problems. For example, “it takes nearly two and a half pounds of smaller fish to raise one pound of farmed salmon — reducing the amount of seafood by 59 percent.”

Which brings us back to the latest gill-net threatening the salmon-farming industry, the EWG’s PCB report. Here are a few key findings:

• Seven of ten farmed salmon purchased at grocery stores in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon were contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
• If farmed salmon with the average PCB level found in this study were caught in the wild, EPA advice would restrict consumption to no more than one meal a month.

It’s like the mercury-in-the-tuna problem… you might think that by eating salmon you’re doing something healthy, when fact you’re poisoning yourself, unless the salmon was caught in the wild. It is regrettable that this is happening, because there are probably nontoxic ways to raise salmon commercially. There’s just been no economic incentive to do so. Not until now, anyway.

“I’d like the Vegilante, I said, “in a spinach tortilla.”

“OK, got it,” said the burrito master, tapping keys on the register.

“With braised tofu,” I continued meaningfully.

“Yes?” Two more keypresses, the first of which probably meant “cancel the plain Vegilante.” I continued with my spec.

“Organic brown rice …” He pressed another key.

“… black beans …” No keypress; the Vegilante comes with black beans. I suspected it might.

“… and no dairy: no sour cream, no cheese.” I had to be sure. He tapped again.

“Yes?” This order, he clearly thought, could go on forever. I hadn’t even gotten into the condiments yet.

“That’s it.” I gave him a winning smile, a smile that said, “if you wash your hands before you make my dinner, there’s an extra buck in it for you.”

He gave me a look that said, “Well, you certainly know what you want.” Just in case I’d missed the look, he said, “Well, you certainly know what you want.” I did, I did. In fact, I always do.

In wholly unrelated news, today I overheard someone say he had a “quandrum.” It’s an unfamiliar word, but the meaning was clear from context: quandrum is no doubt a synonym for “conundary.”

Happy people are three times less likely to get a cold, according to researchers who squirted cold virus up the noses of volunteers.

In my opinion, the researches have identified a correlation without proving causality. The truth is, people who are chronically bitter and depressed never want to leave home, and therefore never get exposed to runny-nosed kids and their snot-swabbing parents, and therefore never carry home a billion infectious germs on the tips of their fingers for later transplantation into virgin, if depressed, mucous membranes. And therefore they have no experience fighting off other people’s virulent diseases, and are much more prone to develop infection when finally exposed.

Of course, the researchers didn’t bother to ask me. Maybe that’s because I never leave home.

In a world of blame and disrespect, of lies and insults, like, say, the USA in the summer of 2003, small examples of kindness and emotional maturity stand out. See the following example, from an interview with Little Richard:

Little Richard: I’m in Las Vegas this weekend. Me and Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, we all three together.
Aidin Vaziri: Wait, I thought you hate Chuck Berry.
L.R.: No, I don’t hate him. But, you know, Chuck is not very close with anyone.
A.V.: I heard he can get pretty grouchy.
L.R.: He’s not close to anyone. I love him and I wish him the best. I’m his brother and I wish him the best. But he’s not a really friendly person.

How easy would it have been to make a joke at Berry’s expense? Richard isn’t even Berry’s friend, and yet Richard stood up for him.

That takes class. That takes tact. I seem not to see too much of that any more, not even in myself. That’s my inspiration for today.