Hear that?

It's the death of my overly idealistic world...a violent one, I might add.

At some point, if one desires to make a difference in this world, one will find that their ideals and the practicality of applying those ideals to reality often makes a sickening crunch and a grisly wreck scene.

This I find daily...will I live in a fantasy world of constant wheels-spinning-ideals and hypocritical action, or will I honestly engage the struggle to make my ideals reality...which includes ditching some ideals as they are exposed in their inadequacy and shallowness?

I feel like a failure today. Things may feel better tomorrow.



In other news, according to Salon.com, you might want to pass on the salmon from Wal-Mart. Because, evidently it seems, you are eating salmon raised in Chile where they "are generally raised in open-net pens...There is a metal cage on the surface, with nets hanging down to a netted bottom...they grow tens of thousands of fish per net, 1 million or 1.5 million per farm. Then they all go poo. There is a huge amount of waste going into the ocean. People say, oh, that's natural, all fish go poo in the ocean. But not in that kind of concentration. It just smothers the seabed." One million salmon produce the same sewage...as sixty-five thousand people. The ocean pens suffer from another source of pollution -- excess feed. Any food that isn't consumed settles to the ocean floor, adding to the layer of feces. The waste itself contains residues of antibiotics and other chemicals used to keep the fish healthy during the two years it takes them to grow to harvestable size." In the words of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, "Yummy."




In more positive news, it seems there are a few diamonds in the rough these days for your kids to look up to in professional sports. I've had my issues with blind idolatry of celebrities before, so I've tempered my view of them greatly, but Brian Roberts is a solid, blue-collar, tremendous example of a young man. I'm not surprised to find kids with leukemia have changed his life more radically, possibly, that he has theirs. Now, I'm hoping the listing of Brian's name in Jason Grimsley's arrest affidavit as a user of HGH/steroids/amphetamines isn't accurate. Crossing my fingers.