Schemes and Fifis

Letter From Prison

An inmate dispels misconceptions about America's brutal incarceration system
J. Incandenza
July 2, 2003

There are more than two million people behind bars in the United States. One of every four black men between the ages of 20 and 30 is incarcerated. Millions are on probation or parole. In fact, one of every 32 Americans is currently caught up in the criminal justice system. In the District of Columbia, one in every three adult men is under some kind of penal supervision. [Editor’s note: As of June 16, 2003, the state of Hawai‘i has 3,063 inmates here and on the Mainland. Of Hawai‘i’s prisoners, 21 percent are locked up for serious drug offenses and 29 percent are in jail for misdemeanor or felony drug-related crimes.] Despite our vast numbers, we are, except for an occasional cartoon in The New Yorker, largely ignored and completely voiceless. We exist for the popular culture mostly as the punch line of a joke. I am one of the incarcerated millions, a prisoner in what has become this country’s endless War on Drugs. Despite having spent many years in prison, I am not really representative of the average convict: I am white, middle-aged, educated and a federal prisoner. Many or most convicts are black or brown, have never finished high school and are states’ inmates. But, I have at one time or another, been held in nine federal facilities ranging from Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Penitentiary to the camp where I am now and every sort of place in between. I also have personal knowledge of a handful of county jails thanks entirely to the Feds’ miserly attitude toward bail. (County jails are the worst; no other lockup even compares to their capacities to inflict misery. Guys celebrate the day they get transferred to a pen.) And from what I’ve seen in all of these stops, prison is prison and convicts are convicts. I’d like to say I’m innocent, a victim of circumstance, unjustly held by a vengeful and misguided system. I’d like to, but I can’t, because I’m guilty as charged. Everybody used to think it was cool when I got all those A’s in Chemistry, but instead, I’ll just say that not many people in jail claim to be innocent anymore. The standard line is more like, “Sure, I did it, but this sentence isn't fair.” Maybe you didn’t know that. Maybe you think you know what it's like in here, but you’re just plain wrong. Allow me to help separate you from some widely held misconceptions.

Misconception 1: Courts are manned by soft-as-a-grape judges who dole out slaps on the wrist Some shrewd PR guy in some prosecutor’s office somewhere must have come up with this one. It really doesn’t work that way. Fifteen of my last 30 years have been spent in prison, the last 10 in a row. This is the result of two arrests, one in the late ‘70s and another on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, 1993. I am the norm, not the exception. Don’t believe all that stuff about second chances. Today it’s one strike and you’re out. This is especially true of drug guys. All the places I’ve been are full of kids doing decades or more for a few hundred dollars’ worth of dope. The kid who bunks next to me — he’s not a kid anymore, is halfway through a 15-year sentence he caught from a D.C. judge for $600 worth. The judge even apologized when he handed out the sentence. It was the federal sentencing guidelines. He said there was nothing he could do.

Misconception 2: Prison is some sort of sodomite bacchanalia This one is getting old. Mention prison and the next thing you are likely to hear is some wisecrack about anal penetration. Both Letterman and Leno seem to be contractually obligated to mention it at least once a month. I’ve come to accept that, like fart jokes and bathroom humor in general, there must be something funny about anal penetration. I also understand that we have brought a large part of this upon ourselves. But enough already. Sexual orientation is not a matter of convenience, and sodomy inside is not more likely than you would find in a big city nightclub. As far as rape is concerned, in 15 years behind bars, I’ve yet to see one. As in any sizable population, there is a sufficiently large gay segment. There are plenty of volunteers and prison administrators usually accommodate their needs. In one prison where I was a resident, the psychology department made women’s underwear available to those who were so inclined. I’m talking about federal prisons, men’s federal prisons. I have no idea what happens in women’s prisons, though I like to imagine it sometimes. Which brings us to what sex in prison is really all about. To quote Woody Allen, “Sex is like bridge: If you don't have a good partner, you need a good hand.” The medical department even recommends a good hand as a prophylactic against prostate problems. Most prisons today are built with individual shower stalls as opposed to the type of shower rooms you may remember from gym class. (Lewisburg still has shower rooms, but it is considered bad form there to shower nude. The custom is to shower wearing boxer shorts.) These shower stalls are virtual masturbatoria, and you would be well advised to scrub one out before using it, especially if you find a page from the Victoria’s Secret catalog stuck to the wall inside. There is even, among certain strangely twisted (and usually younger) convicts, a market for prosthetic devices known as fifis. I will say no more. Please, lighten up on the sodomy jokes.

Misconception 3: Federal prisons are country clubs This one really ticks me off. There is no such thing as a country-club prison. I can only assume that whoever coined this phrase has either never been to a country club, or has never been to a prison. I have spent time in both. There is no similarity. Can you imagine a country club where 130 snoring, stinking, farting guys sleep stacked on bunk beds arranged not even two feet apart in a tiny little dormitory, and then stand in line in the morning to use one of six toilets, which are only rarely in working order at the same time. American prisons are, for the most part, overcrowded, dirty and dangerous places. Having always been a federal prisoner, I cannot speak with authority about conditions in state prisons, though people tell me that they are, in the main, abysmal. I’ve spent more than a little time in county lockups. I would have spent none if that stuff the Eighth Amendment says about bond was more than just words on paper. Speaking of the Third World, I once asked an erudite Nigerian convict, who supported himself in prison by writing habeas corpus appeals and habeas corpus petitions — he averaged two to three a month at about $1,000 a pop, what prison conditions are like in his native land. “Absolutely horrific,” he assured me. He didn’t believe that the average American could survive even a short stay. But, for the kind of money a convict spends to get by in an American prison, someone could probably bribe his way out of a Nigerian prison, or at the very least hire someone to do his time for him. You tell me where you’d rather be.

Misconception 4: All prisoners are stupid This is the converse of a belief widely held in prison: That everyone out there is gutless. This is not to suggest that prison is some kind of graduate seminar, except maybe of crime. Nor am I referring to “street smarts,” which I have found to be nothing more than a high level of paranoia combined with incredible baseness and selfishness and a willingness to do things that most people would consider beneath them. All of this aside, it has been my experience that IQ distribution mirrors the usual bell curve, even if we get more than our fair share of guys who have been failed by the big-city school system. My guess is that the idea that everyone in prison is stupid is based on the line of thinking that goes: They got caught. Ergo they must be stupid because there are some things that one just cannot do. I suggest, however, that the way the world is really set up is with few exceptions, you can literally do any damn thing you want to do, anything that you can think of. Of course, you may have to deal with the consequences. I say “may” because TV cop shows aside, people do get away with things once in a while. Machiavelli observed it is not the severity of the punishment that deters one from pursuing a particular course of action, but the certainty of being caught. Machiavelli was no dolt.

Misconception 5: All prison guards are misanthropic sadists like the ones portrayed in the movies This is true. Not all of the guards. Maybe there are 2 or 3 percent who aren’t. The question I have never been able to answer to my satisfaction is whether working in prison turns people into officious petty dictators, or people with those traits are the ones attracted to prison work in the first place. Many of the guards we see here are former (or failed) military who arrive with bad haircuts and affected, tortured syntax and a love of acronyms while they double-dip their government pensions and strut around like Patton clones, shouting orders in what is known as “command voice.” I’d be willing to wager that given the choice between tossing a few back at the corner pub with a group of convicts or a group of prison guards, most of you who looked into it would opt for the convicts.

Misconception 6: Everything someone needs to survive in prison is supplied by the prison If bare survival is the goal, that might possibly be true. But over the course of a 10-year sentence — about average for a small to mid-level dope dealer, anyone who hoped to treat himself to a few luxury items like dental floss, or coffee, or a phone call home, or postage stamps, or even aspirin or cold pills, which are mainly available through the prison commissary, that person would have a problem. It’s a problem that will soon be getting worse, because the Bureau of Prisons has recently announced its intention to begin charging convicts a nominal fee for sick-call visits. If a $4 fee for someone who makes $5 a month can truly be called nominal. (We all have jobs in prison, but it’s like the old Soviet system under Communism: We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.) For the fortunate in the prison population for whom crime did pay, the $200 to $400 a month required in order to comfortably do his time does not represent a serious burden. However, for the person who is more accustomed to scores than to paychecks, who typically is not the sort of person who had put a little something away for a rainy day, comfort is something one strives for.

Misconception 7: Prison has a rehabilitative effect By removing us from the pressures and temptations of the money economy, prison supposedly affords convicts the opportunity and inclination to reflect on our evil ways and do penance. Hence the name “penitentiary.” Given that most convicts hit the door under pressure to earn, about 80 percent of the prison population is on a 24/7 hustle. Some hustles are even tacitly encouraged. Sanitation, for instance, is a high-priority item with all prison administrators. New arrivals are commonly told that their areas have to be cleaned every day, regardless of how that is accomplished. In a higher-security joint, enterprising types take this as authorization to seize all the mops, buckets and other cleaning supplies and establish a monopoly on cleaning that hardly anyone is inclined to break. After all, the crowd who needs to hustle and the crowd who needs, for reasons largely associated with perceived status, to have their cells professionally cleaned, are symbiotic, and two bucks a week is a cheap way to feel like a Mafia don. Laundry service is similarly tolerated by staff, who have come to accept that maximum usage of the limited laundry facilities in woefully overcrowded prisons is best achieved by people who are motivated by profit. Along these lines, a convict who is willing and able to pay can hire another convict to perform his assigned job. The cost of this is, naturally, many times what the prison pays. No one would really work for that. All of this contributes to what is known as “the orderly running of the institution,” and there isn’t anyone on either side of the bars who would argue that turning a blind eye to certain indiscretions is anything but sound management policy. Most hustles, however, are not so benignly regarded. Stealing, for instance, is frowned upon by everyone, though the sanctions imposed by the convict population are so much worse than anything the administration is allowed to employ that this is not as much of a problem as you might expect. Such is not the case with gambling, which is ubiquitous. Many a bookmaker has arrived in prison already feeling unfairly persecuted while the society he has just been exiled from is rife with church’s bingo games, volunteer fire departments’ Monte Carlo night and the NCAA Tournament pool that was hanging on the wall of the police station where he was taken after he was arrested. He finds himself in prison, immediately solicited to place bets or buy squares in pools for football games, basketball games, NASCAR races and the Daily Number. The first advice a newly arrived convict usually receives is to mind his own business, always pay his bills on time, and never get involved with gambling, dope or punks. The first piece of advice he usually ignores is the part about gambling. In the higher-security institutions, more convicts PC (check into protective custody) over gambling debts than for any other reason. There is plenty of dope in prison, which begs the question: If they can’t keep drugs out of a penitentiary with 30-foot walls, eight gun towers and a full-time security staff of 500, how do they expect to keep them from crossing the Mexican border? In most prisons, one can obtain the full array of intoxicants available on the street corner. In maximum-security joints, tastes run toward heroin, exorbitantly priced reefer (about $40/gram), and jailhouse wine made from either orange or tomato juice or, for the connoisseur, a very fine grape juice vintage aged 21 days in a plastic trash bag that most convicts say tastes almost as good as anything that can be had in a bottle with a twist-off cap. At a medium security facility, you’ll find less heroin and wine but more reefer. A minimum-security facility is about the same. Coke and hallucinogens are rare everywhere — there’s no sense getting too wound up with nowhere to go. At a camp where it is easiest to get things from the street there is, paradoxically, practically nothing to be had except for some occasional vodka, the drink of choice because of its mild smell. Convicts get transferred to camps, after all, for good behavior. Besides the dope biz, other hustles you find everywhere include extortion, prostitution, selling chow-hall food (your own and others’), making and selling greeting cards and other hobby-craft items (including fifis), selling loosies (single cigarettes), operating a 2-for-1 store with commissary items (take 1 now, pay for 2 later), doing legal work, really anything you can think of. In here it is still all about the money, and we don't have much time for rehabilitating or reflecting.

Misconception 8: Politicians are sending a message to potential criminals with harsh sentencing laws There is a consistent refrain among the John Ashcrofts and Donald Rumsfelds of the world that that person, or group of people, needs to be sent a message, usually in the form of some draconian punishment. Every week on the evening news you are likely to see some politician advocating the bastinado or drawing and quartering to send a message to jaywalkers or mopes. Hello out there. No one in here is listening. Do you really think that with the time and effort one must devote to a career in crime, not to mention staying out half the night carousing and sleeping ’til mid-afternoon, that any of us actually has time to watch the news or read the paper, let alone the Congressional Record or the Federal Register? These messages are spam, or junk mail, and ignored. Few of us will ever learn the penalty for anything until we get caught, at which point the message is useless unless, of course, the message really is a wink and a nod in the direction of you, the voter, to let you know that the government is going to continue to do its best to punish the people who do things that you don’t want them to do; so please continue to vote for me and, by all means, don’t think that this pat on the back is only a diversion to disguise a grab for your wallet. But that is too cynical for even a criminal like me to believe. Implicit in these messages is a misunderstanding of exactly what goes on in here. A criminal-defense lawyer who has defended hundreds of clients once told me that no one who goes to prison is ever the same again. I didn’t believe him. Convicts never believe anything anybody tells them. We are archetypal show-me guys. But it turns out that he was right, and I’m not talking about an increased tendency to dress in dark colors, wear sunglasses at inappropriate times, or believe that Vegas and Sinatra and Wayne Newton are really, really cool. Prison leaves an indelible mark on the soul. The results, however, are not what I believe the people who advocate it most are hoping for. So if we’re not rehabilitating, whatever that means, what are we doing? Everybody’s main activity, even more than hustling, is scheming. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Take a large group of people largely motivated by money and remove them from the economy during their prime earning years. The longer you do this, the more it increases their anxiety. Then, stigmatize them with a label that makes the possibility of a secure future via traditional means unlikely. Finally, when you set them free, place them under the thumb of a supervisory system designed to hassle them. What do you expect to happen? It is so obvious to me that I can’t see how anyone could believe that we are doing anything else in here but hatching schemes. The message we get by the time we’re paying attention is: You’re really screwed, so you’d better figure out what you’re going to do about it. Soon a lot more people will be getting that message. The feds are so happy about how the drug thing is working out that they are in the process of upping the ante for everyone. Just this year they doubled, and in some cases quadrupled, the sentencing guidelines for a bunch of white-collar offenses. I’ll leave a light on for you.

J. Incandenza is the pen name of an inmate currently serving 14 years in U.S. federal prison for drug-trafficking.

Blood for Oil!

Anybody with familiarity with international markets knew any "spoils" would be distributed by market forces. - Package

And Iraq's big oil contracts go to ...
Companies from China, India and other Asian nations are seen getting the first contracts. But don't write off Big Oil just yet.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
April 5 2007: 1:42 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq's new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein's government.
"The Chinese could announce something within the next few months" if all goes well with the oil law, said James Placke, a senior associate at Cambridge Energy Research Associates who specializes in the Middle East.
The Asian firms are at an advantage for several reasons.
First, less constrained by Western sanctions during the Hussein regime, they've been operating in Iraq and know the country's oilfields, said Falah Aljibury, an energy analyst who has advised several Iraqi oil ministers as well as other OPEC nations.
Aljibury said the first contracts likely awarded will be to the Chinese in the south central part of Iraq, the Vietnamese in the south, the Indians along the Kuwaiti border, and the Indonesians in the western desert.
The contracts under consideration are small.
Aljibury said the Chinese agreement is to produce about 70,000 barrels of oil a day, while the Vietnamese one is for about 60,000.
It's hard to put a dollar amount on what those contracts might be worth, as security costs, drilling conditions and the exact terms to be offered by Baghdad are unknown, said Christopher Ruppel, a senior geopolitical analyst with the consulting firm John S. Herold.
But the barrel amount is tiny even by Iraq's depressed post-war production of around 2 million barrels a day.
And the country is thought to be able to ramp up production to over 3 million barrels a day with fairly little effort, providing the security situation improves. Rosy estimates even have Iraq producing 6 million barrels a day in the long term, which would make it the world's No. 4 producer behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
But the Asian firms are also well positioned to grab further contracts.
Having avoided military entanglements in the region, they may curry more favor with the Iraqi people.
"They have no involvement with the secular or ethnic people," said Aljibury. "The conditions favor them."
Given its rapidly growing thirst for oil, combined with its feeling of isolation from world oil markets, China is sometimes viewed as more cavalierthan Western oil firms when it comes to putting capital and people at risk. That could lead them to sign contracts in violent Iraq sooner than Western firms.
"The Chinese seem to be willing to go places where other companies can't find workers to go," said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank.
But none of this suggests Western firms like ExxonMobil (Charts), Chevron (Charts), BP (Charts) and Royal Dutch Shell (Charts) will be completely cut out of the action.
First, their technical prowess is world renowned.
"I have not heard anything from any Iraqi ministers against U.S. oil companies," said Aljibury. "In fact, I have heard the opposite. They are the best in field exploration and development. They want them."
Second, Iraq's oil contract game has just begun.
According to a letter supplied by John S. Herold's Ruppel, memorandums of understanding have been signed with all the oil majors for several years. And Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has said the country plans to tender for major oil projects in the second half of 2007.
Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an industry watchdog group, criticized the draft oil law for allowing long-term oil contracts to be awarded to foreign oil firms, a practice he said was unique in the Middle East.
"Giving out a few crumbs to the Chinese and Indians is one thing," said Kretzmann, who noted the draft law was seen by both the Bush administration and the International Monetary Fund before it was given to Iraq's parliament. "But the real prize are the contracts that award long-term rights. I think the [Western oil companies] are biding their time."

http://xkcd.com/c202.html

http://www.proteinwisdom.com/

“HBO promises ‘fair’ recount movie made by Dem donors”
Truthiness in Technicolor!

HBO is planning to make an unbiased film, titled “Recount” and scheduled to premiere early next year, about the 2000 presidential election.
That could be difficult, if not impossible, to pull off, because the director, executive producer, and writer of the movie are all Democrats. Oh, and Colin Callender, the president of HBO Films, is also a D.
The Hollywood Reporter this week quoted Callender as saying the movie won’t take sides and instead would be “a fascinating look at democracy.” Callender has made political donations to then-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Executive Producer Paula Weinstein, who has given to Sens. Clinton, Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), praised Sydney Pollack for being the only director able to deal with the “dramatic twists and turns of the story with honesty and truthfulness.”
Pollack has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats over the years. Some of the recipients were Clinton, Boxer, and California Reps. Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters. In 1999, however, he gave to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Daniel Strong, the writer of “Recount,” has claimed he did detailed research and conducted numerous interviews with the people involved.
That is news to one Republican operative who was in the middle of the hanging-chad controversy, who said he knows of no Florida Republican — including former Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) — who was interviewed by Strong.
Len Amato, the senior vice president of HBO Films who gave $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004, said he can understand the concerns, but noted that his company has a long track record of thoroughly researching its historical topics before filming them.
“Our main intention is getting the story right,” Amato said.
He said the political donations to Democrats will not affect the film, claiming HBO will “bend over backwards” to make the movie fair.

Well, I believe somebody will be bent over, sure. But somehow I doubt it will be Al Gore.

For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do …

As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed old-fashioned Values? You—you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for the instance, is the way it runs.

SECURITY surrounding the Dalai Lama has been tightened after reports of an attempt by the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba to assassinate the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Maybe the Dalai Lama should ask: "Why do they hate me?"

Food-safety experts share some advice: ‘Don’t eat poop’

By PHYLLIS JACOBS GRIEKSPOOR
McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
MANHATTAN, Kan.

- E. coli in the spinach.
Salmonella in the peanut butter.
Listeria in the hot dogs.
Seven major food recalls since July.
The Food Safety Network, which has a new home at Kansas State University, is dedicated to stopping the epidemic of food contamination that sickens 76 million people - one out of every four Americans - and kills 5,000 each year.
The network combines public awareness with an Internet-based information service and research projects in an effort to educate growers, consumers and workers.
Microbiologist Doug Powell started the organization more than a decade ago at the University of Guelph in Canada. Now an associate professor of food safety in Kansas State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Powell is outspoken on good farming practices and good worker hygiene and blunt about what needs to be done.
‘‘It boils down to three words,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t eat poop.’’
Simple as Powell’s advice sounds, food safety is far more complicated, he admits.
Microbial contamination - such as E. coli or salmonella - is not visible, and has no taste and no smell. It can come from any number of sources along a chain of growing, harvesting, processing, packaging and selling. It can come from water that drains from a livestock operation and runs through a field after a rain. It can come from irrigation water drawn from a contaminated pond.
It can come from processing vats, storage bags, tools, or workers’ hair, skin or saliva.
While food scientists agree that proper cooking will kill most kinds of harmful bacteria, nobody is convinced that the bulk of consumers know what proper cooking is.
‘‘Most people just open the package and stick it the microwave for a couple of minutes,’’ Powell said. ‘‘If it’s steaming, it’s done.
‘‘The only way to be sure of the internal temperature of food is to measure it with a thermometer. But how often do people really do that? And even if they do use a thermometer, do they know the right way to insert it to get an accurate reading?”
The Food Safety Network will soon begin a research project to try to answer some of those questions.
The two-year effort, funded by a grant from the American Meat Institute, will study consumer behavior using uncooked, frozen, breaded poultry products. However, the knowledge gained will be relevant to all types of food processors, said Randy Phebus, a food microbiologist and professor of food safety who is Powell’s partner on the project.
‘‘We will bring people into a test kitchen, hand them the products and tell them to cook it like they would at home,’’ Powell said. ‘‘We’ll have a video camera in the room to document what they do for later study.’’
Following an Indiana company’s recall of a frozen, uncooked poultry product last year, the federal government issued guidelines requiring companies to clearly label uncooked products and include a statement such as ‘‘must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F as measured by use of a thermometer’’ in a prominent spot on the package.
‘‘What we want to see is whether or not people read that - and if they do, how closely they follow the instructions,’’ Powell said.
Phebus said many consumers rely on time rather than temperature when microwaving frozen food products.
He said most are also unaware of their microwave’s power level or how it might affect whether their food is adequately cooked.
Public education is another of the Food Safety Network’s goals.
The organization’s Web site is sponsored by Kansas State University.
The network sells T-shirts that read ‘‘Don’t Eat Poop’’ on the front and ‘‘Wash Your Hands, The Food Safety Network’’ on the back.
It also has printed and distributed fliers to restaurants, using catchy art and humor to reinforce the simple message of ‘‘Wash Your Hands,’’ and has put videos on popular entertainment sites, including YouTube and MySpace.
The idea, Powell said, is to make people think and ask about safe food.
‘‘What needs to happen is that people need to stop the pretty talk about ‘natural, locally grown, fresh, organic produce’ and get serious about microbes,’’ Powell said.
‘‘Forget about wholesome whatever and farm sunshine. What we need is bacteria-free produce.’’

ON THE NET
Food Safety Network: http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu
Don't Eat Poop: http://www.donteatpoop.com