Here is a story that will allow you to connect to your Hispanic audience on a topic that non-Hispanics may know nothing about.
New meat rules that are the result of concern over Mad Cow begin today, and the rules will stop traditional Mexican restaurants from serving some traditional ethnic favorites.
Tripas are savory, deep-fried chunks of small intestines that are folded into tortillas with onions, cilantro, and lime. If you have an authentic Mexican restaurant (not Taco Bell) in your town — trust me, they will know what this is. Tacos de sesos (brain) is also off-limits. (See this USDA rule.) I can understand that some people may think eating such stuff is sickening, but so is sausage and hot dogs when you give it much thought.
Treat this topic with some understanding and respect and you will come away with an interesting story.
Tom Mallory, Weekend Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune sent a fine story on this issue to Al’s Morning Meeting. The paper reported:
Tripas and other ethnic specialty dishes will be harder to come by starting today. The USDA has banned high-risk body parts including the brain, skull, nervous system, and eyes of cattle 30 months and older, and the tonsils and lower portion of the small intestine of cattle of all ages.
The changes come following the discovery last month of mad cow disease in Washington state. Scientists say cattle aren’t affected by mad cow disease until they are between 2 years old and 3 years old.
The paper also said:
A USDA spokesman said yesterday that it is safe to eat beef brains and small intestines already at the store or a taco shop.
“There is no reason to believe it’s unsafe,” said Steven Cohen, spokesman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection program. “We’re just talking about lowering the risk factor with additional safeguards.”
Cattle brains, spinal tissue, eyeballs, and small intestines can contain abnormal forms of proteins called prions that are widely believed to cause mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Scientists say humans who eat these parts from infected cows can develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a brain-wasting illness that has killed at least 153 people in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly in the United Kingdom.
The USDA website includes information in Spanish.
The Union-Tribune says:
Obviously other ethnicities may also be affected by the ruling. What other native dishes might restaurants serve that involve the now-banned parts of cattle?
People who eat tripas and other uncommon beef parts are an important market, said Bruce Berven, a spokesman for Selma-based Harris Ranch Beef Co., (California’s) leading beef processor. The company processes some 250,000 head of cattle a year and makes between $1.50 and $2 per head off small intestines.
The new regulations divide the small intestine for the first time into a lower and upper section, and only the lower section is banned.
We’ll Miss Marty
We lost a great journalist this weekend. Marty Haag, a former WFAA Dallas news director, mentor, and teacher, died Saturday. Click here to go to Poynter’s collection of stories about Marty’s remarkable career. The Dallas Morning News pointed out, “A number of reporters who worked for Mr. Haag went on to the network level, including Scott Pelley, Paula Zahn, Verne Lundquist, Bill O’Reilly, Leeza Gibbons, Bill Macatee, Andrea Joyce, Peter Van Sant, and Russ Mitchell.”
We also ask you to post your memories of Marty on our special collections page.
To the Moon, Alice!
Looks like we will find out this week what President Bush has in mind for the American space program. It is interesting that the plans being kicked around right now are not international in nature, but American. Why is that? The answer may be included in this paragraph from The New York Times: “Congressional aides also said they expected the announcement to detail a reorganization of the nation’s space effort, to bring the military and civilian sides closer together to make better use of limited resources.”
Slate says:
While the L.A. Times says the proposal is expected to be a “comprehensive blueprint for NASA’s future,” an administration official tells The New York Times the proposal could be “broad and open-ended.”
Any mission likely wouldn’t be launched until nearly a decade from now — and even that date is up in the air, the papers note, because of a series of lingering questions. One, how would it be paid for; what spacecraft would be used? In 10 years, NASA’s current fleet of shuttles will be more than 30 years old, and NASA officials still have no idea how to replace them.
(By the way if you are not getting the Slate e-mail summarizing the daily fronts of the 5 biggest daily papers, you should. I love it.)
Space Spinoffs?
Here is a way to localize the space plan story. Industries, inventors, and manufacturers in every state have adapted NASA technology to make new products. NASA even has an magazine, Spinoff, that tracks the commercial transfer of space technology. Spinoff magazine keeps this cool database that lets you look in various product sectors to see what has been invented using NASA technology.
Just think of all of the stuff we would have to invent to get to Mars. Exploration to the unknown always forces invention. I am not talking about Tang. Here are just some of the useful everyday things that have come to us from our space program:
- Medical imaging
- Cordless tools
- Advanced plastics
- Microprocessors
But it goes way beyond the everyday things you enjoy. NASA technology was recently developed to test car rollover rankings.
There’s a lot more. NASA says:
The pilot of a small disabled, single-engine airplane, which floated to a safe landing instead of crashing, can thank NASA and a Minnesota company. The pilot walked away from what would have been a catastrophic crash with just a stiff neck. In 1994, NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awarded Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS), Inc., of South St. Paul, Minn., an SBIR Phase I contract to develop a “low-cost, lightweight, aircraft-emergency recovery system.” In Oct. 2002, a pilot released his single engine aircraft’s parachute and landed safely in a Texas mesquite tree grove. The pilot was uninjured, and there was minimal damage to the plane. The safe landing made aviation history, as it was the first emergency application of an airframe parachute on a certified aircraft.
NASA developed an image stabilization system that has been used in a dozen criminal cases with police and the FBI. VISAR works by turning dark, jittery images — captured by home video, security systems, and video cameras in police cars — into clearer, stable images that reveal clues about crimes. It does what other image stabilization processes cannot, correct for changes in orientation and size. It was used to analyze the Olympic Park bombing videos from Atlanta and the Space Shuttle disasters.
For example, here is how technology is being used to develop food and food-related products. Here is just a whiff of the computer spinoffs from NASA.
Here is a list of “success stories” involving the transfer of space technology to the private sector for development. You can search this easy-to-use page to find businesses near you that have used NASA technology to make a product. I have to say, just searching these pages reminds me how many smart people we have around us.
Remember my friends, the point of space travel is not the destination, it is what you learn along the journey of getting there.
Ford Wants U-Haul to End Ban on Explorers (Follow-Up)
As a follow-up to Friday’s Al’s Morning Meeting story, Ford is now talking with U-Haul to try to persuade the rental company to end its ban on leasing trailers to drivers with Ford Explorers. See this story from Bloomberg.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
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