These two folding chairs have been in my family since before I was born. I believe they were part of a larger set. I can’t recall how many years ago I adopted them but they’ve served me well. I used to take pictures of my action figure collections on these chairs. I believe they helped play host to countless poker nights for my family as well.

I spilled paint all over them a couple years ago but that’s not why I had to throw them out. The metal was bending so badly, you slipped off them. They couldn’t be bent back into shape.

So I had to put them out with the garbage.

I don’t think I’m being overly sentimental when I say that it’s hard to throw old stuff out. Always consider whether it can be fixed first but, when the time comes, you will have to put that dear old thing out on the curb.

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Daily Kos diarist Asinus Asinum Fricat discusses a new study that reveals high fructose corn syrup leads to high levels of triglycerides.

Yet another damaging HFCS report surfaces: researchers from the Monell Center in Philadelphia report that overweight people who drank a fructose-sweetened beverage with a meal had triglyceride levels almost 200 per cent higher than the same group who drank a glucose-sweetened beverage with a meal. In plain words triglycerides are manufactured by the body from dietary fat and function as fat transporters. While normal levels of triglycerides are essential for good health, increased levels have been linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

It’s a must read for anyone concerned about America’s diet. The diary is also a good primer on the negative affects of high fructose corn syrup on the body.

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While not as big a news story as the new President or the economy, there has been an underreported mass contamination in our food supply… again. This time it’s salmonella in peanuts. After a few weeks of warnings and recalls, the trail still leads back to how the food has been processed:

Food and Drug Administration officials called for a recall of all products containing peanut butter, peanut paste and peanut oil manufactured since Jan. 1, 2007 at the Blakely, Ga., processing center operated by Peanut Corp. of America.

That could vastly increase the number of recalled food and other products in the nation’s consumer supply.

Additional strains of salmonella also have been detected at the plant, although federal officials emphasized they have confirmed no illnesses beyond those associated with the current Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak.

“Peanut Corp” is too good to be true, a parody of the industrialization of food.

This mass contamination may well be the biggest in America yet. But the scariest part is that we do not yet know the full scope of the

More than 500 people have gotten sick in the outbreak, which has been linked to at least eight deaths. More than 400 products containing peanut butter or peanut paste have been recalled so far. They range from Asian-style cooking sauces, to ice cream, to dog treats.

“It’s among the largest recalls that we’ve had,” said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “We don’t have a good idea how much of that product is still out there.”

My goodness, that’s a lot of peanuts. It’s remarkable to see how dependent America’s peanut craving is on one ‘processing center’ in Blakely, Georgia. What would happen if this was tomatoes, for example, which show up in many more processed foods? By centralizing our agriculture and food production for efficiency, we have put ourselves at risk.

Not only is that processing center susceptible to an outbreak, it is also susceptible to terrorism. The next think you’d like to know perhaps is how the security is around these facilities. You wouldn’t like the answer.

In reaping the benefits of mass produced foods through lower prices, have we also accepted nationwide warnings on our kitchen staples? Not to mention the illnesses and deaths that alert us to the contaminations?

So presently all the fuss is that Nutter Butters are unavailable but the fuss should be about why they aren’t available. If this is going to be a new era of responsibility, we should take a long hard look at how we produce and distribute food.

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The forests of the American west benefit from large federal and state park protections and even large private forested estates. From the tropical rain forests of the Pacific Northwest to the seas of Montana and Wyoming pines, the great western forests have resisted the destruction that comes with humankind better than their cousins to the east.

But multiple reports this week have bad news for our western woods. The US Geological Survey explains in the latest Science that the loss of old-growth forests has doubled in recent years. Warming has promoted the spread of insects like the pine beetle and human development has drained the water supply. Alarming news:

The trend is happening at every elevation, in trees of different sizes and of various species, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey and universities reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

“Our long-term monitoring shows that tree mortality has been climbing, while the establishment of replacement trees has not,” USGS scientist Phil van Mantgem, a co-leader of the research team, said in a statement.

Tree mortality doubled in just 17 years in the Pacific Northwest and 25 years in California. Mortality rates in states farther inland took 29 years to double.

The authors ruled out several factors — including air pollution, crowding and fire suppression impacts — as being significant drivers since the trend has been consistent in all areas and among all age groups studied.

Moreover, “because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality rates cannot be attributed solely to aging of large trees,” the researchers wrote in Science.

The grim tale of deforestation has been told over and over (usually the story of the Brazilian rainforests): animal habitats are destroyed, food chains are irreparably broken, erosion and landscape degradation accelerate, etc. Not to mention the loss of the aesthetic, the majesty and mysticism of “the woods”.

What’s just as worrisome is that our dying forests become dry wood to fuel fires. The Associated Press reports that just Colorado and Wyoming have 3 million acres of dead forest.

Because America’s forests are in graver danger than ever, we have immediate need of an aggressive, coast-to-coast reforestation strategy.

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Caitlin and I have been thinking a lot about the quality of our vegetables especially after learning how America’s produce has been so industrialized. The reason these big spinach scares take place now is a direct result of the industrialization of American produce. Some 30 million heads of lettuce pass through a single lettuce plant in a week. All it takes is one contaminant one day to get into the system and almost all of America’s lettuce is affected. Such centralization also opens America to a terrorist attack on its agricultural system.

Caitlin and I don’t have a Whole Foods in our neighborhood but we try to hit the Manhattan ones as often as we can. It’s the best we can do for now though we’re on the verge of joining our local coop, the popular one in Park Slope.

Check out this presentation…

These pictures were taken at the Whole Foods in Tribeca. Everything on the shelf was fresh, clean, and unspoiled - a miracle by NYC grocery store standards.

But why does one have to go to Union Square to spend more on groceries to have a good diet? Why can’t we all get an equal opportunity to healthy local foods? I will spend a great amount of time on this page talking about the crisis of America’s diet. We are getting sick on the garbage we eat and we need to change our eating habits post post haste.

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My brother and I put up my mother’s Christmas tree on Sunday but we had the damnedest time getting it straight. I knew the problem was that he had picked out a terrible tree. He knew the problem was my inability to put the screws into the trunk right. But after putting our fraternal instincts aside and an hour of tweaking, standing back, tweaking, repeating, we realized that neither of us was the problem. It was the tree stand.

We were using probably the most popular type of tree stand on the market…

You can get these things for ten bucks on a New York street corner. You have to assemble the pieces because it folds up for easy storage. And it’s made of aluminum. My brother and I realized the problem was that our tree had bent the tree stand; the bowl was touching the floor. Our tree was like a weeble wobble.

My brother then remembered that we had “the old tree stand” still stowed out in the garage. We weren’t sure why it was up there. It must have been broken. It wasn’t broken. The old tree stand was unused maybe because it’s reputation depreciated with time. It was bad because it was old?

The old stand is made of stainless steel and solidly built. (No parts would slip out of place because I missed something during assembly.) Made in Michigan. We unfolded the legs, dropped the tree in, it stood up perfectly straight and we screwed it in place. Perfect…

You can still get Christmas tree stands as good as this old gem. But it’s going to cost you sixty bucks.

In the age of big box marts and discount shopping, we have chosen to forego quality in some places. What used to be made of wood is made of metal. What used to be made of metal is made of plastic. We skimp on quality when we see those low prices. (One of the reasons inflation has remained so manageable for two decades is our lowered expectations. Something I’ll talk more about later.) It’s why there’s lead in our toys and coal slag in our cat food. And it’s why a good Christmas tree stand is hard to find.

The truth may be that, in 2008, Christmas tree stands are supposed to cost sixty bucks. That’s the price we should expect to pay for a Christmas tree stand. When my brother and I are struggling to get the tree up for hours, well, it’s because we were only willing to shell out eleven bucks for the aluminum stand. We got what we paid for.

I’m glad this business with the tree stand came up; it was a perfect opportunity for me to raise the issue of quality. What do we consider a quality life? Can we raise our expectations? What are the obstacles to a quality life? One of my themes for this blog next year will be quality.

Oh, and do yourself a favor. Go and order one of those stainless steel Christmas tree stands. You will thank yourself for it this time next year.

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