The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Better watch out for the cucumber that ate Hamburg, for he may eat your city soon

    By David Seaton on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 2:42pm |

    The number of people hit by a massive European outbreak of foodborne bacterial infections is a third bigger than previously known and a stunningly high number of patients suffer from a potentially deadly complication than can shut down their kidneys, officials said Wednesday. Associated Press

    You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago,

    For he may eat your city soon.

    You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago,

    If he's still hungry, the whole country's doomed.

    The Eggplant that Ate Chicago

    Is this “simply” a very bad on-farm breakdown of Good Agricultural Practices? Is the outbreak the result of an exceptionally toxic warehouse somewhere in the supply chain? Could it possibly be agro-terrorism, as unthinkable as that prospect is? - The Packer

    "Could it possibly be agro-terrorism, as unthinkable as that prospect is?" That is a haunting phrase if ever there was one.

    Reasons for thinking it could be:

    1. Osama bin Laden was killed recently and Al Qaeda has promised a spectacular response.
    2.  Documents captured way back in Tora-Bora days, showed that even at that time Al Qaeda was investigating using human feces cultures to develop deadly pathogens as a simple, cheap method with which to sabotage the enemy's (our) food distribution systems.
    3. It is doable. Wholesale food distribution, loading, unloading, classifying, re-packing for retail: the vegetables and fruit we eat pass through countless hands on the way to our tables and many of those hands are minimum wage immigrants, therefore the selection of employees cannot be very rigorous... it is proving immensely difficult to determine exactly where the infection has its origins.
    4. As we can see with the German, "cucumber panic" our food distribution systems, with their huge volume, are complex, sophisticated and vulnerable.  Moreover, if anything affects them, it receives enormous media coverage everywhere, because the idea that the food we buy in the supermarket might kill us is extremely disturbing to modern city dwellers entirely dependent on said distribution systems. If this proved to be Al Qaeda's work the resulting terror and paranoia would be indescribable
    5. German public opinion is very unenthusiastic about Germany's participation in the war in Afghanistan and generally hostile to German military adventures of any kind. Jihadists poisoning cucumbers to kill German hausfraus might be the straw that breaks the camel's back and has them running for the Afghan doors.

    At this writing we don't yet know the exact causes of this infection, which is drawing the fascinated horror of the developed world. And even if turns out to be only fortuitous or simply human error or cupidity, we have been given a sobering reminder of how artificial our world has become and how helplessly vulnerable we might find ourselves in the midst of all our power and wealth.

    Crossposted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

     

    Comments

    So, ummm..... it's either Al Qaeda and the jihadists.... or Spain, and lousy agricultural practices.

    Gee. 

    How about that Spain, eh? 


    by quinn esq on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 4:39pm

    Drones of Death armed with rare deadly e coli flying over Spanish cucumber fields and controlled by jihadists operating from secret hydroelectric powered caves in tribal areas of Pakistan?


    by NCD on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 5:13pm

    The infection apparently comes from somewhere in the distribution chain in Germany. The only person in Spain with the infection had just returned from Germany. Imagine a conveyor belt with millions of cucumbers traveling down it on their way to be packaged and hundreds of packers and inspectors... Not that difficult to introduce an aerosol into that scenario.

     


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 1:54am

    Spain doesn't have anything to do with it apparently.... except Spanish farmers have lost a lot of money and are going to sue the Germans. The only Spanish person infected had just returned from a trip to Germany. What is especially suspicious is that the doctors have never seen anything like this before.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 1:41am

    From the Financial Times:

    (...) Cucumbers grown in greenhouses in southern Spain were initially identified by German officials, and by the European Commission, as the source of a deadly strain of the E. coli bacteria behind an outbreak of severe illness centred on northern Germany.

    The accusations, which were unproven and now appear to be unfounded, have not only damaged the important Spanish and Dutch horticultural export industries – forcing angry farmers to throw away unsold produce – they have also deepened Spanish resentment at the attitude of German politicians towards their southern partners in the eurozone.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 2:06am

    What we have here is the French and the Germans wanting to control the Eurozone on monetary policy to the benefit of their respective banks and financial institutions.


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 12:20pm

    The New Egyptian Al Qaeda Number One just took credit for the herpes epidemic they planted among the horses of the Western Riding Circuit.  He aplogized for accidentally infecting the Arabians, though.

    Translators of the video quoted Saif al-Adel as saying, "Fuck.  What kind of assholes are we who accidentally murdered those noble Arabians of the gentle, small heads?  I will make sure they will find double their rewards as martyrs in Paradise!  Death to the Great Satan!  Let them ride Hobby Horses!"  (He was heard off-camera whispering if this failure might demote him to one of the 43  Number Twos....)

                                             


    by we are stardust on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 5:36pm

    y' really don't wanna be #2--they drop like flies, whereas #1 serves a solid ten year term...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 9:21pm

    That's one of the Number Two's, JR. 


    by we are stardust on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 9:52pm

    The horse thing does have a look of sabotage about it,,, How do the horses get infected? Laughing


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 1:56am

    Rumor has it, someone introduced to America a new blood line from Spain. Laughing


    by Resistance on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 6:15am

    I thought herpes came from sexual contact.Surprised


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:35am

    Unprotected sex, of course.  Damn Pope.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:37am

    Do Protestant and Jewish horses use condoms?


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:50am

    LOL! 

    Nah, but the Pope was instrumental in governments and the WHO cutting funding for equine family planning clinics that instead promoted abstinence.  Condom use plummeted, but horses will be horses...


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 10:35am

    Seriously though, equine genital herpes seems to be acute, not chronic as it is in humans.  And the dangers seem to be secondary infection.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:50am

    Dunno, Dave.  Awhile back people here were getting really sick from eating at Yo Quiero, and it ended up that their lettuce supplier in California was irrigating with water laced with E. Coli.  It may have been the case in which a neighboring farm was flushing fresh-ish sewage over the ground and it got into the lettuce irrigation.  I forget.  But soometimes there are causes which are stupid, careless, doing stuff on the cheap, cavalier...but not terrorism.  All kinds of bacterial strains are mutating, many of them because docs are over-treating with anti-biotics.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:14am

    They're sure now that the origin of the outbreak is not in Spain and the Spanish government will probably sue the Hamburg authorities for saying that it was.


    by David Seaton on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:34am

    Here's the WHO page about it.  The ever-gaudy MSNBC home page talks about bacterial gene-swapping and the ability of some bacteria and viruses to jump from animals to humans (ebola, etc.).


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:41am