Category Archives: Wacky and Weird

Michigan women put heroin in recovery home manager’s food in poisoning attempt

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Sarnia is known as the armpit of Ontario, because it’s a chokepoint at the end of Lake Huron and full of oil refineries.

It’s the home of Canadian rockers, Max Webster and nothing else I can think of.

My first wife, the veterinarian with whom I had four beautiful daughters, whomst (I know that’s not a word) have now spawned three grandsons, was from Sarnia.

She would remind me occasionally that she got paid to castrate males of various species.

I slept comfortably for years.

Across the river on the American side is a town called Port Huron.

According to Roberto Acosta of M Live, these two (left) allegedly attempted to poison a recovery home manager by dumping heroin in her dinner.

Officers with the Port Huron Police Department were sent out around 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13 to the home in the 1200 block of Lapeer Road where the 38-year-old victim resided with the two women and others.

The victim is the recovery home manager who heard rumors that she was being poisoned by the two clients, police said.

One of the suspects is believed to have placed heroin in the victim’s macaroni and cheese on Friday, Jan. 11. The victim thought the food tasted funny and eventually discarded the meal.

Port Huron road patrol officers and detectives investigated the incident. The victim was treated at McLaren Port Huron and evidence was obtained by police indicating she’d been poisoned.

Shanna Marie Kota, 39, and Sarah Elaine Prange, 22, were later arrested and lodged in the St. Clair County Intervention Center. Both suspects were arraigned Tuesday, Jan. 15 and pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of poisoning, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, and had their bonds set at $100,000 each, according to district court records.

The suspects are scheduled to be back in court later this month for a probable cause conference.

As a side note, when students collect news, we try to get them to verify the geographical location.

When this story came up, it was labelled Missouri.

My second partner spent part of her youth in Missouri. And part in Michigan.

Anyone who has watched the TV show, Ozarks, knows Missouri is its own special kind of place.

The French professor may not know veterinary technique, but it may not matter?

Is it BS? Restaurant issues an apology after customer finds a rat in their soup

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I never liked Vancouver.

People in Brisbane, they think Canada ends at Banff and Vancouver is some idyllic Canadiana, but to me it’s junkie haven.

Never liked it.

And what kind of popular eatery would serve a rat in a customer’s soup?
Or have some bullshit where a customer would fake a ploy?

That’s the Vancouver I’m familiar with.

The customer posted a video of the rodent in their soup on Instagram.


The Vancouver Sun reports the customer posted the video on Instagram Thursday after they discovered the rodent in their soup at Crab Park Chowdery. The restaurant is well known for serving soups and clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowls. Its owner, Ashton Phillips, says he does not understand how the rodent got into the soup and that the restaurant follows strict health code regulations. He added that a female customer was the one who found the rat in her soup.

“We are doing everything we can to figure out what happened. You have to lid soup. This is a food safety measure and we always take it. It’s just impossible that a rat got in there. We are baffled.”

Everyone has a camera – even the restaurant operators

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Doug and I have been talking about marketing food safety for years – the oft misunderstood concept. If you’re doing a good job at food safety tell everyone about it – differentiate yourself from your competitors. Complementing this idea is transparency and disclosure. Everyone has a camera.

In 2005 some keen public health folks in Korea started soliciting food safety-related pictures from diners as they ate and ordered at restaurants. The authorities wanted to enlist citizens to look for violations to place additional pressure on businesses to be decent food safety citizens – and to fine them for bad practices.

Five years ago we started a project, citizen food safety, on Instagram. Collectively capturing food safety, in the broadest terms through the lens of the camera phone-wielding public. This wasn’t just for the food safety nerds; its for the Interweb’s population of eaters: the regular folks who shop, eat at restaurants, visit farmers markets, cook or eat.

The hashtag #citizenfoodsafety still pops up sometimes on social media.

According to Xinhuanet, Health officials in the Chinese city of Hangzhou are actively calling on restaurant operators to be more transparent and put up cameras and offer patrons a live look on what’s going on in the kitchen. I love it. This advances #citizenfoodsafety.

Sure, folks can do weird stuff in blind spots, but this is a cool progression.

In an effort to alleviate food safety concerns that shroud China’s booming takeout services, the capital city of Zhejiang Province said over 150 restaurants had offered such services on a popular takeout app.

Hangzhou’s administration for market regulation said it was part of the city’s campaign to turn its eateries into “sunshine restaurants,” which install cameras or have open kitchens to allow for customer supervision.

The online live vetting aims to eliminate the “blind spot” as more restaurants jump on the mobile internet bandwagon to promote their takeout services, said Wang Jinchao, an official with the administration.

Consumers will feel relieved as they can see what happens in the kitchen, while the restaurants will be prompted to comply with the rules, according to Wang.

Good news after young man’s fingers trapped in meat mincer

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My grandfather lost a couple of his fingers — not lost at the mall but ffixing combines back in the day.

My father and others would send me inside when I was 12-years-old to hold bolts while they were tightened.

I thought about gramps lost fingers.

Sally White of The Canberra Times writes the owners of M & K Meats in Lanyon Marketplace have confirmed the young man whose hand was caught in a meat grinder in an accident on Thursday has retained all his fingers.

“Still the owner of all ten fingers, he will be OK,” a Facebook post said with a smiley face emoji.

“Our young fella, Jack, was involved in an accident that resulted in a medium risk workplace injury.”

The post said the store would be trading as usual on Friday and thanked emergency services for the prompt response and thorough care.

WorkSafe ACT is investigating the incident and had previously been seeking to speak to a member of the public who may have witnessed the incident. The witness has since come forward.

Firefighters had to manually disassemble the meat mincer at M and K Meats at the Lanyon Market Place after the young worker’s hand became trapped in the meat grinder.

‘I spent $50000 on IVF… and it failed’

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There isn’t much food safety stuff that interests me, but writers gotta write.

An Australian woman spent $50,000 on in vitro fertilization, and it didn’t work.

We spent less than $1,000 10 years ago on a turkey baster procedure and it worked first go (tough hockey chicks, right)

It’s not a big secret, since it was written up in the USA Today back in 2011, but I find it helpful to have frank discussions about biology.

And if the virgin Mary was miraculously inseminated, she could only have a daughter. It’s that X and Y chromosome thing.

Glitter not always so good says FDA

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This holiday season, the Food and Drug Administration has issued an important, somehow not obvious piece of advice to the public: Please don’t eat or use glitter in your baked goods unless it’s clearly labeled as edible.

Ed Cara of Gizmodo writes the FDA’s advice came courtesy of a consumer update sent out Friday morning. The update featured a short video showcasing an admittedly delicious-looking cake covered in non-edible glitter.

“FDA wants you to be aware that some decorative glitters and dusts promoted for use on foods may, in fact, contain materials that should not be eaten,” the agency said. “But consumers need to be aware that these materials may contain materials that should not be eaten.”

Amazingly, it’s not the first time the FDA has felt obligated to step in and tell people to put down the forkful of glitter. In November, the agency sent out a warning about the trend, which itself was an update to a similar warning released in 2016. The origin of the mess seems to be tied to a trend in recent years of celebrity bakers, cooking shows, and restaurants using decorative glitter on their cakes and other treats.

Luckily for those hoping to reenact their preschool days, there are lots of sparkly products that are perfectly safe to eat. According to the agency, these usually spell out on their labels that they are edible, or contain ingredients like sugar, acacia (gum arabic), maltodextrin, cornstarch, and color additives specifically approved for food use. Glitters with no list of ingredients or with labels that only say they’re “non-toxic” or “decorative” probably aren’t the kind for eating. Don’t eat those ones.

Own it: Amy Schumer is still barfing in pregnancy

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Amy Schumer‘s ongoing pregnancy with severe nausea is following the comedian into the second trimester of her pregnancy — and she shared it with fans in her second graphic vomiting video on Saturday.

Back in November, Schumer, 37, was hospitalized for hyperemesis gravidarum — a condition marked by persistent sickness and can lead to dehydration and weight loss.

According to People the health crisis caused the I Feel Pretty star to postpone dates on her comedy tour. And though she’s since returned to the stage and powered through, her vomiting hasn’t stopped.

On Saturday, Schumer posted an Instagram video of her getting sick over a toilet. “Hi I thought it might be fun to see me throwing up in a public bathroom,” she said.

Sorta like this food safety asshole (upper right).

Beggar’s Banquet

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Beggar’s Banquet is 50 years old.

It marked the beginning of Rolling Stones greatness for the next three albums, from 1968-72.

Me and my best friend from high-school are both dying, one way or another, but we listened to Beggar’s Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street for hours in my basement, about 1977, long after they were released.

I used to have Mick Taylor hair.

I also was lunchtime DJ for a couple of years in high school and would play a lots of Stones, Zeppelin, and others, while the kids all wanted disco.

This what I still use to get me going in the a.m.

Surveys still suck; so do organics

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As my friend Farmer Jeff used to say, 20 years ago, if someone can make a living farming, even if it involves duping consumers, more power to the farmers.

I have a less charitable view and figure it’s primarily 21st century snake oil.

Ashley Nicole of Produce Retailer reports that 45 per cent of U.S. adults believe organic fruits and vegetables are healthier than conventional produce, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

That share has fallen from two years ago, when 55% of people responded that they viewed organic produce as better for them.

Groups that more heavily favor organic fruits and vegetables include younger people, people who care about the topic of genetic modification of food, and people who buy organic.

 

Preschoolers were supposed to get apple juice at snack time. They got Pine-Sol instead

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Amy B Wang of the Washington Post writes that officials at a preschool in Hawaii have apologized after young children were given Pine-Sol instead of apple juice to drink during a morning snack time, a mix-up that health officials said occurred because the two liquids were “the same color.”

The incident involving the household cleaning liquid took place on Tuesday at the preschool at Kilohana United Methodist Church in Honolulu.

A classroom assistant prepared the snacks — which should have been crackers and apple juice — in the preschool’s kitchen, according to an inspection report by the Hawaii State Department of Health.

Instead of juice, however, the assistant reportedly grabbed a container of Pine-Sol, a decades-old brand of household cleaner that comes in a variety of scents, though none particularly reminiscent of apple juice.

The preschool’s cleaning supplies are “stored below the kitchen sink and in the janitors room,” the report stated, while food items “are properly stored and labeled in the kitchen cabinets.”

“I think it’s extremely terrifying,” parent Turina Lovelin told KHON News. “It’s very, very scary, but it’s hard for me, or any of the people that I’ve spoken to, to understand how it happened in the first place.”