Professors on strike

Thursday, September 24, 2009 is the scheduled date of the University of California Professors Strike.

College professors on strike? If you look at the list, they are calling for a strike on all of the UC campuses-- Berkeley, LA, Riverside, Irvine, San Diego, San Francisco, Davis, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Merced. I was also told that certain staff will be participating in this strike as well.

Their list of demands is relatively simple: 1. People paid under $40K/year should not have to experience a paycut 2. Re-address the furlough issue 3. Make UC spending more transparent.

It will be interesting to see the results. How many professors will actually follow through on the strike? The list is primarily humanities and liberal arts professors.

Truthfully, the loss of a single day of classes (especially the first day) is minor for most undergraduate college students. I assume most professors will compensate by creating a heavier homework load for a few days and/or spending less time on less important material. In practical terms, one day less of classes has as much impact on learning/teaching as expecting professors to take furloughs.

When I was an undergrad, there was a really bad snowstorm one year that actually shut down the University of Wisconsin campus for one day. Vehicles weren't moving on the street because there was too much snow. All classes were cancelled EXCEPT for my physical chemistry class. My professor, knowing that it would snow heavily the night before, spent the night in the dorms with his college aged son. He showed up to class and presented his lecture to a handful of us (who didn't listen to the radio or check the t.v. before we trudged through the snow to class). I don't remember the topic covered in that lecture. I just remember the dedication the professor showed to his students that day. What do you think this strike is REALLY teaching students?

Packaging matters

Like a lot of people, I try to be relatively careful about the types of food that I eat and often buy organic and hormone-free foods. Though I suspect that the foods that I buy aren't always as organic/hormone-free as I would like, I figure a little improvement is better than nothing.

But then I read an article in Chemical and Engineering News about the leaching of chemicals from packaging into food and drugs.

The bis-phenol issue in plastic water bottles has been well publicized recently to the point that metal water bottles are a fad (of which stainless steel are the premium non-plastic option). And I've been aware of issues with storing and cooking with plastics and aluminum for a while.

But it never occurred to me that the inks and dyes used on the outside packaging of foods and medicines could actually get into the food or medicine and contaminate it to a point that the food would be recalled or the medicine would become ineffective. I was also not aware at how often this contamination occurs. In the article, they cite recalls of cereal in Germany when ink from the outside of the cardboard box got into the cereal, BPA being banned in baby bottles, infant formula with packaging ink contamination, IV bags with packaging ink leaching inside, contamination from glue used to attach a syringe, and carcinogens coming from processed rubber lids.

Thinking about it scientifically, the possibility of contamination makes sense. A lot of inks and dyes are toxic and/or carcinogenic. I just assumed the FDA rules were adequate for food packaging. Surprisingly the rules don't cover the entire packaging. As it is now, manufacturers can use toxic ink on the outside sticker label if it doesn't touch the food. But as all of the recalls suggest, this rule needs to change.

In the big picture, what does this really mean for us? It means that highly packaged organic food is potentially not as 'organic' as people like to believe. And this gives me another reason to eat fresh 'simple' foods.