I am back to rant……

…and am ready to start ranting all over again.

So lets start right now with the USDA! United States Department of Agriculture! WHAT A *&*(^ing JOKE!

My wife and I just returned from a trip to Great Britain, visiting England and Scotland, two amazing places with incredibly beautiful countryside. On our way home, we found a package of cooked, smoked, and thinly sliced venison at an airport duty-free store. The package indicated that it was cleared for export, was a manufactured product, vacuum packed, and FULLY cooked! So we bought a few packages with our left over British pounds to bring home.

On the flight back across the Atlantic, one is given an imigration card to fill out that asks a number of questions like:
* Have you visited a farm?
* Have you handled or touched livestock?
* Do you have any fresh fruits or vegetables?
* Do you have any meat products?

Well, not wanting to lie on this form, I said yes to meats, and listed the packaged smoked meats. As we came through customs and were asked those very important security questions to prove we were not terrorist (Where have you been? What countries did you visit? Why did you go? Any business conducted?) our form was marked with a big, red, circled ‘A’ and we were ‘welcomed back’ to the USA with the usual scowl reserved for use only by these wonderful INS agents protecting our borders.

As for this ‘A’, I had no idea what this meant until after we picked up our luggage and headed for the exit. The INS agent who collects the paper forms asked us to step into line ‘A’, which was NOT in the direction of the exit. As we stood in line A, I watched hundreds of people who simply checked ‘NO’ to all the questions on that form collect their bags and head out the exit. I could not help but wonder what they all might be carrying anyway?

Line ‘A’ it turns out is the ‘A’ in USD’A’ and we were pulled aside because I indicated that we had a meat product! All our bags were taken from us and run through another X-Ray machine, this one marked ‘Agricultural X-Ray’ obviously looking for something like sides of beef, apples, oranges, or other ‘˜forbidden’ items which you cannot bring into our country. Strangely enough, the X-Ray cleared all our bags but one, but this was not good enough for the woman standing there wearing her USDA badge trying to be all important. ‘Where is this meat you indicated you had?’ I pointed to the one bag that did not clear, that I thought contained what they wanted. Ms. USDA put on some gloves and began dumping the contents of that bag all over the counter, taking no care what-so-ever as to what might be in some of the packages, including the china mugs I worried she might have broken, or my camera and camcorder she simply dropped onto the counter, all in search of ‘the dreaded meat product’ we were obviously trying to SMUGGLE into the country.

What I do not understand is why I was being treated like a criminal. I am the one who checked the YES box on the form, and all she had to do is ask us to hand it to her, and I would have gladly found it and handed it over. But because I checked the form, obviously I was trying to sneak something else in too. You know how clever us smugglers of meat product can be!

A complete search of the bag containing all our purchases did not turn up the product. Hmm, had we left it in the hotel on the last night? It was possible. So she pointed to our suitcases and said, ‘Shall we open those?’ I reminded her that they had ‘passed’ their x-ray test, but she did not care. It is at this point that I should also point out that we were made to stand a wait a LONG time while every bag from a flight from China was passed through this very same X-Ray machine. Only one of them was pulled aside, and once ‘cleared’ past these machines, were allowed to enter the country UNCHECKED. Seems, though, that this test was not good enough for us, because I did check YES on the form. Again, I said that the X-Ray showed nothing of interest on those bags, and perhaps we did leave it behind after all. The next bag was grabbed anyway by this woman, thrown onto the counter, and now she was tossing my suitcase items all over the counter as well, again with no care as to the items themsleves, all in search of “THE MEAT!”

After searching all our bags, she did indeed find the meat product. My wife had placed it in her suitcase after all, and it seems it simply did not register on the X-Ray. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and safe on the use of that device does it not?

Ok, on to the offending meat: We had two small commercial packages of cooked, smoked, and thinly sliced venison. This is a product sold in many stores in Great Britain, commercially packaged. The woman took it away from us and said, and I quote, ‘You cannot bring this into the United States.’ That was it. When we both in unison asked why, she answered, ‘It could spread mad cow disease.’

WHAT? I tried to point out that BSE is not passed on by eating muscle tissue, which this was. Did not matter. I tried to point out it was actually not cow, but deer. Did not matter (seems deer can get CWD, a close cousin.) I tried to point out it was sealed by a manufacturing plant and millions were eating this same product safely in England every day. Did not care. I also pointed out that we planned to actually eat it at our home and not feed it to any cows or deer, and that did not matter either. Then she said, ‘It also protects our wild deer population.’ From what I asked? Oh, you mean the very same ones the USDA often shoots for fear of some disease without testing? Those deer? She did not answer. Then she added, ‘Hoof and mouth disease.’ Again, both my wife and I said, ‘WHAT?’ She repeated ‘Hoof and mouth disease’ again, not giving us any more info as to what those words meant, only that we were going to cause it with this product I assume. Seems, if you read the pamphlet they give you, the US is worried that by bringing meats into the country, you will spread hoof and mouth to all our cattle. Not sure how eating some salami or some venison at home will do that, but so be the fear. The bottom line, these two small packages were added to the VERY LARGE pile of confiscated meats, and we were told to move on.

An appeal to the manager simply returned a ‘no’, with the added line, ‘We have to be very careful here.’ OK, lets look at this last line a bit more. “very careful here.” This is the VERY same USDA that makes (most) inspections of US meat packing plants voluntary and up to the plant to self-inspect. This is the very same USDA that says US meat packing plants will voluntarily police themselves. This is the very same USDA that has allowed hundreds of cases of E-coli to infect US citizens and restaurants across the country in the last few years. This is the very same USDA that says when E-coli is found in meat, it is up to the meat packing plant to decide IF the meat should be recalled, and is strictly again voluntary! The USDA does not enforce a recall. This is the very same USDA that allows our chicken farmers to feed the chicken’s own feces back to the chickens. This is the very same USDA that does not stop US meat manufacturers from feeding unused cows parts to cows, the LEADING reason that mad cow disease happens in the first place. This is the very same USDA that wanted farmers to work with DNA experts to make cows produce milk faster. The VERY same USDA that allows dangerous amounts of rBGH hormones in everyday milk (something mush of the rest of the world prohibits) and ignore all the health warnings of this practice. I could go on and on about “being careful here” which the USDA time and time again, has not been.

A few more examples in the news over the years just to push the point:
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=448
http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Math/982.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_301.cfm
Want more, just Google UDSA problems, and see what you can find. This organization is a joke.

The US meat packing control is so bad, that many foreign countries will not import meats from the US into their countries. What does that say? Yet, here is the USDA, the puppet of the meat packing lobbies, stopping me from bringing in ANY kind of meat product for fear of causing great danger to this industry. What a &*()^ing joke! The USDA it seems does not have the budget to inspect this country’s own meat producers, but we can have thousands of USDA agents and millions of dollars of X-Ray equipment sitting in airports to stop people like me from bringing in some completely safe and commercially produced meat products. Don’t you feel safer already? Sure, some people will bring things they should not, but my money says these are the very same people who checked ‘NO’ on the form and are walking out the exit door unchecked. Great system we have here to protect us. Right next to me was a couple returning from Italy having their salami taken away with a stong lecture on meat product. Those bastards trying to sneak in a salami…oh wait, they checked YES as well.

But what did I learn from all this: It is simple really, LIE! Next time, I will simply check ‘NO’ on all the little boxes regardless of what I have. These people are so busy taking salami and sliced products away from the stupid people like me who were dumb enough to check ‘YES’, they do not have much time for ‘random’ searches. And even if they do, the X-Ray did not register what I had anyway, so it seems my chances are small. Of course, now that I have published this, I will probably be on some USDA watch list and stopped at all borders as a meat smuggler. Sure, they say the fine is ‘up to’ $5000, but for 2 ounces of sliced venison, I suspect they will simply take it away with another lecture on hoof and mouth disease.

So once again, our great country has taught me that the best practice is to lie and cheat my way through the system. No wonder politicians do this all the time! No good deed ever goes unpunished. You would think after all these years, I would have listened to our government and “just say no!” SIGH!