ah yes, my favourite foreign language feel, “I know what all of those words mean individually but not together like that”
not to forget its twin “i know (roughly) what you’re saying, but what are those words?”
Plus the secret triplet “I managed to get your drift but I don’t know how to answer you”.
and its step-child “I understood the literal meaning of the sentence but it turns out you were making a pun that is completely obvious to native speakers and now I feel like an ignoramus”
Local/state health departments are still functional and do the bulk of food facility inspections. Maine Dept of Agriculture, for example, inspects all the seafood & produce harvested by Mainers or brought into the state via truck.
The FDA primarily acts as a backstop for local Environmental Health departments, interceding when things go horribly wrong. Like, if an outbreak of e-coli is detected by your local health department, they would inform the FDA so that other states where the food might be shipped are alerted.
Or if a national food company is an egregious violator they might earn special status by the FDA to clean up their act and prove compliance via reinspection. But again, local EH departments continue to stay involved.
(I took food processors & dairy farms off the list because, again, local EH departments are the front line defense there.)
The FDA is more like the watchful parents, involving themselves when local agencies need help or act incorrectly. They’re also the ones who decide what foods & drugs can be sold safely in the United States, and how they’re packaged, handled, etc.
Drug trials are completely stalled right now, for example.
Yes, it’s bad the FDA is shutdown and the risks multiply the longer it remains so. But it’s not like we’re all going to get leprosy from tainted spinach tomorrow.
I cant sleep and my brain just decided to randomly remind me about the time i used a magnifying glass to burn the word “pee” onto the shed in my yard and then i got scared and buried it in the garden
This condo is a mile from my house, I walk past it multiple times per week. It’s called the Stewart School Lofts now… it was a full, thriving school until a few years ago, when Rahm Emmanuel closed it due to budget cuts. My boyfriend taught at the school.
Then the grounds became a tent city for homeless people. It was a relatively safe space for homeless folks to pool resources, stay warm and dry, help one another out. Then the Alderman had all their possessions removed forcibly by the cops.
And now it’s a condo. A ludicrously expensive one with a fake community garden that is not actually open to the community, and an intense security system. Every time I see it, I fantasize about blowing it up.
