The Loin Ranger



By Tony Kornheiser



Sunday, July 14 1996; Page F01

The Washington Post 



The other day President Clinton announced a complete overhaul in the way meats and poultry

are inspected before they are sold to the public. Standards are going to become much

tougher, involving elaborate chemical testing. And that's good, of course, because you can

never be too vigilant when it comes to the health of the public.



What threw me off a little, though, were the current standards. I was somewhat surprised to

learn that in such a sophisticated country as ours -- probably the only country in the whole

world to offer three kinds of dipping sauces with Chicken McNuggets -- the exhaustive

system by which we have been inspecting meat for contamination is as follows: 



1. Look at it.



2. Poke it.



3. Smell it.



I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: Hey, my dog does that.



What can you tell by looking and touching and smelling? Imagine the official USDA checklist: 



Visible maggots?



[] Yes. [] No. 



Feels like a sack of eyeballs?



[] Yes. [] No.



Smells like a dead opossum in an open sewer? 



[] Yes. [] No. 



No to two or more? Eat that sucker! 



Amazingly, U.S. government inspection standards for meat have remained virtually unchanged

for 90 years. Meat inspection may be the only thing in the country that hasn't changed in the

last 90 years, other than Carol Channing's hairdo. Since 1906, by law, we have been poking

and sniffing meat to ascertain freshness. And in its day this law was considered a landmark in

protecting the citizenry. What on earth did the government do to make sure meat was fresh

before 1906 -- hire a witch doctor to do a "freshness dance"? 



Clearly, we are concerned with meat because of mad cow disease in England. If it ever got

here, it would surely be renamed Attention Deficit Disorder Cow Disease. (Actually, the

farmers' great fear is Disgruntled Cow Disease.)



I trust our government's efforts to raise the standards for meat will work better than the

French government's efforts to extinguish raging forest fires. I heard this story from my friend

Gino, who heard it from his friend Tammy, who heard it from her friend Andy, who works for

a competing newspaper and read it in a wire story that his newspaper, whose identity must

remain a secret, for some reason deemed Unfit to Print. The French, seeking to respond more

effectively to fires, developed a large scooping gizmo on the belly of an airplane. It allows a

pilot to fly low over the Mediterranean and scoop up an enormous well of sea water to carry

back and dump on a fire.



So the French sent their flying canteen out on its maiden voyage. And the pilot flew a few

hundred feet offshore, scooped up a mammoth load of water, and dumped it on a raging fire.

And it worked. A few trips, and the fire was out!



The only problem was revealed later -- when fire inspectors, sifting through the smoking

rubble, found . . . 



(Can you guess?)



(We'll give you a few more seconds. This is good.)



. . . the charred remains of a man wearing swim trunks, swim fins and goggles!



Talk about a bad way to die!



One minute you're snorkeling the tranquil, blue Mediterranean, and suddenly a plane drops

out of the sky and scoops you into its fuselage. And you are in there, sloshing around, thinking

nothing could possibly get worse, when suddenly . . . 



Man, if I were the family of that particular roasted man I would sue. But that's because I'm an

American, and Americans are always suing. 



As an example, I submit this item just in from Allentown, Pa., where the Wawa chain of

convenience stores is suing its competitor, the Haha market, for infringing on the name. 



"Call the next case, bailiff."



"Wawa v. Haha. Counsel for the plaintiff, Baba; for the defense, Minnie."



"Call your witnesses, counselor."



"Wawa calls Mr. Caca and Ms. Poo-Poo."



Anyway, Wawa is demanding that Haha change its name.



No, seriously . . . the chain of 500 stores called Wawa, which has to be the dopiest name of

any store anywhere, even dopier than Piggly Wiggly, is claiming that a store called Haha is

deceiving the public into thinking it has a Wawa connection -- as if that's beneficial. I mean, I

wouldn't walk into a store named Wawa if I had an open head wound.



The owners of Haha, Tamilee Haaf and George Haaf, are countering by claiming they came

upon the name honestly, by abbreviating their surnames. I guess it's a good thing they aren't

Tamilee Short and George Itty.



I'd like to end by sharing a letter I received from a Ms. Chaney in Montgomery County, who

was irked at my column two weeks ago about the Supreme Court.



She wrote: "How dare you call Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a `chick.' Do you refer to your

wife as a `chick,' your mother as a `chick'? You may not agree with her recent opinion on the

Virginia Military Institute, but to refer to her as a `chick' says volumes about what kind of

person you are, and what kind of column you write. Illerate comes to mind."



Ms. Chaney, you are right. I appologice. 



© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company