Month: April 2006

The other day, we were surprised to see a certain advertisement in Newsweek and the New Yorker. It was a bold yellow page that made a startling claim: Everything you’ve heard about mercury poisoning in fish is false. According to the ad, published by a mysterious organization identified only as FishScam.com, all the claims about the presence of mercury in fish are based on a single, flawed study, five decades old, of an island race that ate massive amounts of whale blubber.

As it turns out, the ad was bought by the Center for Consumer Freedom. A notorious Washington, D.C., lobbying group run by Rick Berman, the CCF represents the restaurant, alcohol, and hospitality industries. FishScam.com’s website is a net bulging with counter-information to fight environmentalist “fearmongering.” But it essentially comes down to an argument not about whether mercury is in fish—it is, after all—but what might constitute levels dangerous to humans. Berman and his cohorts would impeach the FDA and the EPA’s own standards on base doses of toxins in food. It is a matter of deep concern to them that scientists establish the minimum amount it takes to produce pathology in humans, and then divide that number by ten to account for differences in weight, metabolism, genetics, and so on. In other words, erring on the safe side.

With their self-interest on such unflattering display, FishScam.com’s funders remain mostly anonymous. Like proponents of, say, intelligent design or “natural” global warming theory, Berman’s experts engage in much criticism of existing science, without offering peer-reviewed science of their own. This is because what they are really arguing about are non-empirical first principles.

Incredibly, the Center for Consumer Freedom suggests that the Sierra Club, the Oceana institute, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the Ad Council, and about twenty other organizations—including, by extension, the FDA and the EPA—are hiding their true agenda, which is to attack the coal industry for mercury emissions. If that is true, it is hardly a secret, given the overwhelming evidence that mercury—and most other heavy metals—are demonstrably toxic to the human body. This is universally acknowledged. That mercury concentrates in fish, especially fatty predatorial fish like mackerel, swordfish, and some types of tuna is also settled truth. (As any holder of a Minnesota fishing license can tell you, non-commercial fish caught in our local lakes and rivers are poisonous enough that one should not eat them except ritually, at most once a week.)

Of course, what the CCF really wishes to do is sell more fish, and there they have an uphill battle. The good news is that American fish consumption has not changed much in the past ten years, since the rise of awareness about risks associated with red meat. Fish is recommended primarily for its omega-3 fatty acids, good for the brain and the heart. This is also conveniently available from organic dairy products, for example. The bad news is that Americans still eat less than half of the recommended quantities of seafood—half a pound per week of less-risky species such as salmon, pollack, shrimp, and catfish. Almost a third of the fish we do eat is in the form of canned tuna. Unfortunately, a recent study by the Mercury Policy Project suggested that one can out of twenty actually exceeds the “reference dose” for mercury.

Rick Berman and his employers believe that there is too much black-and-white thinking in the world—at least when it comes to their bottom line—and with that sentiment we can partly agree. But there is a time and a place for subtle thinking, and with the health of women and children at risk, this is not it. “Play Russian Roulette with your unborn child” would be an ad campaign with long odds of succeeding. And the idea that there may be an acceptable level of mercury to put in the mouths of infants and children must have been conceived by a person who does not have kids, and is not capable of empathizing with those who do.

We’ve grown used to this sort of anti-activism and counter-spin; the manipulation of facts in an effort to explode some sort of widespread science-based conspiracy. The proposition that our notions regarding safe levels of mercury in fish comes from one flawed, fifty-year-old study is, on the face of it, bunk. It ought to be an embarrassment to those who would take money to publish it.

In Ideal Corners, a tiny town near Brainerd, trips to the local dump were a family tradition. My grandfather would pop the enormous trunk of his robin’s-egg blue Oldsmobile and we’d load it up with cans, done-in appliances, or dozens of leaf bags. In the spring, he’d bring along binoculars in order to watch the wild animals—black bears and so forth—lured by the aroma of rotting trash. It was more exciting than any episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

Nowadays, things are less wild. The dump has been spiffed up and renamed the “Ideal Corners Transfer Station.” There are no more scrounging bears or hawks diving for rodents. Gone are the mountains of plastic and eggshells, and along with them the exciting prospect of a garbage avalanche.

In this new age of trash, recycling must be dutifully sorted into various bins. Old batteries, and other toxic waste, are set aside in the garage for environmentally responsible disposal. Customers must sign a ledger, describe what they left, and pay accordingly. Trucks then haul everything away thirty miles to a forty-acre pit lined with protective clay and plastic.

“Nope, you can’t bury toxic waste anymore,” said Doug, the transfer station manager. “The dump in Brainerd cost eight and a half million to build and they thought it would last thirty years. It’s only been eight years and it’s half full!” On a recent Wednesday afternoon, a few buddies kept Doug company as they lollygagged on discarded couches and stained Barcaloungers. Inside his little office, a salvaged chandelier dangled from the ceiling and the radio with the coat-hanger antenna blasted live coverage of Bean Hole Days in nearby Pequot Lakes.

Given rapidly dwindling natural resources, a new subculture of salvagers now keeps watch on the dump. Steven, a junk dealer wearing gigantic sunglasses, examines incoming vehicles for worthy finds. “Do you want to buy an icebox from 1906?” he asked me. “You can’t find them anymore. I heard they’re going for hundreds of dollars on eBay, but I don’t know anything about computers.” Doug told me that Steven looks for storm windows and breaks the glass out to sell the aluminum. “I don’t know where he takes the metal now. There used to be a guy down in Crosby who had an aluminum smelter, but he got lead poisoning.”

During my afternoon visit, the pickings were slim, but everyone was excited anyway. “You know today’s a big day here, right?” Doug asked. “The baler is here and is compacting all the appliances.” He pointed down a dirt hill to a cherry picker lifting rusty, old machines from a thirty-foot mound of old refrigerators, washing machines, and ranges. Making a considerable racket, the hydraulic press smashed each appliance into a mangled square bale and spit it out onto a pile.

The garbage pits are gone from Ideal Corners because, simply put, trash is just too valuable to waste. After the compactor finishes, Doug explained, the bales will be shipped “to Winnipeg where the insulation and plastic is blown off. They take out the mercury switches. You know, the kill switches, the Freon, and all that. Then they ship it by train to Seattle. From there it’s sent by boat to China where they melt it down.”

“In the end, we buy it all back!” —Eric Dregni

The Man in the Housing Bubble

Did he die? Or just abandon his house to the “Ugly” people?

Ug bought my next-door neighbor’s house. I didn’t think it was dilapidated enough to be purchased by the “We Buy Ugly Houses” people, but apparently it was. When I moved in, my landlady warned me that the guy next door was weird, but I figured that was just because she was from the Home Depot school of property maintenance (vinyl siding and lots of pavement), while he preferred a more lived-in look that included randomly planted shrubs and ankle-length grass. The house’s peeling siding was an amalgam of different colors, with holes artfully covered in plywood. More power to him, I thought. My perfectly manicured South Minneapolis block needed some excitement.

He walked his dog wearing brightly colored hot pants and erected a limp chain-link fence that bisected his front yard, the way one might surround a trailer to protect it from rabid dogs. He hung his birdfeeder so that it leaned into my front yard, which soon became an unwelcome haven for a riot of birds and squirrels. He rarely appeared outdoors. I saw him so infrequently that when I picture him I see a sixty-year-old Andy Warhol, with shaggy grey-blond hair.

Last fall, his unmowed grass became a vast grass forest, with unraked leaves padding it in wet clumps. The bird feeder sat empty and all signs of life, already infrequent, ceased completely. For weeks I waited for an indication that he was alive, but there was nothing.

Then one day a few weeks ago, I heard a series of crashes coming from the house. Rushing to the window, I saw two men in blue uniforms throwing the contents of the house into a miniature dump truck marked 1-800-GOT-JUNK? HomeVestors had purchased the house, the dudes in blue told me. “You know, the ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ people.” These guys would clean the place out, and then HomeVestors would fix it up and put it back on the market.

HomeVestors is a national franchise with headquarters in Dallas. They pay cash for neglected homes and rental properties, close within a few days, and then fix them up and turn them around at a higher price. The twelve franchises in the Twin Cities combined buy about three hundred properties a year. To HomeVestors, ugly isn’t just multi-colored siding and unmowed grass; it’s more often messy situations. Many houses come into Ug’s possession because of the three D’s: debt, death, and divorce. Others are sold as a way to get rid of a burdensome rental property, which was why my neighbor’s house was sold. It turned out he was a tenant who just wasn’t wanted any longer.

By the time I got outside, the truck had been stuffed with two refrigerators, a stove, and a dishwasher, and the workers were in the process of rolling another stove down the steps, not on a dolly, but by rolling it end over end. From my side of the house, I could still see the only adornments that had ever been there: a crooked air conditioner and a small American flag, the kind you might see at a small-town Veterans Day parade.

On the overgrown front lawn there was a mournful display: an old metal kitchen cabinet, a fold-up metal bed, innumerable broken floor lamps, a set of floral TV trays, and a perfectly good basketball. These items looked like a pack of kids waiting for a late parent to pick them up from school. And still more stuff kept coming out of the house. As a second dishwasher was tossed into the truck, a left-behind spoon tumbled out of it onto the street.

The inside of the house was a scene of bare ruin. The whole place was freezing cold and, without the carpets, overwhelmingly brown. It felt as if I were exploring a house that had been abandoned for years, as if the floorboards would give way at any moment. An empty Xbox box sat in the middle of what was meant to be a dining room. In the threshold between that room and the bedroom lay discarded Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner bottles and a dirty glass ashtray. What would make my dog-walking, anti-yard-mowing guy leave all of this behind?

On the wall of the living room was a solemn portrait of a Hispanic family, circa 1992, that had never lived in the house. The father wore a Girbaud T-shirt and a steady expression. His wife and three children were equally stoic. The family stared straight ahead at a spot across the room, where an entire section of the wall had been torn out, revealing the guts of the house, water pipes, and wiring.

From the porch where neighbor dude had once smoked, the men in blue now heaved the contents of the second floor out onto the lawn. They threw oven racks, stiff sheets of carpet, flattened boxes, and blocks of wood. The American flag was one of the last things to go. Like an autumn leaf floating slowly to the ground, over and over it tumbled, finally landing with a little click on top of the pile of a forgotten life. —Alexandra Kerl

Nick Hook never envisioned himself as an editor. When he was thrust behind the helm of the Whittier Globe in April of last year, he had virtually no writing experience. Nick had been shuffling between gigs as a rocker with Vinnie and the Stardusters and a lackey in the corporate world when he decided to submit an article to his brother and then-Globe-editor, Jamie. Suddenly, Jamie was fired or quit, depending on whom you ask. And since the Globe’s two-member board president, Ralf Runquist, a spry eighty-four-year-old, had no interest in managing the paper, he allowed Nick to take control on a temporary basis. After three months, another Hook was officially in charge.

Rarely more than eight pages and printed on the cheapest paper, the Globe has been the Whittier community’s voice since 1976. There are no offices, just a P.O. Box and Hook’s cell phone. Meetings are held nomadically, via the telephone, or at local bars or a favorite Vietnamese restaurant, over mock duck sandwiches and bubble tea. The Globe could be called a poor man’s Onion, a punked-out rag that pokes good-natured, boozy fun at local events and politics. It is unlike any other newspaper in the Twin Cities.

Under Hook’s tutelage, the Globe has steered away from such yawn-inducing stories as, “City Out of Compliance With Federal Mediation Agreement” and toward screaming yellow journalism like, “Pumpkin Vandals!” On one occasion, when news was slow, Hook sent an inebriated pal to cover a Whittier Alliance meeting. Like a small-scale Hearst kick-starting the Spanish-American War, the “reporter” glommed onto one of the meeting’s many talking points and inflated it into a lighthearted controversy. Accompanying the article was a photo of a young woman dressed in a short skirt, sexy black boots, and a hat and mask, holding a letter said to be offensive. Of course, there have been setbacks and some of Hook’s jokes haven’t gone over so well. After he suggested that readers avoid the Wedge Community Co-op, for example, claiming that organic vegetables are nothing more than conventional food that has been washed really well, his paper lost the co-op’s advertising for several months.

Hook, in his mid-thirties, is a bed-headed manic with the wide eyes and uncontrolled gesticulation of a guy either tremendously caffeinated or consistently thrilled. Almost immediately after coming on board, he had the idea to make the Globe more of a laugh than a snooze. “This is all for fun,” he said. “It has to be, since we don’t make any money. I pay our writers with beer when I take the staff out every other month and pick up the tab.” Hook himself receives a modest stipend of a couple hundred bucks each month, certainly not enough to live on.

Editing the Globe is a slapdash affair. Hook rounds up articles toward the end of each month and then pushes them through at the last minute, filling empty space with odd tidbits like dating contests and photos of cats or his friends’ children. Sometimes, when the events calendar is sparse, he’ll add fake happenings like an audition for Subhuman, a musical about the “fascinating life of three modern tow-truck drivers!” During Hook’s tenure, the Globe has launched a variety of oddball columns like “Ask the Nurse,” in which readers (real and imagined) seek medical and fashion advice; “Ask Oscar,” a six-year-old boy answering child-rearing questions as best he can; “Everybody Is A Star,” a horoscope that explains its vague advice in terms of movie plots; and “Don’t Knock It ‘Till You’ve Tried It,” Shannon Keough’s monthly rumination on new adventures, like severing her Achilles tendon or suffering through a personal-finance class. A recent contest, featuring a photo of half-bared cleavage, was called “Win a date with these!”

No one seems to know who really owns the Globe. Runquist, though, has run the paper for ten years—he took over after the editor at the time literally dropped dead during a delivery run—and seen it through various incarnations. While disapproving of the paper’s newfound interest in boozing, it turns out that he’s generally pleased with the product. “Some of the articles seem strange to me,” he admitted. “But that’s the new generation, I guess. It’s become a fun thing, and I like that.”

Hook has serious goals for the gabsheet. He’d like to draw more advertisers, pay his writers with money instead of alcohol, and someday print more than eight pages at a go. What he doesn’t want is for the paper to be like all the other neighborhood monthlies. “If we can get five more advertisers, that would be good,” Hook said. “But it’s not going to come at the expense of the articles. There’s a lot of humor in this neighborhood and in the meetings.” He laughed. “Though some day I might just try and please Ralf and have an alcohol-free issue.”

—Peter Schilling