For Prisoners
By: Joseph Anderson
China has been exporting a raft of contaminated products to the
United States. At least that's what somebody wants us to believe.
All the hubbub has convinced me. I admit I don't know if it's
true or not, but toxic toothpaste and poisonous toys and arsenic
jewelry over sweaters made from dog fur, has me convinced that
the China connection is a big billion dollar risk.
From all reports (none of which we can positively confirm), China is sending millions of dollars of foods to America every day. Contaminated Chinese foods are, perhaps the most troublesome of the import issues. Everything from toxic tea to toxic tuna is apparently coming from China. Consumers in the free market have some chance to avoid the unhealthful rice, bad beef and contaminated chips. It appears that a lot of the poison is getting into prisons, especially into the Pennsylvania prisons. We did our best to discover which foods served in Pennsylvania prison mess halls originate in China. We're particularly suspicious of the many tons of frozen poultry-like substance used in Pennsylvania prisons in place of healthful meats. We're also concerned about packaged jelly-like material and the flour used by the prison bakery to make bread. Like all prison foods, these questionable materials are fed not just to prisoners. They are also given to the staff. The staff could easily eat someplace else, but guards are simply too dumb and greedy even to forgo a free Chinese soup-of-the-day! We asked the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment which foods were comming from China. They were afraid to tell us, why? The Department of Imprisonment was too afraid to even answer us. That makes us more suspicious. It must be worse than we think. Prison bureaucrats will do anything to save a few pennies. They certainly aren't above serving poison in the prison mess halls. They don't care about the staff anymore than about the prisoners. If, as seems likely, there are some kickbacks from suppliers (called spiffs) to make the deals personally lucrative to prison big shots, it's certain that the Chinese imports would pour in. Since we were unsuccessful with the prison mess halls, we wanted to know about all the foods sold in the prison commissaries. Prisoners' loving families sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to their imprisoned loved ones. Much of this fortune is spent for food and other necessities in the prison commissaries. Since the mess hall food is so ugly, most prisoners sustain themselves with junk foods (but better than prison foods) from the commissary. An outfit from Missouri named Keefe, alias Access, alias Centrex, alias etc, etc., has the lucrative contract selling junk to Pennsylvania prisoners. We don't know why the corporation hides behind so many aliases, but we know that much of the food is bad. We asked them about Chinese foods; what comes from China? Again, they were afraid to answer. We even tried state regulatory agencies but could get no definitive answers. We're especially concerned about the packaged fish, packaged beef, rice, tea and never-rot cake-like pucks. The highly greasy potato chips which are labeled "Canada," are they really transshipped from China? Keefe, or whomever they are, wouldn't tell us which of their foods actually originate in China. The news reported thousands of pets dying from contaminated foods. Dog food is better than most of the stuff sold to prisoners. Is the Keefe "beef stew" really Asian arsenic? Are the packets of black beans really Beijing botulism? Well, Keefe wouldn't fess-up, but remember you heard it here first. Prisoners (like everyone else) may be wise to buy food with great care and to look for stuff with labels of American firms you recognize. Of course, that's no guarantee. Our advice is to buy nothing from Keefe or any of its aliases. Your Thanksgiving turkey spoke Mandarin.
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