For Catholics and maybe some other Christians, it is the Lenten season, the season of sacrifice. I think it might be some kind of big sin to eat meat at this time of year -- or maybe it's on Fridays during this time of year that eating meat is a sin. I'm not up on the latest list of really big sins, other than that killing thing ... and that adultery thing (where women can invoke the "Bobbit Rule" without fear of legal retribution).
Needless to say, there is a lot of fish being eaten this time of year. The staple my mother relied upon was Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks.
Fish, though, has gotten a bad rap over the years, what with mercury contamination and all. That problem is supposedly under control.
But last year, it was discovered that blue gills in a lake near Dallas were being dosed with Prozac. No worries. The dosage is less than therapeutic.
I've never been into eating fish. I do get swordfish or something like that if I must be polite, but ... I'd rather just say no. Now, I have other reasons I can cite.
Wild male white perch in western Lake Erie and the Detroit River, especially near wastewater treatment plants have been diagnosed as being "gonadal intersex" because of feminization of the testes on account of exposure to estrogens. Like Prozac, waste water treatment doesn't get rid of estrogens that are eliminated by ... ummm, women, particularly those using estrogen-based birth control.
It was reported a couple weeks ago that estrogen in the St. Lawrence River is turning male fish into females. Researchers say that humans who eat a lot of fish from around there could suffer some ... consequences.
Who needs sex change operations? The VFW down the street has a Lake Erie Perch Fry every Friday -- all you can eat.
Posted by Bill at February 28, 2004 10:27 PMAnd then you post something like this and turn me off of fish. Gad zooks, I thought I was feeling a little less of a man lately.
(There is a really obvious play on another post here as I tend to eat McD's fish, but I won't go there)
(Although with the right lawyer it could work)
(I'm just sayin' is all)
Posted by: Jeff A at February 29, 2004 01:43 AMWe were going to have fish for lunch.....
Posted by: Anji at February 29, 2004 03:22 AMShhhh. It is a feminist plot.
On a more sober note, just another example of our own ignorance of our environment. Read this morning where a Greek tanker caught on fire and sand with over 4 million gallons of ethanol on board just off the New Jersey coast ( I believe that is where - but it was the US east coast). Good grief. And, sadly, the loss of three men.
Posted by: Cowtown Pattie at February 29, 2004 06:52 PM