Oh, the Irony (Part I)

There are multitudes of things I see in my life which make me stop and take note...pause, reflect, and just go on. Some are shelved in the archives of my brain never to see the light of day again...some peek out now and again as if to say "yo...if you aren't going to need dis here...we're gonna put it through the shredder" (I'm from Jersey...my brain's inner voice talks that way)...and some, because of a whole other trigger mechanism...jump again to the forefront and just dog the heck outta me.

I cannot be alone in these thoughts. Thought processes probably are pretty much the same. Some people obsess over that message left on an answering machine. "Did I say my number? Did I sound like a complete idiot? Oh...I HATE answering machines...I bet I sounded like a moron. It stopped recording before I was done - I better call back up to be sure I left my number." Some people (purely fictional people [who aren't me] with an equally fabricated story), years later - wonder if that guy they talked to (at the party in their friend's brother's garage) when they were 15 remembers how idiotic they sounded...and, did they remember me tripping when I got up? I can't believe I actually tripped when I got up. I NEVER trip when I get up - WHY did I trip then - and, most importantly, does anyone remember? Oh, c'mon...it's been 30-odd years...no one remembers and no one really cares. Or do they?

I recently hooked back up with an old friend on Classmates.com - and she NEVER thought I'd remember the minute details of that time we skated on the lake when it was frozen over...but I do! She laughed and I laughed. We laughed because I remember her doing it...she laughed because she remembers doing it - but we both primarily laughed because the thing she did...which was so incredibly "non-noteworthy" was remembered, clear as day...in both our heads. And I haven't a clue why.

But this certainly proves our brains do indeed wonder things long after the fact and remembers things, the silliest things, the things we've thought we long forgot...and the things we hoped others have long forgotten as well.

But, as I say...some things pop back and some things really never leave you.

Case in point: Mad Cow Disease.

I remember a few years back, an incident here in Alabama where a guy had a cow or some cattle which were connected somehow to some British cows which tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. I caught it on the news ONE time...and one time only. For years it's been festering in my brain (hopefully not in the BSE fatal way) because I never did hear any other news about it. Was there any closure? Did he turn over his cows? Did they test positive also? Did the beef industry just hush the whole thing over? If the beef industry and the Centers for Disease Control battled it out in a caged death match...who would win? Who trumps whom? Why did everyone I talk to remember the initial story - but never heard the follow-up?

So, the other day, I'm sitting at home after finding out, firsthand, some disturbing news about Mad Cow Disease and some deaths pertaining to it...and I decided to do a little digging on Google. I turned up this, straight from the CDC's site (bear in mind this isn't "Bob's Site About All Stuff Mad Cowy" - the CDC is a very legitimate and reputable place and if anyone knows their "Mad Cowy" stuff...it's them):

On March 15, 2006, the USDA announced the confirmation of BSE in a cow in Alabama. The case was identified in a non-ambulatory (downer) cow on a farm in Alabama. The animal was euthanized by a local veterinarian and buried on the farm. The age of the cow was estimated by examination of the dentition as 10-years-old. It had no ear tags or distinctive marks; the herd of origin could not be identified despite an intense investigation (see second featured item above and Alabama BSE Investigation, Final Epidemiology Report, May 2006 ). In August 2008, several ARS investigators reported that a rare, genetic abnormality that may persist within the cattle population "is considered to have caused" BSE in this atypical (H-type) BSE animal from Alabama. (See Identification of a Heritable Polymorphism in Bovine PRNP Associated with Genetic Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy: Evidence of Heritable BSE . Also see BSE Case Associated with Prion Protein Gene Mutation .)

Now - when you start talking "prions" and "gene mutations" and "atypical" along with "had no ear tags"...well, my ears did a little perking up themselves. I'm not in the cattle industry - but aren't all cattle supposed to be accountable and trackable? This was, remember, 2006, not 1956. We had the knowledge...we had the technology and we also had the scare factor of Mad Cow Disease hanging over our collective heads years prior with all the "Do NOT Eat Meat in Britain, Whatever You Do...Because It Can kill You In a Fortnight" programs on "Dateline" and "60 Minutes" and "20/20" and "CNN" and "CBS" and "NBC" and so forth.

If we can track a UPS package online with the click of a finger - trust me - we can track a whole damn cow. But yet...as if David Copperfield (or Criss Angel for the younger crowd) stepped in - this whole cow story mysteriously disappeared...and has not resurfaced. I say it's high time we find out what happened to that cow - behind what the above paragraph states - so we can finally stick a fork in it and call it done.