I was just going through my links this morning and found this interesting piece of news from Capitalist Contradictions, which announced that the CAFTA agreement paves the way for exporting my stepfather's favorite part of the turkey.
This little food export story, symptomatic of the weird life created by the ease and speed of global trade relates to what I had planned to write about already. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine told me that this species of turtle sold in Chinatown was an invasive one that had already destroyed turtle biodiversity in NY's Central Park. The green turtles you see in those plastic boxes this summer are American, called "red eared sliders," according to this article in the NY Press. Here's an article that describes the 18 different turtle species in NY and what you can do to help protect them. Note the presence of the "red-eared slider, non-native" on the list.
So, I spent the better part of the morning reading about invasive species and the threat to biodiversity. It's one more thing to worry about. As I'm writing this, Howard Zinn is speaking on the radio about the ideology of "Manifest Destiny," the story of another "invasive species," the United States of America. OK, it's a strained segue, but US imperialism still sucks.
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