Nuts

Our nephew George – he’s Sharon’s late sister’s son – gave us a real scare years back when he was only sixteen.  He’d come to spend a few days with us and had decided he wanted to treat Sharon and me to some Chinese food.  George had one bite of egg roll and started getting almost deathly ill.  He developed a fever, had terrible cramps and felt genuinely awful.  He’d been poisoned.  No, the chef at the Chinese restaurant wasn’t “Fu Manchu” or even his evil daughter, “Fah lo Suee.”  No, this was when we learned that George was allergic to peanuts and George learned that it’s not uncommon for egg rolls to be fried in peanut oil.  I was reminded of this incident because I noted this week that the government is supposedly considering banning peanuts on aircraft.  At first blush, this may sound a bit over the top; but, those with severe peanut allergies can get sick without ingesting peanuts or peanut by-products.  Those persons can be made ill by inhaling the tiny particles which we sense as odor.  Some estimates runs as high as eight out of every ten allergy related deaths are caused by peanuts and peanuts by-products.

Now, am I slamming on peanuts?  Actually, Sharon and I each had a piece of toast spread with peanut butter this morning.  We almost invariably skip breakfast, except for orange juice.  This morning, we knew were going to be schlepping some furniture for the antiques business and thought it might be better done on a not totally empty stomach.  I like peanut butter and Sharon and I — we rarely snack – will occasionally munch on peanuts while watching a film or something on TV.  No, I’m down with peanuts.

I’m not at all upset that the United States government is taking steps to safeguard American citizens from peanuts.  I just wish the current administration would do more about some of the other nuts that are really dangerous.  I’m talking about Kim Jung Il, the little dictator that could who rules North Korea with an iron fist, a big army and – apparently – will be aided in doing so by the United Nations.  Since he’s selling nuclear technology to other enemies of the United States – Iran and Syria – and threatening all-out-war with South Korea, the nut in North Korea is probably going to be paid off by the nuts in the U.N., which will be financed by the nuts in the U.S. government who continue to back the U.N. in its general nuttiness. 

And, talk about nuts in groups, well, there’s the Myanmar Junta, the nuts who rule Burma with an iron fist, who, after Cyclone Nargis hit in May of 2008, killing over three hundred fifty people and leaving over a hundred thousand homeless, withheld aid from other nations so they could put their nutty little names on the aid packages, with the possible exception of relief supplies they might have sold for profit. It seems that these nuts are starting their own nuclear weapons program.  And, chief among the nuts is Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is working toward hastening the arrival of the Islamic version of Armageddon.  The Iranian nut has been suckering American, British and other western nuts to buy time to accumulate what just this week was announced as sufficient nuclear material to make two nuclear weapons.  He can put those on his improved missiles and hit Israel or even parts of Europe.  Talk about nuts!

I am proud that our government takes our safety so seriously that they are considering banning nuts on airplanes.  Now, if they would just figure out a way to ban those other nuts – like maybe crush them with military power or contract to have the world’s super bad guys knocked off or whatever – I’d really feel safer.  Those are the kinds of nuts that can really be hazardous to everyone’s health.