Tag Archives: spring break

Spring Break!

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Mom’s gonna be spring broke, too, once she’s done paying for a new bed. 

Come for the political/nerd mashup humor, suffer through the dead baby jokes, and stay for the light-hearted child-friendly puns. We’re all over the map this week.

It is spring break, which means 1000s of extra tourists clogging up our roadways, and kids home all day. They’re too old for jumping around and breaking things, though. They’re at that age where you have to outwit them just to get them to look up from their devices. But I got them excited about making cheese, so we did that instead of spending the entire day staring at screens. We made a block of paneer cheese, a 1/2 cup of ricotta, and a quart of whey. Actually, I think we ended up with more whey than the amount of milk with which we started. It’s a cheese-making paradox.

I was going to make some finger paneer, but one block isn’t all that much cheese, and after the kids ate their share, there wasn’t too much left. But now I really want some finger paneer. We had planned a communal dinner with some friends, and I ended up making spinach mushroom pakoras. At our hosts’ house I conjured some apple chutney out of the stuff they had in the fridge, and also salad dressing, which I whipped up on the fly because nobody brought any. Also, strawberries and whipped cream for desert. Other people made Indian curries, salad, and rice. And then, once again, it was late and I hadn’t even considered funny ideas for comics, and this is what I got.

Super Fun!

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Other super fun activities in which you could participate over spring break might include lobbying your local legislature to enact environmental legislation and turning your stupid baseball cap around.

Other super fun activities in which you could participate over spring break might include lobbying your local legislature to enact environmental legislation and turning your stupid baseball cap around.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 is a federal law that provides for the cleanup of some of the most contaminated sites in the United States. It is most commonly referred to as the “Superfund,” which is actually the money set aside to help the EPA and other agencies complete this task, although sometimes the parties responsible for the pollution are also required to pay. There are hundreds of these sites across the country. Most likely, one of them sits pretty close to your backyard. For example, I was surprised to learn that the Tucson International Airport is on the list.

Most of these sites don’t look like ugly pits of mine runoff. Many of them have been allowed to grow over with wildflowers and support abundant wildlife. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the ground is full of mercury, or mustard gas, or some terrible byproduct of industry that will cause your entire family to die of cancer.

There are approximate 1300 sites on the list, with over 100 more whose addition has been proposed. These are only the ones we know about. Undoubtedly, there are many places that would qualify for the list but lack the activists necessary to get that attention.

Fewer than 400 Superfund sites have been successfully decontaminated in the last 35 years.

Check out this handy list to find your nearest pile of toxic waste.