Big Thursday morning roundup

Del Monte thinks it can bully food safety regulators. I can't resist positing that decades of giving corporations the impression that the government is there to do their bidding, without regard to the public interest, will inflate their balls so that they try to pull this $hit. I mean, when you help overthrow a government because Del Monte, then known as the United Fruit Company, asks you to, why is Del Monte now going to think it has to care about people's lives? Here's a choice excerpt from the article:

The audit, done by a company hired by Del Monte Fresh Produce, found that a pipe containing raw sewage and wastewater emptied into an open ditch about 110 yards from the farm’s packing house. The ditch led into a lagoon containing additional sewage, more than 220 yards from the packing house. The audit recommended that the ditch be eliminated.

Mr. Christou said the ditch was protected by barbed wire to keep large animals from tracking the waste into fields. He said the lagoon contained chemicals to speed decomposition of the waste and was away from fields and wells. After the audit, he said, the company extended the pipe all the way to the lagoon and discontinued use of the open ditch.

Asked if having raw sewage in an open ditch near its packing house was consistent with high food safety standards, Mr. Christou said that tests on melons had found no pathogens.

Former Prime Minister Olmert speaks (well, writes).

I'm a big believer in this fail-to-succeed stuff:

...and he identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement. After a few small adjustments (Levin and Randolph opted to drop love in favor of curiosity), they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity.

I also love this excerpt:

“Sure, a trait can backfire,” Witter said. “Too much grit, like Okonkwo, you start to lose your ability to have empathy for other people. If you’re so gritty that you don’t understand why everyone’s complaining about how hard things are, because nothing’s hard for you, because you’re Mr. Grit, then you’re going to have a hard time being kind. Even love — being too loving might make you the kind of person who can get played.” There was a ripple of knowing laughter from the students. “So, yes, character is something you have to be careful about. Character strengths can become character weaknesses.”

This, too, is interesting:

One central figure in the movie is Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin County who is the author of a best-selling book, “The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.” In her book, Levine cites studies and surveys to back up her contention that children of affluent parents now exhibit “unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school.” This is no accident of demographics, Levine says, but instead is a direct result of the child-raising practices that prevail in well-off American homes; wealthy parents today, she argues, are more likely to be emotionally distant from their children, and at the same time to insist on high levels of achievement, a potentially toxic blend of influences that can create “intense feelings of shame and hopelessness” in affluent children.