Lean Cuisine recall affects shoppers in Portland

If you are in to frozen foods you might want to read this! This week Nestle had to recall 3 types of frozen Lean Cuisine chicken meals, primarily in Oregon.

Utah-based Nestle Prepared Foods Company has recalled three varieties of frozen Lean Cuisine chicken meals, two of which were distributed in Oregon.

The entrees might contain small pieces of bright blue plastic, a high health risk, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Those meals are: Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta, Chicken Mediterranean and Chicken Tuscan, all produced between August 18 to October 27 and distributed to retail establishments nationwide.

The recall of roughly 1.2 million packages of food impacts Oregon shoppers who bought the products at Portland-area Albertsons stores and Clackamas Safeway stores.

One item -- the Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta, production code "8280595912" marked "Best Before MAY 2010" -- was not sold in Oregon, according to Nestle spokeswoman Roz O'Hearn.

But the other items were sold in Oregon.

Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean, production code "8231595912" or "8241595912" marked "Best before SEP 2010"; production code "8263595912," "8269595911" or "8274595912," marked "Best before OCT 2010"; and production code "8291595912" or "8301595912" marked "Best before NOV 2010," were distributed locally at Albertsons in Portland and Safeways in Clackamas.

Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan, production code "8234595911" and marked "Best before SEP 2009"; production code "8253595911" or "8269595912" and marked "Best before OCT 2009"; and production code of "8292595911" or "8296595911" and marked "Best before NOV 2009," were distributed to Safeways in Clackamas.

Each package bears the USDA mark of inspection as well as the establishment number "EST P-9018."

Source: Oregon News

30 years after the Guyana Tragedy

It's been 30 years since a great tragedy occurred in Guyana. In 1978 918 followers of Jim Jones died after swallowing a Kool-aid which contained cyanide. The event was the origin of the term "drinking the Kool-aid" to describe close adherents of dogma.

Both MSNBC and CNN are revisiting the subject 30 years later.

Tonight CNN is launching "Escape from Jonestown" where they look at what happened in Guyana with the 'People's Temple.'

MSNBC aired it's own take on Jonestown on Sunday.

That's quite a bit of attention on an extremely disturbing moment in religious history.

CNN "hologram" spinning out of hand?

Did you see the CNN "hologram"? What is your oppion on the so called "hologram" that enabled Jessica Yellin to appear in the studio while really located in Chicago. Was it really a hologram, or is CNN trying to spin a great story??

According to CNN, it was real "hologram" technology that beamed Jessica Yellin, a CNN correspondent from Chicago, to the CNN press center in New York, where Wolf Blitzer could grill her about what was going on in Chicago.

First off, let me say that it wasn't even real "hologram" technology, which annoys me from the start. Don't say it's a "hologram" technology unless it really is. If CNN was truly using a "hologram," it would not have employed a green screen and overlay images. Instead, it would have captured scattered light and then reconstructed it back in the studio.

Oh, and it probably would have bankrupted CNN too.

But I digress. Everywhere I turn, someone is saying how "cool" CNN's so-called "hologram" was. Uh, no.

Allow me to explain something to those who probably also get excited about buying a new hammer or watching a new Starbucks open up in their neighborhood: the "hologram" technique made the show look shoddy and stupid, and made Ms. Yellin look like a well-designed video game character.

Now, I know what you're saying: "But Don, you see, by using its 'hologram,' CNN is embracing technology and taking news reporting one step further."

Sorry, but I think that if you believe that, it's time for you to stop drinking Wolf Blitzer's Kool-Aid.

Nothing about the CNN "hologram" made sense. Part of the value of sending reporters to different areas to cover what's going on is to allow viewers to look beyond the onscreen reporter, and see the raucous environment. And it also affords the reporter the opportunity to walk around and show viewers some of the visual highlights at the event.

But with the help of its "hologram," CNN destroyed the value in sending a reporter, and instead made it, in the paraphrased words of Wolf Blitzer, "a more intimate setting" for the interview that eliminated all the noisy people that would have been standing behind her.

Spoken like a true apologist.

Just because the idea of a "hologram" is interesting, it doesn't mean that every time that someone pretends to use one, we have to think that it's the greatest thing in the world. The "hologram" looked ugly, made Ms. Yellin look awkward, and it didn't provide any real value to the viewer.

I applaud CNN for at least trying something new. But if show producers are smart, they'll shelve their "hologram" idea, and move on to something bigger and better, like transporting Ms. Yellin back and forth between Chicago and New York next time. I think that'll keep them busy for a while, and help us enjoy some quality programming, while they're trying to figure out how to reconstruct atoms.

Credits to CNET NEWS, Don Reisinger