"legislature" news and stories

Maryland state legislators have stepped away from a bill that could have banned foie gras in the state. Key legislators withdrew support after the bill's hearing March 4th, despite a legion of animal rights activists pushing for the bill. Apparently, the legislators decided that it was not their place to intervene.

Maryland isn't the first state to toy with the idea of banning foie gras -- similar battles have been staged in Philadelphia, Chicago (which successfully banned it) and California (where selling or raising it will be illegal by 2012). Anyone care to weigh in -- should governments step in to ban foie gras?

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I just wrote about Texas microbreweries proposing to be able to sell retail. Now Pennsylvanian markets wants to be able to sell beer at the cafes in supermarkets, but two senators are trying to kill the whole idea. Now I have to say that the alcohol laws in PA seem a bit strange to me. I never actually understood them in my visits to the state and sometimes had a difficult time figuring out where I could buy a case of beer.

Now under consideration by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board are liquor license applications which would allow supermarkets to serve and sell six-packs as long as the sales occur in sit-down, 30-seat cafes that are separated by a wall from the rest of the store. While this sounds good to me, it doesn't quite fit in with what a few of the state legislature think. A few want to tighten up the proposals, make sure the cafe and supermarket are two separate businesses, have separate cash registers and cashiers, insure that the cashiers who are at least 18 years old, and a few other items.

These sound fine to me, but other legislators seem scared of opening the door to supermarkets being able to sell beer by the case like beer distributors, and feel that brews should only be able to be purchased by the six-pack from a deli.

In this Post-Gazette article the governor's spokeswoman says it's quite unlikely Mr. Rendell would support a liquor code change forbidding beer sales in supermarkets, adding that the governor thinks beer sales at supermarket cafes is inevitable.

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Marshmallow Fluff is a wonderful concoction of sugar, corn syrup, egg whites and vanilla that is whipped into a creamy and spreadable goo. It turns out that the tasty treat might join the list of foods banned from Massachusetts schools, despite the fact that the spread is a local icon, invented in the state back in 1917 and has been a popular New England pantry staple ever since.

It's most famous use is the Fluffernutter Sandwich, which combines peanut butter and Fluff between two slices of bread, and this is what is getting the sweet stuff into trouble. While parents have packed Fluffernutter sandwiches as special treats in kids' lunchboxes for many years, some parents recently noticed that they are being included as a school lunch option by the schools themselves - 1 out of every 14 schools, to be exact.

Iconic or not, some parents don't want this sandwich served at school and would like to see it banned from campuses.

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