According to the New York Times 60% of the toy recalls have been from China. The food, and drug ingredients we get from there ranges to fine, questionable and poisonous. I worry about this. We went on an orchard tour in Western Mass a two Falls ago. The owner of the orchard said that they were about ready to give up because most of the wholesale apple business has gone to China. Now every time I buy some juice, I wonder where it came from? Do they use pesticides there that will eat my 14 month old's brain? Or has this been tested? I hate not knowing.

What the hell is going on? How can we let our food and kids toys be produced by a disorganized, corrupt unchecked bureaucracy? There is little or no quality control there. Our food labeling does not include country of origin, so it's almost impossible to determine where a product came from unless you are shopping at twice the price from Whole Paycheck.

Perhaps it's time for toys to be more expensive and kids will just have less of them. That doesn't really seem like a bad thing to me. The plethora of cheap, plastic doodads is a scourge on our houses brought in by well meaning relatives (including parents, ESPECIALLY parents). But if the toys were more expensive, we'd think twice about buying that hot wheels garage to add to the growing pile.

Perhaps it's time to think about what Made in America really means. If it means accountable manufacturing and less lead paint in toys for preschoolers and babies, then I'm all for it. I'd pay more for less toys if I didn't have to deal with busy signals and exhausted, rude recall employees.

Just sayn'