Word: grapefruit
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...Japanese smarter than we Americans are? Will our children be working mostly in Japanese-owned companies and paying rent to Japanese landlords? It's hard to look at recent economic history -- or at a self-focusing Sony combination video camera/VCR no bigger than a grapefruit -- without wondering just that. (JAPAN NOW AHEAD IN NUCLEAR POWER, TOO, read last Tuesday's New York Times.) But one needn't look to genetic superiority to account for Japan's remarkable and mostly well-deserved success...
...Florida, where the freeze was most brutal, growers who normally produce about 75% of the U.S. citrus crop (worth some $3.5 billion in 1989) had tried to prepare for the worst. They banked orange, lemon and grapefruit trees with extra dirt and fired up smudge pots to raise the temperature in their groves. But the cold snap -- with wind-chill temperatures of -5 degrees F as far south as Orlando -- lasted too long for such stopgap measures. Many strawberry, orange and grapefruit crops were completely ruined. Said Ben Abbitt, general manager of the Haines City Citrus Growers Association, Florida...
...most serious case people usually make against grapefruit is that it's a bit too tart. But last week consumer groups in South Korea launched a boycott of U.S. grapefruit because they believe the produce is contaminated with Alar, a chemical preservative and suspected carcinogen that has been used by apple processors...
...South Korean protest was triggered when a test requested by consumer groups showed the Alar content of U.S. grapefruit to be 0.5 parts per million or less. But since the lab equipment was not accurate enough to measure below that level, this was "equivalent to a finding of no Alar," says Dan Gunter, executive director of Florida's department of citrus. Says he: "Alar is not used on grapefruit." The Korean government declared U.S. grapefruit safe, but American growers fear the sour taste may linger...
...Bats are swinging, and all's right with the nation. The rituals that are played out in Florida and Arizona from early March into April are part of baseball's enduring legacy, and generations of Northerners have taken refuge here in the balmy revels and toasty traditions of the grapefruit league...