Category Archives: food

War on the poor

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I was watching People’s Court with Judge Marilyn Milian this afternoon.

There are times when I don’t agree with her conclusions–sometimes she seems to make too quick a judgment without allowing the plaintiff and/or defendant to put their stories out there.

But nothing has been so outrageous as what I witnessed today–the plaintiff was a woman whom had pawned jewelry at a pawn shop and when she went to pick up the jewelry before the date due, she was told it was stolen.  The owner told her that she was SOL because of the robbery.  What she didn’t come out and say was that it was an employee who robbed the shop.

The judge asks the plaintiff how much she pawned the jewelry for?  $150.  What was the original value of the jewelry?  $5,000.

The judge was incredulous.  She says there is nothing that would make her pawn her engagement ring and other jewelry….she then waited for the plaintiff to give her an answer.  All she would say was that she needed the money.

The judge wasn’t satisfied with that, however, and kept coming back to why she had pawned it–badgering the plaintiff why she would pawn the jewelry for such a low amount??  The woman had stated before that she had four kids.  After being badgered by the judge, she stated that her husband was out of work.

The judge continued and asked if it was for food or what?  The insinuation was that this woman was using the money for…..wait for it….cigarettes, booze, or drugs…because, you know, that’s all poor people do—drink and smoke and do drugs./snark

The woman was not disheveled.  She was dressed nicely, and well-groomed (which isn’t easy, by the way, when you’re poor).  But the judge just wouldn’t let it go.

She was the victim here on so many levels, and the judge was badgering her and stating that NOTHING would ever make her sell her engagement ring, no matter how bad the circumstances.   She was blaming the victim for being robbed….and the undercurrent of being poor.

The judge obviously has never been desperate.  The woman had four kids to feed.  She probably needed basics like school supplies, toilet paper, soap, shampoo, trash bags, detergent, and on…that the wealthy never worry about.    Food stamps does not cover everything a family needs to eat in a month’s time…even less now that the extra has been taken away.  It certainly doesn’t cover the necessities.  The woman stated that she absolutely needed it for necessities or would not have pawned it.  The judge was asking if her husband knew about it, and she said it needed to be done.  The judge was clearly not “getting it” that people ARE THAT DESPERATE in these times!

The judge should have been giving the pawn shop owner the third degree about why she paid so little for such valuable jewelry….why she was allowed to take such an advantage over the poor?

The pawn shop also had a policy of not paying for the merchandise in case of fire, robbery, and a list of about everything that could go wrong.  In addition, they stated they would never pay for more than double the amount of the pawn….in this case, $300.

The poor woman was robbed twice–she was robbed of her jewelry, and the pawn shop robbed her of not paying for the value of the jewelry.

Usually, the judge is all over people who don’t have their ducks in a row–this woman had receipts showing the value of the jewelry, she had come to the pawn shop in time to redeem her jewelry before it went to the floor, so I’m at a loss to explain the judge’s treatment of her….other than the contempt of the poor runs deep.  I never really realized how much contempt this country has for the poor until I was one.

Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies…

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I saw recently where James Taylor was supposed to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and started singing “America, the Beautiful”…God Bless him.  I want to put  a vote in for America, the Beautiful for our national anthem.  The Star Spangled Banner sings of war and bombs but America the Beautiful sings of the beauty of our country, the abundance, and the brotherhood (as yet to be realized, but a worthy goal).

A beautiful, crisp morning as the sun rises….now moved across the horizon for the winter sleep…

I saw six deer this morning.  Sometimes they will stop and just observe me, but mostly they just run off, with white tails bobbing up…it never ceases to amaze me how they can be standing still in front of a four foot tall fence and leap over it with such athletic grace.    They like apples, by the way.  A momma deer and baby were seen nibbling apples one morning while they hung from the tree.  You’ll see a half-eaten apple on the ground and know that it was lunch for a deer.

I went out the other morning, and the birds were singing as if it were a Spring day.  It caught me off guard….this is Fall, right…? :p

There were cardinals singing, Blue Jays sounding the warning, and another bird I couldn’t identify singing its little heart out.  Funny.

I’ve seen a bird that is mostly grayish black that at first I thought was a junco, but it’s tail looked like a sparrow’s and it was too big to be a junco.

The hummingbirds have long since sought warmer climates.  I miss their antics.  They spend more energy fighting over the food, when there is plenty there, rather than conserving the energy they used fighting so they wouldn’t need so much food….I know there is a lesson for mankind in there, somewhere….

You remember the hornet’s nest I mentioned?  Something happened to it–we had about three days of rain (no chemtrails to interfere), and then we had really windy days….so it may have been the combination that caused the nest to lose its outer wrap (for want of a better word).  It literally had torn off the wrap down to the honeycomb-like inner chambers.  I guess birds could have gotten to it, too, but I’ve never seen that. Not that I’ve seen that many hornets’ nest….in my youth, when I lived around the woods, but not since moving to the city.

Here’s an informative blog on hornet’s nests.  I learned something today–I saw the honeycombs of the torn hornet’s nest but I did not realize they actually made honey! It makes perfect sense, though, because they need something for the pupae. However, I wanted to double check this, and another site said they did not make honey.

Continuing the search, I found this:

I also learned that the Maya believe hornets/wasps learn the hut owner’s scent and leave them alone….but may go after visitors.  Interesting.  Hornets generally do leave people alone….unless they mess with them.  There was one story of my childhood where one of the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny to poke a hornet’s nest.  Um-hmm….you can guess what happened…hornets mad as hell swarmed him.  They had to get a hose to get them off.  Yep, he never did that again…

I found this interesting blog on hornet nest destruction.  Apparently, bears will tackle anything.  This site is pretty interesting with discussions on biodiversity.  Someone posted a video on biodiversity but it advocates eco-tourism, and setting aside small tracts of land for preservation.  I think both of these ideas send the wrong message.  Tourism is tourism and the more people that trample the ground, disturbing the wildlife, the more stress they bring to resources and the life forms there–not to mention more pollution by using motorized vehicles.  I shake my head at folks who drive up in SUV’s to the parks….the irony seems lost on them on the damage their vehicles cause by consuming gas and polluting with exhaust, which are destroying the nature that they seek.

And the setting aside tracts of land is a noble idea–but in my view, it absolves the rest of the occupants of the land their responsibility to take care of the land they’re on.  In other words, it’s like they’re saying “we have this land over here that is being preserved, therefore, you can pollute the hell out of the other land that isn’t in the preserve.”   It’s still missing the HUGE point that we cannot separate the land by lines….as much as we have been brainwashed into thinking that it is possible to do just that.

Water runoff polluted with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified forms, mercury, etc., will migrate from the unprotected land to the protected land.  Toxic air will flow over the protected land.   There is no way to keep a tract of land pristine while the land surrounding it is poisoned.  Just like we see with the nuclear accident in Japan–what happens in one area affects another that has nothing to do with it.  We have to see that everything we do affects another–to take care.

Another link someone posted is something near and dear to my heart–natural water filtration a la natural swimming pools.  Pretty cool, eh?  Last one in is a rotten egg! 🙂

Also, there is a thread on endangered invertebrates. Interesting read.

Have a great Sunday. 🙂

Are you optimistic ’bout way things are going… **edited

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Seriously??  They’re charging fees to the homeless for shelter….unbelievable….meanwhile, Canadians using food banks are at record highs…

(blog title is reference to the song “Dialogue, Parts 1 and 2 by Chicago)

**edited because no matter how many times I’ve listened to the song…somehow still messed up the lyrics….<sigh>

Arafat

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Global News has this up on the poisoning of Yassar Arafat.  You might recall my post on that a year ago.

A report on what polonium is here.

Not stuff to mess with, eh?

And speaking of radiation….howz about some radiated water…? Oh, I know the report states it’s not from the radiated side of the plants, but you know, I’m having a hard time trusting nuclear plant operators to tell the truth when that truth could be politically and financially damaging to their interests.   Canadians, be on the lookout for three-eyed fish sprouting feet….

 

 

Bombs, not food, say repubs…

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Susie Madrak has this up on the continued republican war against the poor.    To say it is demoralizing would be an understatement.

Shall we play the six degrees to Clinton game?  He pushed for “workfare” , which required welfare recipients to work for free–truly a corporation’s dream of forcing people to work and not pay any wages or benefits!  Slave labor rocks!!  /snark

When I asked for assistance after first moving to FW, I was required to do community service for two and a half days.  The money I requested?  $25.  Yes, you read that right— $25,   It was a humiliating experience when having to ask in the first place and then being put down by the social worker for having moved to FW without a job.  I was, um, hoping to get a job….

The Brits who are conservative are also playing the “we want to help you help yourself” game–

links here and here.

From the last link:

There is no reason to think, however, that the criticisms levelled at workfare won’t also apply to the new scheme. Is, for example, a person spending 30 hours a week picking up litter more or less likely to find a paying job? Research which looked at similar schemes in the US, Canada and Australia found that:

“There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers. Subsidised (‘transitional’) job schemes that pay a wage can be more effective in raising employment levels than ‘work for benefit’ programmes. Workfare is least effective in getting people into jobs in weak labour markets where unemployment is high.”

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Truly disgusting how punitive these people are towards the poor.   Why not just have a public hanging and be done with it, already?

Lastly, here is the video someone suggested on crooks and liars:

New faces of soul food

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Michael Twitty has a link up to a piece on soul food.  I like how he characterizes it as not necessarily West African, but a food of an enslaved people.

I recently made collard greens with chicken fat to flavor it….and I couldn’t believe the difference in taste.  It took the bitterness out and added something sweet to it.  I also put in chopped garlic cloves.  Yum.

 

 

Strokes and youth

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This is sobering news.  Note that the article doesn’t go into diet, but if GMO’s were introduced in the 90s, and strokes started increasing at that time….is anyone going to look into the connection?

Also, colorectal cancer has increased in youth at the rate of 13%  from 1992-2005.  The article goes for the easy blame of fast food….without exploring the GMO connection or toxic environment.   I’m not saying that fast food isn’t a factor, because it is not healthy, but they need to go more deeply.

Also, neither of these articles explore economic factors where the families buy processed food because it’s cheaper, and the family’s health suffers because of it.

Breast cancer rates among the young, and especially young black women, are rising, too–tripling from 1976 to 2009.  Red flags all over the place, folks.

For me personally, one of my lumps has shrunk, the other has stayed the same, a little over a year after discovery.  Interestingly, I had read somewhere that women with fibrocystic breast disease respond well to iodine.  If you recall, last year, about this time,  I had three breast lumps and they were increasing in size.  After increasing my iodine, one disappeared and the other stayed the same size.

Within the mercury poisoning group, there is great debate about low thyroid and iodine.  Some folks are adamantly against iodine, saying if one has Hashimoto’s (which I suspect I have because it is autoimmune and goes with Celiac), that iodine will make it worse.  That hasn’t been my experience.  With the shrinking breast lumps, I would say that my intuition has been right in increasing the iodine.

Mercury interferes with iodine absorption.  the Barium sprayed from chem trails interferes with iodine absorption.    These are most likely factors in the increases in cancer, since the thyroid is a master gland controlling nearly every important body function, from the pituitary to the adrenals, to the gut, to brain function.  This is serious stuff, and messing with the environment is coming around to bite us in the arse.

 

Food, Food, Food

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Apparently, there is a square knish shortage due to a factory fire in New York.  I had no idea what a knish was until this piece, so thanks for enlightening this writer.  It sounds yummy.

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In other food blogs is Michael Twitty’s piece on the life of a slave.  A great glimpse into history we don’t usually read about.  It’s well written–puts the reader into the daily struggle for them.  I was thinking when he wrote about catching the fish, that the fish must have tasted so good being caught in non-polluted waters.  And even though the work was hard,  it must have been nice to work outside in the sunshine….don’t misunderstand me–I know it was very hard, but I personally really enjoyed working on a farm.  I even liked it when the rain came down.    I would be weeding the old fashioned way of pulling them, and a grasshopper might leap onto a leaf nearby…..or a butterfly come floating past….birds singing….

 

 

First Nations Protests in Canada

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The picture here of the First Nations female Warrior is quite stirring….

The eagle feather she is holding is a sacred symbol of the indigenous.   It is a powerful symbol of the connection between God and Earth.

Crooks and Liars has this up on the protest.  It appears that it didn’t turn violent until the police began assaulting the protestors.  They claim there was a shot fired from the protestors….um hmmm….they all claim it was a peaceful protest.

More here.

While I’m looking at this, I’m thinking–these folks’ salaries are paid by taxes….and the taxpayers do not want fracking, for the most part….why are they going against what the taxpayers want?

More  here.

Peacefully protesting:

The scene of confrontation:

They weren’t doing anything.  As the woman said, the female Warrior was praying–not bothering them at all.

Why they’re there:

Act of Sovereignty:

This is like Church to them– a gathering where they sing songs to God.  They see the fight for the environment as a spiritual thing–the Earth is seen as a part of God and their “Mother”—so to pollute the Earth is seen as disrespectful towards God.    Also –they see everything on Earth as connected, so one has to consider every action in how it will impact another.

Balance is always sought…if you take something, you must also give something in return.