Toe to Toe
I'm not interested in self-analysis.
I do know my room was so cold in winter
and so hot in summer I couldn't sleep.
Your house looked like heaven, high up there.
That's how I began to hate you
--High and Low (1963)
___________________
I do know my room was so cold in winter
and so hot in summer I couldn't sleep.
Your house looked like heaven, high up there.
That's how I began to hate you
--High and Low (1963)
___________________
While standing in grocery lines it is easy to eyeball people and look into their lives. Specifically, looking into women's purses is rather easy to do -- one need not be Special Forces-qualified or a Private Manning to unearth a few details of a person's life.
The local Publix supermarket is where Ranger's eyeballs feast on the targets of opportunity. In Florida, the Food Stamp program uses a patriotic emblem of red-white-and-blue on their scan cards. This, he is sure, is because the recipients are patriotic Americans. Ranger has noticed a correlation between ornate manicures and the female users of these cards.
It is hard to ignore the sculptured, extra-fancy fingernails on many of the younger women's hands. Ditto the ornate toenails. The question that arises is: If a person is on foodstamps, where does she get the time and money for frivolous finger and toe nails? Ditto those recipients playing Lotto. If they need assistance paying for food, why are they frittering away their money on frivolous items.
This might sound like the typical Limbaugh screed: People on public assistance don't deserve to spend on discretionary items; if they do, they are scamming the system. But that is not our point. We are in favor of assisting the needy, but the observations have been consistent and long-term.
Imprudent spending is certainly a hallmark of modern life, from the heads of government on down. But frivolous spending on a personal level is less damaging to those who have more of a cushion than for those living closer to the bone. For the latter, living a few days a month without utilities or phone is commonplace, and along with it, exorbitant re-connection fees. Cars don't last because they are not treated to proper maintenance. Ditto teeth and bodies, which become enslaved to the healthcare behemoth.
In Florida, the FCAT is a contentious standardized test administered throughout a student's public school career, ostensibly to ensure certain basic academic goalposts are met. However, the FCATs don't test a student's knowledge of basic living skills, or the ability to prioritize.
Author Robert T. Kiyosaki has made a killing from his book and seminars, Rich Dad Poor Dad, teaching people the "secrets" to personal economic solvency. Why aren't these lessons taught in schools? Why must a person muddle along until middle age and beyond before they stumble upon someone dispensing what should be common knowledge? Values clarification was tossed out of schools in the 1970's as being akin to the antichrist -- at least here in the South -- and yet that sort of self-understanding is just what is needed in order to live a comfortable life.
There is something between the nails and the cards. Our culture of entitlement for both the rich and the poor is bankrupting us.
One wonders who profits from the maintenance of our economic caste system.
--Jim and Lisa
Labels: caste system, economics, entitlement
posted by rangeragainstwar at 10:20 AM
33 Comments:
I've had somewhat similar observations. I've a private running bet with myself that I can look at the contents of the grocery cart and guess who is paying with a food stamp/EBT card with over 90% accuracy. Ready made, canned, and frozen meals fill up the food stamp cart (little or no cooking required) along with very expensive cuts of meat.
Those of use who are working or middle class have "staples" and little or no ready-made, pre-cooked, pre-packaged stuff.
I am, however, always bemused that the folks who are working tend to have shopping carts that look like mine while most of those who are NOT working seemingly don't have the time or energy to cook a meal.
I flatter myself that I know what is really going on. A few of the people who are doing the best they can in a low paying job are getting food stamps in order to provide proper nutrition for their children. Many food stamp recipients are gaming the system; they've never had a job and never will and God himself couldn't make them work more than three months at a stretch.
It's tiresome but it's also the way our assistance programs are set up that encourages and supports the do-nothings while being punitive toward more energetic folks who just need a little bit of a boost.
Jay in N.C.
Jay,
Uncle Ben's Instant Rice.
jim
Who benefits from our current economic system? Why the people at JP Morgan/Chase Bank. The very people that have conspired (as part of The Federal Reserve System) to bankrupt our society via an enforced fiat currency. Won't matter if we don't STOP doing what we're doing at the national level as we'll all be one the dole soon enough.
The government has made it so that jobs are so much harder to come by than should even be necessary. Because of asinine regulations thanks to the Corporate Security Lobby in Florida, I cannot offer to exchange my labor/expertise (Security) to my friend's landlord for a modest monthly stipend and a reduced rental cost to the apartment. Instead, his only option is to either go with totally passive security cameras (which he has done) or hire an expensive security firm to have someone patrol the apartment complex. The latter will, naturally, lead to increased rent prices thereby driving out the people barely holding on by their fingernails as it is.
Hi Lisa and Jim,
One of the things we're supposed to get from an education is the ability to choose the better from the worse. Those young ladies don't need to choose between pretty toes and food--they have both! Sounds to me like they're doing just fine.
Jim, I love Uncle Ben's Instant Rice, but Deanne will have none of it. She insists on unbleached Basmati, gluten-free and vegan, purchased in bulk. She cooks it to perfection in a Zojirushi cooker.
Dave
i heard this story 'bout a welfare queen once....
Ghost Dansing,
That was great! Good choice.
You remind me of Barry in the movie City Slickers:
Barry Shalowitz: What do you think? What would be the perfect flavor with this meal?
Ira Shalowitz: Cherry vanilla?
Barry Shalowitz: No. If it was Chinese food, right on the money, but this? Toasted almonds.
Mitch Robbins: What's going on?
Ira Shalowitz: Barry can pick out the exact right flavor of ice cream to follow any meal. Go ahead. Challenge him.
Mitch Robbins: Challenge him?
Barry Shalowitz: Go on.
Mitch Robbins: [shrugs] Franks and beans.
Barry Shalowitz: Scoop of chocolate, scoop of vanilla. Don't waste my time.
Dave
G.D. and Dave,
I enjoy your dueling banjos :) G.D. cleans up on the songs, and Dave has the movie lines. There is always an extant analog for every thought, IMHO; that is a universal rule.
G.D.,
I remember mom saying this was a "dirty song". Ah, the difference of a few years ... the "romance" (!) is gone. Alas no more pretense of the alluring prostitute; now it's just full-on ghetto -- is nothing sacred!
p.s. Dave,
You are a gourmand (in the best sense). Basmati is nice, but I am a fan of Jasmine, as I am a sucker for a nice scent.
When I lived in Southern Pines, that Paris of trailer parks, my girlfriend (who was then on public assistance when she wasn't mooching off my mooching of Uncle Sugar) became quite the home manicurist/pedicurist. Nail polish is pretty cheap, and she stole some fine brushes from her brother's auto detailing shop, and she could turn out flowers, birds, you name it in about three or four hours. And what do you have if you aren't working? Nothing but time.
And here's the thing; she was actually a pretty smart young woman. What she wasn't was educated, none of her family was. What she also wasn't was used to self-discipline, self-control, impulse-control, or emotional stability. She'd get some sort of low-rent job and lose it in a month or so because she'd get pissed off at the day shift manager. Or she'd feel crappy one morning and just not want to show up for work.
And this wasn't something you could have taught her in school (tho that might have helped) or in church or through a self-help book. She KNEW she was fucked, but she just had so few skills, and what few she did have were always knocked sideways by her crappy inability to avoid spending money on something useless and shiny, or getting into fights, or just doing something stupid.
And Southern Pines was full of people like her, or people who had managed to struggle up a little bit but had gotten knocked back; had a car wreck and gotten hurt without insurance (for themselves OR the car), gotten sick, gotten convicted for something.
But there were also people who were doing the "right thing", working, saving, trying to get ahead. And they would have some of the same shit luck, too; company went bust and they lost their job, broke an ankle, roof leaked, car broke down...
So I think the problem is that you have people who are poor because they make bad choices...and people who are poor because they get bad breaks...and people who are poor because they don't have the brains, or the health, or the skills, or the drive to figure out a way to make a better living...
And how do you give the people who are just down on their luck a hand with out giving the dummies and the grifters a handout?
I have no idea.
And I think that it's not that anyone "profits" from people like my old girlfriend Lizzie being broke and on public assistance. It's just that...well. how would you "fix" her?
It'd have to start with a mom who wasn't an ignorant old church biddy and a dad who knew more than what was inside a Chilton's guide. It'd have taken years of reading stories instead of TV, of grilled cheese sandwiches and carrot sticks rather than McDonalds, or playing tag (or basketball, or drawing, or singing) rather than lying around doing nothing much of anything.
It would have taken twelve years of teachers willing to spend extra time to figure out what excited her and made her think, then helping her figure out how to deal with her problems in sane, helpful (instead of crazy and impulsive) ways. It would have taken church donations and taxes to give her places to go and things to do, a neighborhood where she couldn't find crank quicker than she could find crayons. It might have helped if she could have been able to find some boyfriends with more ambition than professional wrestling or the U.S. Army.
And then it would have taken a series of good jobs, with bosses that helped teach her the skills that come with holding those jobs. And decent pay, that would have helped her towards a middle-class life. And a couple of sisters, aunts, and a grandma or two to give her GOOD advice, scold her when she fucked up and hug her, too...
All that would take lifetimes of people - including her - paying attention, working hard, deferring rewards, thinking before acting, making a living wage, building a family that valued patience, sobriety, sensibility, wisdom, generosity, and love.
We've decided that those things are only worth doing for a small group at the wealthy end of our society. And not even always for them - I went to a very preppy Eastern school and saw a pantsload of useless wealthy bastards no different from your pedicure welfare hoochie mamas except that they had mommy's trust fund to pay for their useless crap...
Sadly, guys, most of the human race is compounded of ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision. We see the po' part because of where we are in life; the rich part is often just as feckless...just better dressed. I have no idea how you fix that, either...
FDC,
Thank you for two extremely thoughtful posts which constitute a fine essay in themselves.
Lifetimes of people -- therein lies the problem:
All that would take lifetimes of people - including her - paying attention, working hard, deferring rewards, thinking before acting, making a living wage, building a family that valued patience, sobriety, sensibility, wisdom, generosity, and love.
And you are right, the less savory aspirations of man are certainly not coopted by any one group.
Chief,
36 years ago in Auburn Al i knew a family of 3rd generation welfare recipients. All were mentally deficient(fucking crazy -in medical terms) and they bred like flies. Indeed how is this cycle broken w/o forced sterilization which isn't a thing that we accept in our society. Who then makes the call?
In Quincy Fl we have families that are 10 generations in America and they can't speak English properly. If u don't believe this then just listen to a rap group, i'd suggest Beyonce as a starting point.
My cmts are not racial but rather systemic in nature since ignorance is everywhere w/i the spectrum as u note, but my Catholic education DID address life issues and choices which were outside the perview of religion. We were taught about mortgages, interest rates etc... etc while in high school. I've seen white and black college grads UNABLE to do simple math in their head, or with their boots on.
IMO we reward slack jaw ignorance.
It's all about life skills. How many poor children ever saw a book read for pleasure before they went to school? After school starts reading is seen as being a Uncle Tom , or if your a red neck all you need is the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN AND FOX NEWS.
I ALSO don't know the solution, but i do intuit that we're on the wrong trail to get where we need to go. WE used to say hard work would do it, but we both know that this is a false statement.
And i ask- how do people remain optimistic about the future?
jim
jim: You are too wise and too polite to say this, but I'm an ignorant bastard, so I will. There's something largely broken in African-American society. American black people didn't "break" it; 200 years of vicious mistreatment and prejudice of black people by whites did. But the result is what counts, and now a hell of a lot of black people are in a self-locking cell.
I was thinking about this because our little public pool up in North was closed last weekend and we had to go to another pool close to the black ghetto we've constructed (since it was literally illegal to allow blacks to purchase homes in most of Portland until the late 70s) in Northeast Portland.
And the problems on display there could have filled a police blotter. Big kids bullying little ones, little ones mooching off strangers, not a parent in sight, kids flailing about without a thought for anything but whatever game they were playing, smashing into or pushing down the littles in the process.
This isn't exclusively a "black thing" - it's a "poor thing" here in this country. We're a "winner-take-all" society, and when you have next to nothing, what you can "take" is whatever the smaller and weaker little ones have. The idea of standing together, of "solidarity", whether it's with your little brothers and sisters, with your neighbors, with your church, your fellow workers, your city...that's getting derided as for chumps and losers. I've watched it in the poor white parts of Portland, too, but because poverty and racial prejudice have hammered on the African-American community for so long so hard, well...
It would take nothing short of a huge social upheaval to change things, and, sadly, usually in those sorts of upheavals the small and poor get the axe, not the chance for responsibility and achievement.
I agree that we're in trouble and headed for more, and, like you, I can't imagine what the hell to do about it. I wish it was as simple as hanging people like Dick Cheney and the Koch brothers from the nearest lamppost. But, as good an idea as that is, I don't see that solving anything, either...
Maybe my perspective is considered different because Im younger, but I can put it no plainer than people who go through Public School now are DESIGNED to be dependent upon the government. Not a goddamn thing I learned in High School or College (and I attended private school) addressed a SINGLE fucking issue with life. That is because we have an education system that is based on the Prussian Model. It is there to turn out obedient workers.
Nothing is going to change so long as we have a system that makes it next to impossible to find a job unless you play by The State's game.
FDC,
There is something broken in black American society. I ask who stands to profit from the maintenance of our caste system presuming that it could be otherwise, and observing the entrenchment of the poverty, moral and otherwise (music industry profiting handsomely from their gangsta lifestyles and debased music; etc.)
Of course we have craven, morally bankrupt muckamucks, so 50 Cent doesn't corner that market. But sane, moral behavior must be modeled, and as you suggest, law of the jungle takes over when one is scrapping for limited resources.
I remember the first time I saw the racial divide in a professional setting. I was consulting with an elementary school teacher re. one of her charges, a disruptive and withdrawn black boy. She dismissed my concern and him: "He's from one of THOSE families." I didn't understand, and she offered that the family had no reading materials in their home; truly, he was doomed to be behind the power curve for his entire school career.
Next, I worked in dropout prevention, which required we drop the students off at their homes. I'll never forget one 6th grade chap who tried so hard, and was unusually sensitive and expressive. Being young myself, I did not know what to offer to ameliorate the misery he shared. He was literally his brother's keeper, as his mother was gone much of the time -- a working lady.
Dropping him off one day in the projects, he was attacked shortly after leaving the car, and immediately picked up a board and began what must have been de rigueur around there.
I don't have answers. I know I met a woman in a fancy part of town last weekend who shared that she was buying all sorts of arts supplies to take to kids in Senegal, as she was going to visit her sister who is in the Peace Corps there. That is all fine and well, as with my acquaintances who do missionary work in Africa, but what about Frenchtown -- crack haven -- right here in downtown Tallahassee?
Who's doing art therapy with them?
Chief,
During slave days the term -selling them down river was a term that meant the further south the slaves were sold then the harsher was their lives. Also this selling down river ALWAYS implied that slaves were bred and sold as individuals thereby breaking down the family group/bond.
That policy continues today when SSA rules give SSI to unwed mothers thereby making a in house Father a unneeded commodity. We pay them to have kids-literally. We don't even require the fathers names on the birth certificates- we don't even list the suspects.
Therefore women become BITCHES and Ho's to be fucked and men can remain field hand boys.
In all the advertisements showing professional black jocks and their Momma's -have you ever seen one that had a father present??
jim
http://www.americablog.com/2011/06/krugman-rule-by-rentiers.html
And it wasn't the poor food-stamp carrying painted nails beggars and "working girls" Christ went after, it was the middle class and up well off rich and powerful that caught His notice. Although, it was likely that the mob demanding Barabbas be released was bought and brought rabble from the streets of Jerusalem, thanks to the upper classes.
Hey, money is money, work is work.
Food stamps in check-out lines are small peas compared to the level of criminality and immorality at the top.
bb
I think we all see the same thing and have the same questions.
I've often wondered if we linked SSI, Medicaid, and food stamps to work if that would go further toward helping those who will at least try and leave those who refuse to make any effort at all to their own devices? I've never understood taking children off Medicaid and food stamps because the parent (or parents) were working full-time, low wage jobs. Seems to me it would be more effective to match their wages to a respectable percent and keep their children's benefits in place.
I know SSI, Medicaid, and food stamp eligibility varies from state to state but I would still like to see it linked to productive work. ??
*Yes, I realize that scheme goes out the window when no-one can find a job.
Jay in N.C.
BTW, what is the Louisiana State Legis's name who proposed paying $1,000.00 to people who would voluntarily have tubal ligations? My friends and acquaintances were outraged but, I confess, I found his suggestion funny.
I did think he was misguided. Obviously, $5,000.00 for men to have a vasectomy and $3,000.00 for a woman who already has a child or children is the way to go. It's a more enticing offer and still saves millions of dollars. However, the money is not what worries me. The pure misery of the children's lives is hard to think about.
As for morality and freedom ...
Oh, well. As long as it's voluntary I don't think I would have a real problem with it. It seems to me that people who would sell their breeding rights as a deep discount probably shouldn't have children at all.
This is less a secret conservative side of me than it is a reaction to the lost, hurt, and confused look in the eyes of those children who are not the center of their parent's lives. It makes me unbearably sad.
Jay in N.C.
Jay,
Oh, I don't think the idea of paying people to have vasectomies or tubal ligations funny -- I think it's a great idea. We have too many people, and often the least responsible are overbreeding.
In the not-so-distant past, when a doctor would treat a "defective" (deeply mentally deficient) who was the result of a lineage of defectives, he would sterilize that patient under the guise of performing another procedure. We have a great problem with that today, of course, as it treads upon civil liberties, but the offspring can be imagined to run the usual course.
Like you, and am deeply saddened to see unwanted and abused children. You see plenty, everyday. Grieve for the ones you don't see.
bb,
No doubt: Those at the lower end get peanuts compared with the entitlements of the wealthy. But graft is graft, and it is in the human's genes. Wherever one finds oneself in the pecking order, most people look for the angle, for the profit for self. This is survival of the fittest.
Until we leave the harsh jungle mentality, it is each man for himself. At least Axl Rose says it's still that way :)
BB,
i'm not sissing the recipients, but the system that is so broken. We've all heard the story about the welfare recipients driving new Caddies, etc..These stories are part of our belief system at this point. At least the folks that i know.
Jay,
I'm in favor of offering 1mil$ to all people achieving Soc Sec age IF THEY WAIVE ANY medical benefits.
Live fast die young-sorta.
This would save a whole lotta buckos. Also i think most folks would take the money and run.
BTW i had a vas and NOBODY paid my sorry ass.
jim
Right out of the Republican Playbook...A few disclaimers...
Welfare Queens are a myth and the truth be told Corporate Welfare in the form of Subsidies...Tax Breaks...Bail Outs...Need I go on...far outweighs what states spend on the poor in terms of public assistance...All the hullabaloo about "3rd Generation Welfare This" and "How can she afford painted nails" that Belies the fact that your Governor Rick Scott would love it if you kept picking on the very same people he is trying to destroy... While He tries to pass laws like having mandatory drug testing for welfare "queens" and public employees and then hand that est. $200 million dollar a year business over to his wife and health industry cronies.
Man up Jimbo...Anyone can attack the poor and unemployed THEY HAVE NO VOICE...Taking on the Conservative Pols who want to shift even more tax dollars over the rich is the real issue...
As long as the focus is on those with no real political power over those who abuse that same power NOTHING will change INDEED.. it may just get worse!
PS "Anonymous" Those items are in the food cart for a reason...You try to feed a family of 4 on $300 Dollars a month. Processed Canned and Frozen foods are cheap. It has nothing to do with "convenience."
William Ranger Hazen
Ranger Hazen,
Ok, manning up here: We attack corporate, we attack the bailouts and and the corporate-government incest. That said, I don't stand in line with them at the market.
The system is corrupt, and that is our point: Who benefits by the propagation of generations of poor entitlement-seekers? We already understand the shameless graft of those in power, and have stated that their entitlements far exceed those of the poor (Chomsky has already addressed this issue adequately.)
So the questions is: Who benefits by maintaining a system in which almost 1/5th of Americans live in poverty (~18%)? Entitlements for the poor and disabled, while a necessary stop-gap and long-term solution for some, seem to encourage a never-ending cycle of poverty for many otherwise able-bodied people.
Who benefits? The one growth-industry in FLA -- the prison system, and everything that issues from that; attorneys and other piranhas; feeble Workforce programs that provide neither the real education nor placement needed for viable employment.
In this very article we addressed the grave absence of any guidance in public education for living a prosperous life.
It is not enough to stand armed against the wealthy entitlement recipients. What is needed is a solution to help people get off the hamster wheel of underachievement. We are not taking the Republican stance of "cut 'em off"; we are asking, "What can be done to help people live more than subsistence lives -- how to plan and think, and avoid having to have four children to "earn a a living".
We see foreign aid as nothing but an extension of the hapless entitlement concept.
Jim,
Good Answers but you still missing the forest for the sake of a few well worn rhetorical trees. The Answers to your questions were in my post. The system is being designed to keep folks on the hamster wheel by the rich and powerful through the transfer of wealth. The poor did not design it. They are merely victims of it. A glaring example is the current Ryan Plan. If it enacted it will would plunge over 50% of our Seniors into poverty and increase Health Costs into the stratosphere while giving more tax breaks to the rich. As it is in your state Govna Scott while seeking to enact huge tax breaks for the wealthy is are cutting education and ALL programs that support the working poor. The idea that folks chose to be/stay poor is another well worn out "myth". Why is it the Germany with many of the very same social programs has a better standard of living better health care a more upwardly mobile middle class and quality of life? The answers are simple. No really they are. Blaming and punishing the victims of out class war is simply not addressing the issue of class war but merely distracting folks from the real issues. Got to hand to the Republicans though.. They have gotten allot closer to the goal line over the last 35 years and polarized the country with tactics like "welfare queen resentment"
William Ranger Hazen
Ranger H,
I will get back w. you . i am on the road and can't really respond now.
But i will work on it.
jim
Billbo,
I can't even begin to believe that ANYBODY benefits from people being in a perpetual state of poverty.Democracy requires an upwardly mobile population. Well that's democracy, but what about capitalism?
I really don't know what forces are moving the pieces on the board.Now let's throw in religion which really co opted the concept of Economic theories and wedded these with Darwins survival of the fittest.This was purely science which was grabbed up by the religous right groups that believe that God favors the faithful with prosperity. Good is equated with prosperity.The obvious is now-if yore poor God has shit canned your ass.
I believe that the present system is a corruption of the Christian philosophy which makes it relig rather than economic.
True Christers would not act like this.
jim
Billbo,
Now i want to personalize this.
Why do the poor continue in this self defeating cycle.?That's my point in writing what i write.
I may get fucked, but i won't assist the rapists.
Why would i have 4 chillruns by 4 different fathers?Why wouldn't i use birth control?
Pls don't tell me that i'm speaking stereotypes, i live in the midst of the 2nd poorest county in Fl, and i see this first hand.
In fact i broke out of factory and blue collar America through education.
I don't know what else to say except that i don't wish to hold down or exploit any person, but i don't favor free rides either. It'd take a person much smarter than me to distinguish between the two.
Maybe religion is the problem linked up with modern interpretations of Christ's teaching. I should say corruptions of His teachings.
Whether right or wrong we both try to figure this out.
Your friend,
jim
WRH,
I think what Gov. Scott et. al. propose -- tax breaks and gutting social programs -- is horrendous. The problem lightly touched upon in this piece is immense.
The simple question is, why do we have generations living in poverty and on public assistance? This is not to demonize them, but to inquire into the roots of the problem. Obviously, a solution is not to cut our social safety net, forcing these people to church and other private subsidies.
The Founding Fathers never anticipated universal public education (nor universal manumission.) When schooling came, it was expected that most would not proceed beyond 6th grade, to enable them to read factory manuals, etc. So our nation has undergone a shift in values and amenities, but people remain "slotted". So, how to emerge from that.
I don't think most people choose for poverty, and I agree that the welfare queen stereotype often effectively transfers attention from the big time thieves. The problem is a multi-level, multi-generational one.
We don't teach people how to create something of value. Look at the pathetic media which focuses on petty internecine squabbles. This reflects how many live their lives.
I don't know how you teach compassion, right-thinking, industry ... I just know that a lot of people fail to embody these things.
Hi Jim and Lisa,
Now that's a comment thread! I lost count of how many times I looked up from the screen and wondered.
"…i don't wish to hold down or exploit any person, but i don't favor free rides either. It'd take a person much smarter than me to distinguish between the two."
That's me as well, Jim. Nicely put.
Dave
Hi Lisa and Jim,
The title of your post brought back a pleasant memory. A few years ago I used to listen to a radio program on my way home in the afternoon. It was a kind of battle-of-the-bands thing on the "black" station. The DJ would pick two artists, like The O'Jays and The Temptations, and play their biggest hits. Then listeners called in to vote for their preferred artist. The show started at 4 o'clock, so it was called, "The Toe-to-Toe at Fo'."
Dave
G.D.,
I'm glad it brought pleasant memories. The only way I made it thru 7:30 a.m. classes was tuning in to FAMU's Gospel Hour.
Also, Ghost D. has offered on our most recent post a wonderful clip of Sister Rosetta from a UK TV show "The Blues and Gospel Train" from 1964, if you're interested.
[This is fr. reader Avedis. Avedis: You're still being blocked fr. posting; I'll endeavor to post for you until we can find a fix]:
I have also observed food stamp users' tendency to purchase pre-processed foods. They seem to prefer large quantities of salt, fat and sugar in their cuisine. This can be most easily obtained from the above mentioned sort of food items. It is evidence of a childish pallate. Additionally, they often have large quantities of candy and soda in their baskets. Another childish and frivolous taste. And it explains why so many of these people - even their children - are often at the fat to obese end of the spectrum - a seeming contradiction.
Of course I may buy my yogurt, pasta, beans, rice and tuna staples at the dollar store, but then, hypocrite that I am, I spend three times as much on my adult vices of cigarettes and beer/booze. But uncle sam isn't paying for it.
avedis
Post a Comment
<< Home