Robbing Peter

I've seen all good people
Turn their heads each day
So satisfied I'm on my way
--I've Seen All Good People, Yes

Smiling faces all around
Rushing through the busy town
Where do they go
Moving on their way
--Look Through Any Window, The Hollies
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The good, if somewhat dire-sounding recent news: Obama Signs Emergency Bill to Halt Teacher Layoffs:

"Summoned back from summer break, the House on Tuesday pushed through an emergency $26 billion jobs bill that Democrats said would save 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs. President Barack Obama immediately signed it into law."

Thing is, money doesn't grow on trees, and what with all the other failures being propped up by the Federal government, the money has to come from somewhere. In this case, it is the Food Stamp program that will take a hit.

Nationally, 20% of Americans use food stamps. In Florida, the amount allotted for a single individual is $111. That amount won't take you very far into the month, even in today's supposedly non-inflated economy.

But the problem with taking funds from food stamps to pay for teachers is that their charges will be affected. See, one in four kids suffers from "food insufficiency", which means they're hungry. One in four kids rely on food stamps. More than half of all children between 1 and 20 will rely on food stamps at some point in their lives.

Teaching hungry kids doesn't work so well. This is robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

On the Sunny Side

Just because the cat has her kittens in the oven
doesn't make them biscuits
--Old Polish proverb, Banacek

It's good news week,
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky
--It's Good News Week,
Hedgehoppers Anonymous

The best is yet to come,
and won't that be fine
You think you've seen the sun,
but you ain't seen it shine
--The Best is Yet to Come, Frank Sinatra
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Demand for food stamps is up in most states, and in Florida, the recent demand has been record-breaking.

Providing an upside to the nation's economic woes, 288 new full-time workers will be hired to "help handle" the increased case load:

Already, the Legislature has approved giving DCF $2.5 million more for employees to work overtime processing food-stamp applications.

In the last year Florida has added more than 408,835 new food-stamp recipients, a 29-percent increase (Food Stamps in Large Demand.)

So you see, there is always a silver lining. Servicing the newly impoverished is a growth industry.

Also, anticipating a criminal wave due to said impoverishment, Florida gun owners are flooding the state with requests for concealed carry permits. In response, "[a] legislative panel Wednesday gave Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson the OK to spend $3.9 million more so he can hire 61 temporary workers" to addressed the jacked up demand for the permits (Florida can't Keep Up With Concealed weapons Permit Requests.)

Poverty and crime -- a winning combo.

Grits Ain't Groceries

No sugar tonight in my coffee
No sugar tonight in my tea
--No Sugar Tonight, The Guess Who

Keep behind me.
There's no sense in getting killed by a plant
--The Day of the Triffids (1962)

Dr. Harold Medford: We may be witnessing a Biblical prophecy
come true -- "And there shall be destruction and darkness
come upon creation and the beasts will reign over the earth."
--Them! (1954)
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This post is not directly about war, but the repercussions of war. The results of a recent grocery shopping trip assumed the proportions of science fiction. It was like entering a time warp, ca. early 2007.

Recent grocery bills have averaged $80. Shopping for one, and not varying the gatherings much week to week, a few months ago an average day's tab was $40. So the cost of an average grocery trip has effectively doubled in that period of time. The cost rises consistently every trip. Not a one-shot deal, not a comfort food blowout experience.

Eating well, but simply, no prepared foods and only staples are purchased. Milk has gone from $2.50 to $3.50 a half gallon. Butter, eggs and honey have seen similar rises. $80 for one day, and with more than one trip to the grocer per week, that tops out at over $100 weekly. To put this in perspective, $80 is almost an entire month's allotment of food stamps for a single individual household (In Florida, that figure is $104/month.)

To head the mean-spirited off at the pass, who will argue that those collecting food stamps should be working: what if you are working, but are still too poor to provide for all the barest essentials of a life? What if you are disabled, someone who once paid taxes, but can not do so at the moment.

This must be apparent to others. The following via email is from a legitimate website:

"Did you know that about 25,000 people die each day from hunger? And sadly, most are children.

"It is our duty to help those in need. But it can be difficult knowing where to start. Well, I have a fun way for you to help fight hunger.

"At FreeRice, you can play a vocabulary game. For each correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated to the World Food Program. The rice is then distributed to those in need."

Should one laugh or cry after reading this tripe. This is a do-gooder website, which occasionally calls for sending goody bags to the troops, but it all amounts to feel-good gestures. I cannot feel good about sending a goody bag to a troop who may get his head shot off the next day. The only genuine act is to work to stop the madness.

"I support the troops, but not the war" makes no sense. The troops are the war. How does one support the agents of an action that is reprehensible? Playing little word games to send 10 grains of rice to a starving person is an obscenity.

Other must be noticing this. We are not all trust fund babies. There are those of us who do not have stock options. Wages do not accelerate at such a pace. Subsidies like food stamps see no such commensurate increase.

When rapper Jay-Z notices the problem, and features euros, rather than greenbacks in a video, and a model requests to be paid in denominations other than the USD, things are not good for the homeland.

An acquaintance noted a while back how overweight many of those who must use food stamps often are, suggesting that they must be living high off the hog to gain such girth. Actually, no.

It costs money to stay lean and healthy. The cheapest foods are processed carbohydrates and cheap fats and oils. These people are fat because eating those foods are the cheapest way to buy calories.

Many states, including Florida, laud the decreasing food stamp roles as an indicator of a more robust economy. Actually not -- it is an indicator that the qualification process has become more draconian, so less folks bother to try for them, out of frustration or inability.

Dr. Harold Medford in the classic Them! echoes the call of many of my Christian conservative contacts. [ Religions, like good sci-fi, create mythologies, so the connection seems relevant.] They see the showdown in the Holy land as being prophesied in their Bible, and therefore, necessary. What they fail to realize is that we create and manifest our expectations.

Christians feel fairly confident that they shall be in the number when the saints go marching in. But they might have missed the possibility that the beasts who shall reign triumphant over the earth might just be us.

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[Addendum: From 11/30/07 New York Times, "Food Banks, In a Squeeze, Tighten Belts."]