Point-one (.1) score and zero years ago, a weblog crawled out of the ooze and mire. This one. To hold forth on — well, everything (and thus perhaps nothing). Dedicated to the proposition that — OK, we’re still trying to work that out. Platform for random quotings and digressions. Example:
This stupid world —
skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas,
skinny children.
That’s the Japanese poet Issa, from Robert Hass’s “The Essential Haiku.” And that reminds me of a story I heard yesterday on NPR that acquainted me with a new term for “going hungry”: food insecurity.
The world will little note nor long remember what’s scrawled here, though thanks to the full-enough measure of devotion of you happy few (typical insertion of unrelated battlefield reference) these jottings get enough attention to satisfy. Thanks for reading.
This is where it’s easy to become a conspiracy theorist. At $178 per month (according to the gov’t) available for food FOR FIVE PEOPLE what can a family eat but junk: bologna, free super-processed cheese, nutritionless white bread, pasta, plain tomato sauce. It would be tough enough to feed five people healthfully, buying bulk foods and fresh produce on $178 a WEEK; it’s simply impossible to stretch that amount out to a month. *I* spend $178 a month on food, and I shop at Trader Joe’s and buy bulk soap, coffee, tea, oil, nuts, rice, et al.
The bologna-Velveeta-spaghetti diet is about two hunger pangs up from not eating. It is not conducive to a developing body or brain. It’s not helpful to a person who labors all day at anything. Can’t eat right, so you get sick, both short-term (colds, flu) and long-term (diabetes); can’t afford to go to the doctor, so you get sicker.
God bless those who’ve got their own, I guess.
Congratulations! Sprinkle a generous amount of imaginary pixie dust around the room and declare yourself an old-timer (preferrably in front of an audience).
Seriously, I found your blog a few weeks after you started when you mentioned George Ryan’s indictment. And, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it and knowing you since then. Thanks.