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poverty

Let Them Eat Cholera

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri Feb 20, 2009 at 18:17:30 PM PST

What do you do after turning Africa's breadbasket into Africa's basketcase, where the latest estimate puts inflation at 231 million percent, where unemployment currently stands at 94 percent, where over 6 million people are currently starving, where 1 in 10 children will die before the age of 5, where the life expectancy of men is 37 and of women is 34, where a raging cholera outbreak has sickened 80,000 and killed over 3,700 people since last August, where the loser of last year's election held onto the presidency solely by killing and torturing supporters of his opponent, and where the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture from a rival party, Roy Bennett, was just arrested (again) last week, charged with treason / terrorism / whatever they'll think of next, and locked away in an infamous torture prison?

If you're Zimbabwe's 'President' Robert Mugabe, you throw yourself a $100,000 feast of which Marie Antoniette would have been proud -

Johannesburg/Harare - More than 100,000 US dollars is expected to be spent on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's 85th birthday party next week - while more than half his country's population lives in dire poverty.
Africa's oldest leader turns 85 this Saturday, with a lavish party to follow on February 28.

Meanwhile, on that same day across the rest of the country, millions of Zimbabweans will be subsisting mostly upon sadza, the same nutritionally bankrupt, imported, highly-processed cornmeal porridge they subsist on every day, if they can get anything to eat at all.

Here's to the day (which can't come soon enough) that Robert Mugabe is no longer making life a living hell for the good and proud people of Zimbabwe. If only they had oil, eh?

Discuss :: (3 Comments)

Wall Street. Main Street. Why No Mention of Side Streets

by: Meteor Blades

Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 00:09:08 AM PST

( - promoted by JayinPortland)

I was 6 years old and sitting next to my grandmother at the table where as many as 14 of our extended family members ate our evening meals. I quickly finished my small plate of rice and beans, and said, "But, grandma, I'm still hungry." Everyone went silent. My grandma, Simmalikee, smiled at me, took her plate and scraped off the several spoonfuls she had not yet eaten onto mine. No, I thought. Not your food, grandma. Some other food. I sobbed as she coaxed me to eat each bite. No matter how empty my belly felt, I never again said I was still hungry after a meal.

That was a long time ago, and my grandma has been dead more than 50 years, but I have never forgotten that terrible moment nor what it means to be poor. If there was meat or fish on the table then, it was possum, deer, catfish and the occasional wild hog. In those days, before food stamps, we received surplus government hand-outs every month: rice, beans, cornmeal, lard, cheese and powdered milk. It was never enough, and toward the end of each month, everybody's portions got smaller.

Since the enactment of what might be called the Third New Deal - LBJ's Great Society programs: the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Medicare, Head Start, housing assistance, education grants and various other programs - the ravages of widespread poverty in America have been greatly reduced. Ameliorated, but not removed from what the propagandists so regularly call the No. 1 country on the planet. And lately, it's been getting worse. Not just the ragged poverty many Americans associate with the Great Depression, inner cities or Indian reservations, but also middle-class slippage.

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"The Oregonian" on Food Deserts in Portland

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 09:00:00 AM PST

Here's an article worth reading from Saturday's Oregonian describing the experiences of a family living in the same area of outer Northeast Portland that I did last year, one I described in this diary from a few months ago.

How fresh can you and your family really eat when the trip to the grocery store is a once-a-month event?

Calderon rests her hand on the wheeled wire basket that will haul home nearly a month's worth of groceries for her family of four.
It's after 5 p.m. on a Friday. Calderon and her daughter, Amelia, wait for the No. 72 bus.
From the bus shelter, Calderon has a good view of the neighborhood's most prominent business, The Sugar Shack, a vast strip club and adult business.
"Let's just suppose if they were to get rid of the strip joint across the street, if they put a store there," Calderon muses in Spanish.
Instead, the closest markets are convenience stores. They're sugar shacks of a kind, given their selection of cigarettes, beer and processed foods. At one, the produce section amounts to a few bruised tomatoes, limes and jalapenos. The other charges $4.89 for a gallon of milk, about $2 more than a regular supermarket.

There's More... :: (2 Comments, 566 words in story)

World Food Day is a sad observance, it could be a celebration

by: jgoodman

Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 19:32:06 PM PDT

So, how many people know that October 16th is World Food Day (WFD) and how many people know what WFD is and how many people care?

I'm guessing not many could answer yes to any of the above questions. WFD is observed on October 16th, the day the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was founded in 1945. WFD is observed in hopes of raising awareness of the issues that cause poverty and hunger. "World Food Security: The Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy", has been chosen as this years theme. Thats a timely theme, and overall, WFD is a good idea, but I'm guessing more people are probably aware of Super Bowl Sunday than WFD. Which one is more important?.

There's More... :: (2 Comments, 667 words in story)

Friday Night Happy Stories: Philabundance

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 19:00:00 PM PDT

Monday morning of the Community Food Security Coalition conference, I was hanging out with my new friend Taj and he said he wanted to go on a field trip. I hadn't planned on going, but the conference rooms all had projectors set up and those give me migraines. Therefore, I decided maybe a field trip would be a good idea. So off we went.

The trip was to a program called Philabundance Community Kitchen. They train adults in culinary arts, providing them with the necessary support and life skills they need to succeed.

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Farm to Food Bank in Vermont

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 15:44:45 PM PDT

( - promoted by OrangeClouds115)

Local farmers and food banks have long teamed up in efforts to get fresh, real foods to those who need them most. There's the Food Bank Farm CSA in Western Massachussetts, a CSA project of the Food Bank of Western Massachussetts which uses membership fees from people in the community to subsidize the production of fresh produce for local people in need.

Up in Vermont, the Vermont Foodbank also has a gleaning project they've just made a regular program of their organization -

"This is part of winter gleaning," Snow explained as she wiped a potato with a white cloth. Salvation Farms, the three-year-old gleaning project that she piloted in Lamoille County, saves crops that would otherwise go to waste and makes them available to Vermonters in need. Last month the organization became a program of the Vermont Foodbank.
Snow, a sinewy woman with intensely blue eyes, sees the relationship as a base for spreading Salvation Farms' gleaning model throughout the state. The Vermont Foodbank sees the relationship as expressing its mission of building partnerships to end hunger in Vermont.
In the past three years, Salvation Farms has gleaned more than 88,000 pounds of apples, beets, carrots, chard, collards, kale, green beans, garlic scapes, fennel, cucumbers, potatoes, winter and summer squash - more than 40 crops in all. Some farms are gleaned on a regular schedule. Other farmers call when they have a crop they want gleaned to avoid tilling it under.

And now they're taking things further in the Green Mountain State. The Vermont Foodbank is set to purchase a 20-acre farm to grow fresh produce for those in need -

"Our intent is to raise 150,000 pounds of fresh produce on the farm (annually) and make it available -- first and foremost -- locally in the Mad River valley and Washington County and then also to other food shelves and pantries around the state," said Doug O'Brien, CEO of the Barre Town-based food bank.
"It's a way for us to sustain a sustainable source of fresh produce for the people we serve. Often times, it's the fresh produce that doesn't make its way into the shopping cart of needy Vermonters because it's unaffordable. So they lose access and they lose the nutrient value of produce in their diet," O'Brien said.

More below the fold...

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Sunday News & Miscellany: Changing the Menu in South Central LA, Thoughts Rambled & Eggs Scrambled

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 13:56:15 PM PDT

Jan Perry, the Democratic Los Angeles City Councilwoman representing District 9 is pushing for a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South Central Los Angeles -

"There's one set of food for one part of the city, another set of food for another part of the city, and it's very stratified that way," said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, executive director of Community Coalition, based in South-Central.
The activist group has focused on land use in the economically depressed neighborhoods south of downtown, working to shutter 200 liquor stores and a dozen motels on the premise that "nuisance businesses" encourage violence and crime while crowding out wholesome alternatives. The fresh, healthful fare that defines "California cuisine" remains almost impossible to find on a gritty landscape of corner carryouts and franchises.

"There's no choice," said Jessica Quintana, 15, leaving McDonald's after a lunch of a fried chicken sandwich, fries and a soda. "It was nasty, but I ate it 'cause I'm hungry."

The California Restaurant Association is of course 'alarmed' and 'concerned'. This same organization last week sued the City of San Francisco for requiring fast food chains in the city to display basic nutrition information in their restaurants -

The California Restaurant Association has asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect.
"We think it's the wrong way to go," said Jot Condie, the group's president. "It's confusing. It's confusing for restaurants. It's confusing for customers."
Condie said other California cities are starting to follow San Francisco's lead, creating their own menu-labeling ordinances that would force chains to adhere to a costly array of local laws.

Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eye, the poor babies are 'confused'. What's not confusing is that 32% of American children are obese, and the savage crap food vultures viciously target them as a key part of their 'business strategy'. As Jot Condie and the rest of the obesity pushers moan, wail and whine pathetically; I'll be below the fold with more items, thoughts and ramblings...

Jump with me!

There's More... :: (13 Comments, 1404 words in story)

Food Access Issues Not Only Limited To Income

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 02:11:44 AM PDT

(Excellent diary and an opportunity to discuss food & income. - promoted by Asinus Asinum Fricat)

A long, rambling thing that started out as a reply on another thread, but it got long enough as to where I felt it instead deserved to be fleshed out more and turned into a diary of its own. There's a point to be made about food access (in the most literal sense) beyond that which involves people on food assistance...or for that matter, even involving personal income levels at all. It has to do with the way neighborhoods are laid out, the businesses they attract, and even a large amount of simple 'dumb luck'. Below the fold, a look at the stark contrast in my very own personal situation regarding access to good food over the past few months here in the city of Portland, Oregon...

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Getting Real Food Into Urban Corner Stores

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Thu Jul 10, 2008 at 03:59:47 AM PDT

An article in this morning's Baltimore Sun touches on the troubles faced by a project of Johns Hopkins University to get better food into urban corner stores, which in too many inner-city neighborhoods are the only places available for residents of these areas to purchase food.

Corporate supermarkets have long ago abandoned poor people in these neighborhoods, fleeing to the outer areas of cities and into well-off suburbs. And unfortunately, the 'food' available in the remaining establishments are mostly limited to potato chips, soda, highly processed microwavable convenience 'foods', and of course loosey cigarettes and malt liquor. As if the social and economic environments in these neighborhoods of Newark, East Orange, Camden, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc... weren't bad enough, residents also have to deal with toxic food environments that make it near impossible for them and their children to eat healthy. More than a few groups are currently working towards solutions to this problem from many angles, and projects like the Healthy Corner Stores Network are a great place to at least start to greatly improve upon what already exists in these neighborhoods, before much better permanent solutions can be found and implemented.

There's More... :: (10 Comments, 726 words in story)