Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Hungry People
One Letter to the Editor of the Sacramento Bee today asked, in regard to an article two weeks previous called “Psst, Maria,” “Does The Bee want California to be the leader in food stamps, too?” Another one commented on data in the same article, that they show “California has come up with a good plan to reduce dependency…Obviously, The Bee missed the point.” Yet another one made an observation that on television, “The poor people…were – all of them – fat. Not slightly overweight, but fat.”
Intrigued, I put the paper down and dialed up Google so I could find the article, “Psst, Maria” from October 17. Then I read it. I was shocked by what I saw.
Editorial: Psst, Maria
Want to help the poor? Talk to ArnoldPublished 2:15 am PDT Monday, October 17, 2005
It was hard to escape the irony. California first lady Maria Shriver, briefly reprising her role as TV news reporter on “Oprah” this week, traveled to Virginia and Kentucky to interview families living in poverty, a worthy issue for any journalist to highlight. But as she accompanied Candy Lumpkin, a Virginia woman, on a grocery expedition with food stamps, did the first lady know the extent of poverty in her own state and how California has the lowest level of food stamp usage in the country? [emphasis mine]
Unlike Virginia, California requires its poor residents to submit to finger imaging, a finger-print-like system, to qualify for food stamps. And unlike most states, California also requires food stamp recipients to apply for federal food assistance every three months instead of the typical twice-a-year requirement elsewhere. Both factors help account for low food stamp usage in California.
As she quizzed Lumpkin about food choices – did she prefer low fat to whole milk, Shriver asked – did the first lady know that her husband vetoed a bill that would have jettisoned the humiliating and error-prone finger imaging? The bill also would have scaled back the once-a-quarter food stamp application process that is needlessly burdensome to California’s poorest residents. [emphasis mine]
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of the bill that would have made it easier for poor and hungry people in California to get food betrays a meanness at odds with the first lady’s obvious sympathy for the people she met mired in poverty on the other side of the country.
There’s another irony. As Shriver traveled to Virginia and Kentucky, the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, [emphasis mine] released a survey that said Fresno has the highest concentration of urban poverty in America. Brookings ranked cities with neighborhoods where more than 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line, defined by federal guidelines as an income of $19,350 a year for a family of four. Fresno ranked even higher than New Orleans, No. 2 in the survey.
The next time the first lady wants to interview poor people, she can stay at home. She might even want to invite her husband to go with her.
Dubya, Tee, EFF?!?!?!?
We have people who work at the only newspaper in Sacramento, which is the capital of one of the largest states in the nation, who can write editorials unsigned. I would have to presume this means that they are so high up in the structure, that their opinions, for all intents and purposes, are the opinions of this capital’s-only-newspaper. Although I have little idea who these people are, they hold positions of great responsibility. Much higher than some guy who writes for a blog nobody reads.
And they see nothing wrong with using food stamp usage as a reverse indicator — unbelievable! — of how badly a regional economy is doing.
They introduce any unacquainted readers to the Brookings Institution as a “Washington, DC based think tank.” There is some precedence for referring to Brookings in this way, or as a “centrist/nonpartisan” outfit, but only among journalists who want to deceive. It is far more established, and reasonable to at the very least call them “progressive.” They are funded by Teresa Heinz-Kerry. Any promoter of a “centrist” canard, upon being asked for a conservative position by E. J. Dionne, would have to answer by scrambling furiously and futilely.
They think the fingerprinting process of food stamp applicants is “humiliating and error-prone.” Clearly they don’t like it, although perhaps the space constraints have precluded them from explaining exactly why. I would have thought building a case on this would be Priority One. There are some Bee readers who require a little bit more than something like “it’s bad, you’re supposed to disapprove.”
The people who wrote this think an application process is “needlessly burdensome.” How long is this application process? The point of “needlessly burdensome” comes shooting past awfully quick for me if I’m well-fed and trying to defraud the system, but if I genuinely need the help, why, I may never see it. Give me writer’s cramp. Before I’m done pushing the grocery cart around the store, it will be a distant memory, especially if my family’s fed for the next month and otherwise would not be.
What in the hell are these people talking about?
I can think of only two things. They want more fraud in the system, or else they don’t believe in the fraud. They must want a greater demand to be placed on public assistance — they have said so — and they don’t want the resulting traffic to meet any resistance. They want throughput.
I would hope, if God popped out of the sky and said “I’m God, don’t worry, every belly in Fresno is full tonight, I guarantee it” they would drop the issue. I hope that, but I don’t think so. I’ve been watching the journalism profession for a long, long time. It’s clear to me that in a world with no empty bellies and little need for public assistance, newspapers just don’t sell as well.
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