Christmas At Townhall
Look! The good Christians at Townhall are slagging on the poor again – just like Jesus used to do! Ah, I love this time of year, when all the Townhall columnists get together and retell their favorite Bible passages in their own, inimitable, Townhall fashion. It looks like Rebecca Hagelin is going to be first this year, with the heartwarming story about the miracle of the loaves and fishses. What a perfect choice to capture the true meaning of Christmas – charity and compassion for all of humanity. Let’s listen, shall we?
[…]
There’s nothing new in this. Such selflessness has long been a part of the American character. Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French writer who toured America in the early 1800s, observed it firsthand. In Democracy in America, he wrote, “The Americans’ … regard for themselves, constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property for the welfare of others.” Throughout most of our nation’s history, it has been not the government, but privately run hospitals, orphanages, missions, churches and civic groups that have assisted the destitute and the downtrodden.
Then, as now, Americans didn’t do it for pay. They did it because it’s the right thing to do, particularly as Dec. 25 approaches. As Scrooge’s nephew remarks in A Christmas Carol, “I have always thought of Christmas-time … as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.”
The natural generosity of many Americans, in fact, makes them easy prey for reports over-hyping the extent of hunger in our country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, released its annual report on “food insecurity” last month, and most media immediately misreported it, claiming that about 35 million people suffered from hunger at some point in 2006. But as Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation notes in a new paper, it’s important to take a closer look at the report.
30And the Townhallies gathered themselves together unto the Heritage Foundation report, and shared with each other all things, both what they had heard from others, and whatever they personally believed to be true about the sybaritic and shameful lifestyles of the poor in America. 31And the author of this Heritage Foundation report, Robert Rector, said unto them, “Come ye yourselves apart into a very nice conference room, paid for with our copious Scaife dollars, and learn the new talking points that will allow you to refute the idea that “hunger” is a problem in America at all. For there have been many making fun of us on this topic of late, and we have had no leisure to prepare a defense against this. 32And the Townhallies departed into a very nice conference room room privately.
When you do, you see that hunger and “food insecurity” aren’t exactly synonymous. The department’s report shows that only 4 percent of American households had to reduce their intake because of financial hardship for even one day in the year. And 1.4 percent of adults — and fewer than one in 1,000 children — went so much as one day between meals during all of 2006.
33And the people saw the Townhallies departing, and did brace themselves for a round of flaming stupidity and reality denying. And they ran afoot thither to their computers, thence to participate better in the mockery which was sure to follow. 34And the Townhallies, believing that these people were there to listen respectfully, instead of mock, were moved with a towering sense of superiority toward them, and began to bleat out of their asses about many things of which they actually knew nothing.
“What is rarely discussed,” Rector writes, “is that the government’s own data show that the overwhelming majority of food insecure adults are, like most adult Americans, overweight or obese. Among adult males experiencing food insecurity, fully 70 percent are overweight or obese. Nearly three-quarters of adult women experiencing food insecurity are either overweight or obese, and nearly half (45 percent) are obese. Virtually no food insecure adults are underweight.”
35And the Townhallies said unto Rector, “surely all these poor people aren’t really hungry? 36 Can’t we just send them away and tell them to spend their food stamps on liquor and lottery tickets like we usually do?” 37And Rector answered and said unto them “Lo! Be assured that none of them are really hungry, because they are all Fatty McFattersons! Some of them are Super Fatty McFattersons! None of the poor people in my town look like they’ve missed a meal recently; most of them look like they could stand to miss a few more than they have been missing, in fact!” And the multitudes gathered round their computers did point their fingers and howl with laughter, for they well knew the problems concerning access to decent food in poor neighborhoods. Even if they didn’t, moreover, they knew the use, however imperfect, of the Google driveth out all stupid.
It’s not that hunger and poverty don’t exist — far from it, sadly. But Rector’s research underscores the need for ordinary Americans to continue caring directly for those among them who are truly poor — and not assume, as Scrooge once did, that being taxed is enough and that government bureaucrats are taking care of the problem.
38And Rector saith unto them “Deny not that there are actually poor people in America, for not even the twenty-eight percenters are stupid enough to believe that. But do make sure, in your talking points, that you emphasize the only really poor Americans are the ones who are willing to serve as Dickensian props in our press conferences. All the other supposedly “poor” are actually lazy freeloaders – just be sure not to play the racial element up too much when you say this, or the NAACP will be all over our asses. Say stuff like “ordinary Americans caring directly for those among them who are truly poor” – because by “ordinary Americans” everybody knows we mean “white people”, and by “caring directly for those among them” we can distract attention from what urban poverty really looks like, because none of those “ordinary Americans” live anywhere near that sort of thing. This is a great way to perpetuate the racial divide and the stereotypes about urban poverty that help to keep people like us in power and get people like Bush elected”.
Indeed, when you consider why true poverty exists, you realize it’s not simply a matter of pouring more money into this or that government program. “There are two main reasons that American children are poor,” Rector writes. “Their parents don’t work much, and fathers are absent from the home.” The typical poor family with children is supported by only 16 hours of work per week. If work in this family were raised to 40 hours per week, he says, nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.
As for absent fathers: Nearly two out of every three poor children live in single-parent homes. And each year, another 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. “If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty,” Rector writes. But don’t hold your breath waiting for one of the presidential hopefuls to float that solution.
39And so the Townhallies gathered the poor around them, and commanded them to make all sit down by companies and listen to yet another lecture about how 41their unmarried, lazy sluttishness was the cause of their poverty and hunger in the first place – even their hunger that didn’t exist! 40The people were sore confused, both by the idea that they were hungry and not hungry at the same time, and by Sister Hagelin’s insistence that this had something to do with single mothers, 42even though the very USDA report referenced herein cites food insecurity 43as affecting “disproportionately large shares of men ages 19-64 living alone“. But when Jesus is on your side, basic reasoning can be dismissed as a tool of the Devil quite conveniently. 44Thus, the people did partake of the stupid, and even after consuming their fill, found there were baskets of stupid still left to go around.
And that, my friends, is the True Meaning Of Christmas ™ , Townhall style. I hope they continue to bring us more tales of compassionate conservatism like this throughout the holiday season – mostly because the holidays depress me and I need a few good laughs at this time of year.
Blessed are the poor in brains, for they shall know wingnut welfare.
Well done!
I love how Rector frames this as if it’s the poor peoples’ fault that they’re not working much, rather than it being because they can’t find steady work. The “if work in this family were raised to 40 hours per week” line is a classic of passive-voice blamecasting, implying that it’s the workers’ responsibility to raise their own hours from 16 to 40 a week. IT’S JUST THAT SIMPLE!
If Rebecca Hagglin’ and Robert Rectum did not exist, we’d have to go back in time and have Jonathan Swift invent them.
I’m with you, Leonard Pierce (sir). Look what can happen with a little Mad Libs magic:
The typical poor family with children is supported by only 14 cents and some pocket lint in its bank account. If bank balances in this family were raised to eleventy-two bajillion dollars, he says, nearly 100 percent of poor children would be richer than Warren Buffett.
That was great! I would merely suggest for future installments that “Townhallites” would sound more Biblical.
Many of the United States’ first government social support systems of the late 19th century and the early 20th century originated precisely with those who had launched and run the private and church charities connected with veterans’ medical care, elderly soldiers, poor children, mothers, etc.
And that’s because they got tired of their efforts being completely inadequate to the task. Then, as now, the people in charge of such charities were often powerful, upper class, wealthy individuals or people closely in their social networks.
The private and church charities weren’t insulted by the U.S. government taking on these tasks — rather, they demanded it.
I’m confused. A Christmas Carol took place in Ameriker?
So…. it’s impossible for fat people to starve?
As opposed to Townhallites, 100% of whom have fat heads.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French writer
One of the good Frenchmen, not a surrender cheese-eating monkey like the rest of them…
Even though the very USDA report referenced herein cites food insecurity as affecting “disproportionately large shares of men ages 19-64 living alone“.
Hey, it’s me!! (Much closer to 64 than 19.) If I hadn’t gotten a card w/ a whole $162.00 of food stamps on it to last me for the month just last wk. I would have been feeling some “food insecurity” right about now. I just hope the 99¢ Only Store has something vaguely edible tomorrow. And there’s somewhere to go for free food, or lunch, or a food bank or something. The social worker gave me some fliers for them. All I have to do now is break the lockbox on the gasmeter & turn the gas on again, & I can boil spaghetti, & maybe heat some Spam™®. Yay!! Life is good. And many of you suckers WORK for a living. Ha ha.
This little gem of a paragraph is the densest wad of bullshit I’ve seen in a long time:
Clearly, Rector is about to propose that the minimum wage be raised to accomodate the crippling costs of healthcare and childcare for working single parents. What’s that? He’s not? Quelle surprise!
Okay, so he’s going to propose that we raise real sex education to a national priority, and make condoms and birth control freely available to whoever wants them? Sadly, no.
Because of course, fathers are never abusive or otherwise unable to provide a secure home for wife and family; additionally, every father–if he but received the sacrament of matrimony–would automatically be earning a living wage and able to contribute adequately to his family’s upkeep.
What’s that? Reardon and Hagelin are just right-wing noisemakers, more interested in making the middle class feel okay about the poor than in actually addressing the root causes of poverty and hunger? Well, then, everything’s a-okay! A Merry Christmas to all!
Is there any TownHall columnist that isn’t a goddamn wankstain?
Yew heard me ladies! None of our so-called leaders will make mandatory marriage when a brief (and possibly involuntary) bout of copulation results in conception the rule of the land so you’ll have to take matters into your own hands. Just grab yerself a lasso and rope you that no good sumbitch who knocked you up and ran away. Don’t yew worry none, he won’t need to get hisself a job (finally). Just tie him to a chair and watch as the magical powers of his willie draw the money fairies to your humble abode.
What’s that ladies? Better enforcement of child support regulations? Well mah Gawd. Yew don’t want yer little sprog to grow up without a daddy do ya? I mean, jest ‘cos he once opened yer purty little head up with a beer bottle and once tried to mo-lest yer little sister is no reason to get all persnickety.
What yew say gal? The father’s already married? And he’s a well known neo-conservative? Well…gotta run ladies!
WHAT THE FUCK?
Don’t forget the cost of child care even if you can find work. Apparently Mr. Rectum isn’t aware that children can’t be left in box crates all day.
I repeat WHAT THE FUCK, over.
I love the fact that the FamilyValues(TM) crowd knows less than jackshit about how families actually work.
“Heh, indeed” Rectum writes “the poor are lazy fat horny bastards”
What is this fucking Townhall? A group home for failed wingnut writers?
Speaking as somebody who had to cut down drastically on food costs last year, I can tell you it IS possible to eat properly on very little money..
Providing you have all of the following:
About 2 hours a day to shop for fresh foods and prepare and cook meals, as well as bake.
Local shops within walking distance that sell un-prepared food items at reasonable prices
Oh, and a good electric oven, at least a 2 plate hob, a casserole dish, baking trays, knives, spatulas and ladles, an electric mixer, a fridge freezer, a frying pan, at least 3 sizes of saucepan, a large non stick cooking pot, a roasting tray or two, and perhaps a dozen other household items…
Of course, you need a kitchen to put all this stuff in, and electricity and gas and water to run it all, so you need reasonable quality housing, and to not be so far behind on your bills that the utilities are going to get cut off.
Then last but not least, you need a certain amount of experience in basic cooking, plus access to the internet or cookery books, and enough money to go get takeaway if it turns out to be inedible.
So that is my solution. Give poor people all of the above if they don’t have it.
Oh, and added to the unending list of Things That Are Obvious To Anybody Except People Like Rebecca of Sunnyblank Stare:
There’s only a finite number of jobs to go around at any given time, and for every one person who gets hired, many, many others who DON”T.
But what a brilliant insight: If everybody had a decent-paying job, there’d be no hunger!
Thank you so very fucking much for telling us!
Yowch. That segue from Tocqueville and Dickens to— who is it? Hegelin?—seriously made my head hurt.
I’ve worked with food pantries that deliver “emergency” groceries to poor families on a weekly basis, every week, year in and year out. There’s a screening process that helps keep cheating down. I’m guessing that few if any of the Townhall scribblers have ever driven near some of the neighborhoods in which these “food-insecure” citizens live, let alone step onto their front porches or ride up the battered elevators of their subsidised apartment buildings and knock on their front doors to hand them a couple of bags of canned vegetables, packages of macaroni and cheese and a loaf of day-old bread. They’ve most likely never caught a glimpse of the half-clothed “food-insecure” toddlers staring out from the darkened front room, resembling for all the world the pauper children hiding in the Ghost of Christmas Present’s billowing skirt, or come to realize that the reason you usually don’t get a smile and warm thanks for your effort, but rather a grunt and a slammed door, is because the shame and anger at being in that situation are frequently overwhelming. That’s when you realize your do-goodism isn’t about you at all, and then YOU feel ashamed and angry as well.
And yes, as you drive away you pass the overpriced mom-and-pop corner grocery store, which has no fresh produce but is well-stocked with cheap Krispy Kreme donuts and Doritos and is the only place the residents in this neighborhood can buy food because the bus lines don’t stop here and they have no car, and you pass the within-walking-distance Burger King and KFC and you know why they’re obese even as they’re starving.
Bah humbug.
`
God bless us,
every onesome of us.I don’t see why poor people can’t send their children to day care for 8+ hours a day so that they can work enough to buy food.
“Official Poverty Level” is synonymous with “a joke”. Considering that, until recently, minimum wage was roughly half the poverty level, (and despite what wingnuts desperately want to believe, most people earning at or near minimum wage are not, in fact, teenagers) somehow, I don’t think that getting married will magickally solve everything.
Also, poor people tend to be obese because cheap food is horrible for you. I don’t get why this is a hard concept to grasp. You can survive on McDonald’s for $10 a day, but you’ll be a tub of jelly. Which will suck, because you probably also don’t have health insurance.
Is there any TownHall columnist that isn’t a goddamn wankstain?
No.
Don’t forget the cost of child care even if you can find work.
You’re just in time for another rightwing harangue on how only stay-at-home moms are raising their children right, whereas working moms are inherently selfish for “putting their career before their kids.”
You really can’t win this game.
Some of you libtards might point out that many of my fellow True Patriotic Americans are not exactly svelte and tend to break a sweat when they walk more than five steps.
But I say unto you that they gained their girth the way God intended. By sitting in their parents’ basement, scarfing Cheetos & guzzling Mt. Dew while fighting to save America by writing or reading thoughtful pieces about What’s Wrong with America.
“It’s not that hunger and poverty don’t exist — far from it, sadly. But Rector’s research underscores the need for ordinary Americans to continue caring directly for those among them who are truly poor — and not assume, as Scrooge once did, that being taxed is enough and that government bureaucrats are taking care of the problem.”
Shorter Townuh-hyuh:
The hunger numbers aren’t so bad, ‘cuz fat lazy sluts can’t really be said to “starve.” I mean, uh, unless we’re talking about the GOVERNMENT being credited for reducing hunger, in which case, um, uh, TEEMING MASSES ARE STARVING OH MY GOD WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF DE TOCQUEVILLE.
I don’t get why this is a hard concept to grasp.
Some Guy, the Clown Hallites don’t grasp the concept because they are paid not to.
“If is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” – Upton Sinclair
Well dang it, these here are the undeserving poor, especially those inconsiderate children stupid enough to be born to single and/or poor parents. If they’d go get jobs in a sweatshop or sell matches on the street, they’d be instantly lifted out of poverty.
Slackers.
can we start calling this sort of blatant evil town-halitosis?
It’s telling that they need to explain who de Tocqueville was to their readers.
Shorter Townhall: Hunger in America doesn’t exist, and even if it did, it’s their own damn fault. Fuck ’em.
I’ll second Clown Hallitosis, Jas.
“Virtually no food insecure adults are underweight.”
What the fuck is this shit?
NG, that there is a classic example of truthiness. Note the authoritative if slightly ungrammatical structure of the sentence.
Also, may I say that “food insecurity” has got to be one of the stupidest fucking phrases this Administration has produced? It’s like they ordered too many crates of the word Security for TWAT and had to start using them wherever they could.
Of course a cynical person might assume they were trying to play down the concept of being hungry (something everyone can understand) so it sounds less like that dizzy, confused, angry feeling you get when you haven’t eaten all day and more like poor folks just need to buy another padlock for their fucking cupboards.
Some days I hate BushCo for their crimes against language as much as I hate them for their crimes against humanity. Or I could get all melodramatic and say that since language is part of our humanity, every time these shitheels drool out another passive voiced non-statement and scoff when people shout “WHAT THE FUCK DOES ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” it is a crime against humanity. But I won’t.
[…] Posted by John O under Political | Tags: Christmas at Townhall, funny, Sadly No! | “Christmas At Townhall,” which is a veritable homeless shelter of conservative […]
That was very funny, Jillian!
I appreciate, as ever, the proprietors’ ability to wade through teh stoopid so I don’t have to.
‘At this festive season of the year, Mr Rector,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’
‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Rector.
‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the Union workhouses.’ demanded Rector. ‘Are they still in operation?’
‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman,’ I wish I could say they were not.’
‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?’ said Rector.
‘Both very busy, sir.’
‘Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Rector. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
I like your bible. Is it the King Flames edition?
This is clearly the fault of Ray Nagin and the Local Governmentors.
Nope. Don’t get it. Y’all help me out here.
Most of the hungry people are overweight, or something like that?
What does this statement mean? What’s the damn point?
I mean, near as I can tell, they never reach the (il)logical conclusion that fat people could just survive without eating for days on end, well, because of all that FAT!
So if you’re not willing to take it where it naturally leads, as stupid as that would be, why make the statement? What point is this dick trying to make by stating that hungry people in america are overweight? What data does that contribute to his, I guess you could sort of call it an argument?
It just seems like two disjoint facts, with no correlation whatsoever.
Or maybe I just need more coffee?
mikey
mikey:
I would suggest that they are *not* willing to make the logically following recommendation that poor but fat people should be able to survive several months, perhaps even the entire winter, on their own reserves.
Although empirically, global poverty is now strongly linked with obesity, oddly enough, the Townhallites are not yet quite sufficiently willing to publicly analogize the dietary prospects of American poor people to metabolisms more applicable to snakes or crocodiles.
Instead the point is made for sheer moral superiority claims: i.e., being rich & fat is a sign of badly chosen leisure time; being poor & fat makes you immoral and undeserving of aid, sympathy, or basic respectfulness.
It’s not like they’re that much kinder to skinny poor people either, since there were so many jokes about those stupid Ethiopians trying to grow food in the sand throughout the 1980s. (Amartya Sen? Who?)
…went so much as one day between meals….
There seems to be an implication here that one whole day isn’t that big a deal when it comes to skipping meals. Speaking for myself, the thought of a child going 24 hours without eating is appalling beyond description.
He’s relying on the prejudice of his audience to fill in the holes. With the caveat that I’m not trying to re-start the Great Sammich Controversy, most Americans have a fairly dim view of fat people.
Rector and Hagelin are simply trying to reassure their readers that poor people really are as disgusting and worthless as they’ve always suspected.
‘Are there no Weightwatchers?’ asked Rector.
‘Plenty of Weightwatchers,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the SlimFasts.’ demanded Rector. ‘Are they still in operation?’
‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman,’ I wish I could say they were not.’
‘The delicious shake for lunch and the Sensible Dinner are in full vigour, then?’ said Rector.
Fixed.
I discovered this site when TBogg linked to the two-wet-suit posting, so I’m new to the lingo here. Can someone be kind enough to explain to me the significance of sammiches and pie? I hope I can learn the secret without having to lick someone’s armpit first.
‘Are there no Weightwatchers?
Ha! Definitely fixed.
“If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty,”
that’s some magic wand, there.
hopefully my leopard is on its way to consume the hallics and the authors of the “nuh-uh, there aren’t hungry people. nuh-uh, nuh-uh, nuh-uh, times infinity!!!!!!!” study. this just made me feel like i was going to throw up.
Pie is what our trollscript gives to any troll you choose. All our trolls like pie!
Sammiches…well, we have, on occasion, been accused of being insufficiently compassionate to the girthically endowed. A search through the archives for “Dafydd ab Hugh” will get you the whole story, including the approximately seventy-three pointless blogwars spawned by it. I’d link it, but linking is nothing more than proliferation, and I’ve signed a few nonproliferation treaties, I think.
Food banks facing shortages:
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1306777
But what a brilliant insight: If everybody had a decent-paying job, there’d be no hunger!
That may be true, but full employment has never been government policy–and especially not Republican policy. The government wants a few million people to be unemployed at any given time; it keeps wages lower.
mikey, you’d have to consume enough caffeine to cause major brain damage to understand these assholes. Never mind the assertion, where’s the data to back up the assertion?
I suspect it was gathered in the same way Wanker Thomas Smith collected his information on the Hamazillas in Lebanon: They once drove through a bad neighborhood and were so crazed with fear that all they remembered seeing were two fat people and one skinny person. Ah-ha! Most poor are fat!
most Americans have a fairly dim view of fat people
Which is a little, y’know, ironic.
DeTocqueville passages not likely to be quoted at Townhall, Part the First
This is a brilliant fucking post. Great job.
… I was more particularly brought into contact with several (Roman Catholic) priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted.
I will not snicker or snerk. I will not snicker or snerk. I’m aware that the meaning of certain words have changed over time an intimate is one of those words. So I will not snicker or snerk. [guffaw]
Nice quote Hoosier X. Unfortunately the imagination-free, historically ignorant Punditocracy would have to experience first hand what life is like when there is no line between C & S before they could get it.
And even then they’d probably blame the Libruls.
“Virtually no food insecure adults are underweight.”
What the fuck is this shit?
It means that poor people can afford to eat all the Twinkies they want, so hunger in America doesn’t really exist.
Ok, you guys are a riot. Thanks for this.
I speak as someone who actually has lived on the wrong side of the poverty line, known career criminals, homeless folks, single mothers, and “street crazies.”
And has actually made the failed attempt to explain to someone about empty calories and malnutrition among America’s overweight poor.
… I was more particularly brought into contact with several (Roman Catholic) priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted.
Arky, I wrote my master’s thesis on early 19th-century newspapers and I have gotten so used to the quaint phrasing of the period that I did not even think of any snicker factor this quote might elicit. Not until after I posted. Then I snickered and thought “The first person who comments on this comment will make a joke about priests and intimacy.”
It bugs me how selective these nitwits quote their heroes selectively. Are they Cafeteria Conservatives, or is that redundant?
I blame the liberals. They have obviously upset people like this enough to force them to create such absurd sites. HAHAHA, I learn of some of the weirdest places online from you guys. And I thought that http://www.engrish.com was enough.
“Virtually no food insecure adults are underweight.”
I have absolutely no idea. Are these food insecure adults? They aren’t underweight, and don’t seem that insecure either.
Um, that should be something a little more coherent, like “It bugs me how these nitwits have to quote their heroes so selectively.”
I am already feeling sunlight insecure and foliage insecure this winter
I think it’s really charitable to say they’re quoting because that implies they’ve actually read the author/book they cite. It would be more accurate to say they’re quoting someone else who is quoting another person who posted an excerpt from a author/book on their blog.
See: The Talevan’s ability to ignore all of the “Love thy neighbor, Plank in your eye, Keep your religion to yourself, Don’t be a hypocrite, Turn the other cheek,” stuff in the Bible. See also people who Luv America but wouldn’t recognize the Bill of Rights if you engraved it on marble and dropped it on their heads.
Oh yes, sorry for being so predictable in my response.
Don’t apologize. Your response was very funny. There is no harm, none at all, in recognizing the potential for humor in all cases, no matter how obvious. Some things are ALWAYS funny. Like cops and donuts. Like Britney Spears. Like the preznit. Hundreds of years from now, Americans will still be laughing at George W. Bush jokes. (And, come to think of it, imagine how much less stressful it will be to laugh at the Chimpster in 2207 than in the present day.)
“I can tell you it IS possible to eat properly on very little money..”
Yes, indeedy, thanks to McDonalds’ Value Meals!
She also seems to be saying that these fat, lazy poor people only need help once a year, at Christmastime. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Oh, and FYI:
WaPo: “Cupboards Are Bare at Food Banks”
http://tinyurl.com/37fzax
One more thing, RWSnarkle–
When someone–Burger King or McD’s–ran their “I’m full!” campaign (last year?), it struck me that that, at last, was the presenting symptom of the post-post-scarcity society.
Forget “it tastes good.” We’re down to “Just buy it and you won’t be hungry any more.”
Next up: “It beats eating the Sunday paper, don’t it?” (TM)
And the people saw the Townhallies departing, and did brace themselves for a round of flaming stupidity and reality denying.
This has been my reaction to all “news” media for the last seven-plus years and counting. Well, it wasn’t *that* much better for the preceding 40-odd years, but at least prior to the lastest Rethugocracy one could hope for the occasional bit of honest information buried in the sewage of mediaspeak and lies.
Also, let me be the first to point out that some of those Food-Insecure People are actually working close to 40 hours a week, but they’re only getting paid for 16, because that’s one way Wal-Mart and other Great American Capitalist Successes keep their prices low, low, low! Not that raising “almost three-quarters” of all poor children above the not-actually-starving level constitutes so much of a WIN that the Jesus Hagelin professes to worship wouldn’t bitch-slap her (more) senseless, but it’s adding insult to injury when you’re cheating someone out of the wages they’re scrambling for and you tell them it’s their own fault for being lazy.
As for getting depressed at this time of year, Jillian, apart from not reading Townhall, I find that getting as much light as possible does help, to a degree. Where you are, even spending your lunch hour outside might smooth down some of the jagged edges. Here in the Northeast, we’ve progressed from cheap flourescent fixtures with aquarium tubes to Ott-lites (with a 40% off coupon at the chain craft store) and a Verilux lightbox (from Brookstones, at last year’s 50%-off after-holiday sale).
Notorious P.A.T. wrote:
That may be true, but full employment has never been government policy–and especially not Republican policy. The government wants a few million people to be unemployed at any given time; it keeps wages lower.
It’s actually worse than that. “Full employment” is actually defined by economists as anywhere between three and 10 percent UNemployment, depending on the inflation rate. (It’s called the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, or NAIRU.)
Re: Holiday/Winter Depression/SAD
While SAD is likely not much of a factor to those of us wintering on the California coastline, I have found over the years that sometime between early December and early February I am going to find myself in a dark, depressed place. I think the holidays are certainly part of it, with the mythology of the joys of gathering with family juxtaposed against the aching reality that I really don’t LIKE those people very much. Winter weather, such as we see here, is actually a joy to me, and if it’s particularly rainy I won’t get down at all.
But once gripped by the thorny vines of despair, it tends to feed upon itself, and the solution is not so easily reached. But I have found one thing that DOES in fact work, instantly and every time.
Pick a fight. The very act of getting angry enough to swing, and then actually slamming your fist into the head/body of some other deeply disliked and unlikeable human being, no matter how the fight actually turns out, will magically and instantly lift you out of your funk. Then, when the bruises fade and the cuts scab over, you will find yourself walking jauntily again, with your head up, a smile on your (still swollen) lips, and a song (probably country, but you’ll get over that too) in your heart…
mikey
Mikey, I’ll go looking for some unscrupulous petition hawkers tomorrow. Thanks.
Shorter Townhall: No sympathy cake for you, Miss Sluttypants. No sympathy cake for you, Mr Lazy-arsed worker. And definitely no sympathy cake for you, fatty.
And each year, another 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock.
“If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty,” Rector writes.
Abortions for everybody! Hurrah!
mikey, and anyone else affected with SAD (seasonal affective depression?): Things that help include exercise (it stimulates something or other to produce endorphins, which are the brain’s own happy pills) and omega 3s (otherwise known as fish oils, often sold in capsules or bottles, or just from a fish. Deep sea, usually, like tuna).
I’ve been on anti-depressants for squillions of years (most of my life), and was told that I’d be on ’em until they planted me, so get used to it sunshine. Once I started taking fish oil caps (a few months ago), a lot of the worst darkness just went away, and I’m actually able to deal with things, including some stuff that’s been hanging over my head for years.
And, the very bestest bit, I’m currently gradually reducing my drugs by 25%, with the aim of then going down to half of what I was taking 6 months ago (which would take me down to a normal dose, alas), and thence to nothing, hopefully within a year. It’s slow, but I don’t want my head to explode (well, one doesn’t, does one?), and I’m happy just to be making progress.
And if it helps any, all of us sad acts will probably be online on Christmas day, all cheering each other up: sad that I don’t have friends closer than a few thousand miles, but hey, at least I’ve got friends. Okay, I don’t know their actual, real, names, but that ain’t the point…
mikey, and anyone else affected with SAD (seasonal affective depression?):
Lots of photocopying always worked for me.
And Mister Leonard Pierce did raise his voice unto the masses and thus spake he:
I love how Rector frames this as if it’s the poor peoples’ fault that they’re not working much, rather than it being because they can’t find steady work. The “if work in this family were raised to 40 hours per week” line is a classic of passive-voice blamecasting, implying that it’s the workers’ responsibility to raise their own hours from 16 to 40 a week. IT’S JUST THAT SIMPLE!
To which we add, and who’s going to provide the fucking childcare for the sprogs assuming those single mothers can find work that will cover the cost of childcare? That comes with benes, because sprog between 0 and 12 years of age are walking germbags? All those food-insecure men aged 19-64 need to marry single mothers with sprog and provide childcare in exchange for the food stamps and a little nookie on the side. Or something.
Jesus fucking J.H. Christ and his black brother Harry, these people are singularly lacking in comprehension, compassion, or any modicum of charity.
That was Taco Bell, Mr. Wonderful. Taco Bell of “Run for the Border” and “Fourth Meal” fame.
“poor people can afford to eat all the Twinkies they want”
Actually those of us with cash insecurity can’t afford Twinkies. We have to make do with Little Debbie’s Golden Cremes. You get the same fine lard at a fraction of the price!