Talking About Hunger in the USA-

One of the things I admire about both Crunchy Chicken and Sharon Astyk is that they fearlessly charge into discussions that are bound to become difficult and rancorous. Lots of things just plain need to be talked about; regardless of hurt feelings. So they do.

I'm about to do that too. However, I want to start with a disclaimer: I'm not judging anybody here. I'm really not. But we have a problem no one is facing, and we need to face it.

In the last couple weeks Hunger In the USA has gotten a lot of attention, and rightly so. One of the nifty little facts that came out in the NYT was that currently 1/8 of adults are getting food paid for by the government, via what used to be called "the food stamp program"; and 1/4 of our children.

That shocked a lot of people. In truth, I'm pretty angry that people were shocked. We should have been horrified- and aware and doing something about it long before it got to this point. Once again, I'm embarrassed to be a citizen of this country. We let 1/4 of our children grow up in such poverty? Unforgivable. Not a word I use at all lightly.

At the time, Sharon put up a post on the topic; and my comment on it was the second one. My topic here is a little different.

There, I pointed out that quite a few people who are actually hungry- are in situations where their parents or caretakers truly just do not know how to feed them.

What I want to say here - non-judgmentally, remember! - is that many who believe they are hungry- are not. They do not know what real hunger is; in spite of those ubiquitous advertisements with skeletal children in them.

Today the Washington Post has chimed in; and I think without knowing it, they've hit a nail right on the head. There's both an article, and a rather long photo gallery.

These were the photos that set me off. Neither this woman, nor her child, are actually "hungry", in the sense of not having enough to eat. They certainly may be malnourished- but hungry? No.

I do not, in the least, doubt that the woman believes she and her family are hungry, and that she is frantic about the welfare of her children. I would be willing to bet she's entirely sincere, and in no way a "bad person"- quite the contrary. But her problem has been misidentified; and the help being offered her- will not help.

Later in the photo gallery there is another mother- who is skipping meals, so her children can eat. She's skinny. And I'll believe in a second her stomach hurts, and that her children's do too.

There is the crux of why I'm writing about this. One of my myriad ex-girlfriends (ok, 3) fiercely accused me during one of our breakups of being a "problem solver"; a great sin for someone who didn't want her problems solved, she just wanted me to listen to them. (Evidently this is a fairly common source of friction between males and females, but I REALLY don't want to talk about it.)

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima etc. Loathsome as it may be, I really do prefer to come out the other side of a difficulty in an improved state, if possible.

Hunger in the world is actually a major focus of my life. To hear that one out of every four children in my country requires help from outside the family in order to not be hungry sets me going. Big time.

A tried and true way to fail at problem solving is to apply the wrong solution to a problem. For example, like trying to fix a flat tire with a wad of bubble gum. Looks kinda like it might work, if we're lucky. But in fact, it's just truly dumb.

I think we have abundant proof available that we're applying bubble gum to our hungry populace. It isn't going to help; which is by far my biggest objection; and it's insanely expensive, in a time when the country doesn't have a dime to spare. The money could and should be spent so that the recipients of the aid actually get help for their problem.

Problems come in layers, more often than not. The next layer to this particular one is that we know many people on food stamps are not actually hungry- but we don't want to deal with what's really going on. It's embarrassing, from all directions. So, rather than cause some forced blushing- we continue as a nation to pretend: lack of food is the problem; and money is the answer.

Very simply- lack of food is NOT the problem; and money is NOT the answer. Can't get much simpler than that.

The problem is- we refuse to talk about, or deal with, the problem.

If you haven't read the Washington Post article, now would be a good time. Surprise! They actually talk about all this.

I was delighted to discover that; and that others are struggling with it.

Now what?

Once you've discovered your solution to a problem isn't a solution; and the problem isn't what you thought it was - you must, must, must - throw everything out and start over.

What we're doing right now, to continue the flat tire simile, is "hey, maybe if we got the gum hotter, it would work." "hey, maybe if we mixed the gum with gasoline, it would work" "hey, maybe if we put sand in the gum, it would work." "hey, mixing the gum with gasoline almost worked, let's try mixing it with brake fluid instead."

It's painful to throw out a "solution" that you're so deeply invested in. But anything else is almost certain to just add to the "fixing the fix" cycle.

A black hole for the people; and the money.

Blizzard/Schmizzard; Disaster.

We're in the middle of a "blizzard" here, as anyone with any wireless communication device doubtless knows. The weather-casters have orgies for weather like this. "Bitter Cold! Huge Snowfall! ... House High Drifts!" etc., etc.

I do have an immediate complaint; I've never, ever, experienced a blizzard like the ones Laura Ingalls repeatedly describes; in 30+ years of living here. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm pretty sure Laura fudged her climate data.

Yes, it's a serious storm; life threatening; for knuckleheads, greenhorns, and the unlucky. About 20" of snow, we think; it's incredibly hard to measure with the wind moving everything. 25-40 mph winds. Dropping temps, headed for 0°F, with windchills far lower.

But, dang it- I can still see the THWASPCO, quite clearly. No chance, whatsoever, of getting lost enroute. In fact, even at the peak of the storm, I could still see the other side of the valley, 100 yards away. Sigh.

Sharon, over at her new blog address, has already posted a compleat compendium of what to do- when the power goes out- which certainly is usually the most common problem with big storms. I put up a little response in the comments there; mostly, we're snug.

There are, however, other problems storms like this can precipitate.

The cats got up on the table, and ate the butter.

Normally, they're much better behaved. Caught in the act, and ratted out by Smidgen, they were tossed, literally, out the door into a snowdrift. Ha.

In the aftermath of this financial and emotional catastrophe, it developed that the cats were, perhaps, not entirely at fault...

They were hungry. Their dry food feeder was... empty.

We failed them. Sad to say. No wonder the poor dears were breaking laws...

Ok, get the cat food and feed them.

What?

NO CAT FOOD?????

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??????

There is no getting out of here for several days, for sure.

As good conscientious preppers, here is fodder for squinty eyes and muttered remonstrations. "You were in town last..." "yeah, well, you emptied the last bag- why wasn't it on the list? ha?"

A failure of the process. A senescent seneschal? A charlatan chatelaine? Forgot your ADD meds didja?

The potential for violence, in a little cabin lost in the snow- is frightening.

So if you don't hear anything from us again-

Either we've all killed each other, or we've been eaten by cats.

A fearsome foreshadowing, surely, of the collapse to come.

ok, yes, I had an affair too...

I just can't hold it in any more, but YES - I too-

had an affair with Tiger Woods.

There, it's out.

Let the chips fall where they may.

:-)

A Thanksgiving Gift for You-

Hi folks. With the bird in the oven, I've got a few moments-

So my thoughts turned to all the poor benighted folks out there who are, or just have- peeled chestnuts. Using any of the methods recommended, for centuries.

There's a genuinely NEW way- literally discovered around a year ago.

How to peel chestnuts- REALLY!

So, quick, quick- if you haven't already cut your hand and fingers, burned your fingers on hot nuts, or shoved hard, sharp chestnut skins under you fingernails- try this way- and pass it on.

A major boon to humanity, we think. :-)

----------------------------------------------------------

I'm hoping to get back to regular posts here in the next couple weeks- some aspects of harvest are slowed down; but not all. Tons of stuff going on, besides waiting for the next socio-economic-political shoe to drop on our heads. Dubai, maybe?

In any case. Happy Turkey Day, for those required to indulge today.

The Tooth Fairy- a Growth Industry!

Now that we all know economic "growth" is dead- the realization is spreading, and turning up in non-intuitive places.

I tripped over this one (on BBC), and laughed so hard I had to share it with you.

Really perfect Polka Dot Gallows material- you don't know whether to laugh or cry; you just kind of sit there, jaw dropped, and boggle.

It's the only remnant of The Capitalist Dream! Enough money to bury you. Obtained, you hope, by a gambling proposition (insurance: I bet I'll pay less in than they'll pay out)- which you believe you'll win. Although all the calculations of the insurance company say- you won't. Their profits depend on that. Do insurance companies make profits? Do fish have sex in the water?

And if you can zoom your screen a little, and get a good look at the fairy's face- it strikes me as skeptical, with a little secret smirk. Right up front.

That's what they're selling, to a herd never weaned from Disney.

I would like to know, scientifically, how many are buying.

sigh.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

Ok, can't help it, it's raining today so I'm inside reading too much.

And just boggling all over the place at the substitution of polysyllabic incompetence for "thinking".

Started off with a diatribe on the NYT "GreenInc" blog. Not posted yet, so who knows; but I'll repeat it here:

All the critics here are correct; but you’ve fallen into the trap set by the scheme instigators.

You’re fighting fire with logic. Doesn’t actually work, in terms of putting any fires out; it just generates committees.

The real problem is professors. (don’t you just love it when people say ‘the real problem is…’ )

Professors- not known for their broadscale thinking, repeatedly find they have a hammer in their possession. And they get enthusiastic about it.

“Look at this huge beautiful hammer!” they cry- attracting many who got Cs in science in high school, and assume professors know what they’re talking about.

“We have to use this hammer! And your problem looks to me like the perfect nail!”

Except is isn’t a nail, at all. This problem right here is an Allen head bolt, and the hammer is not useful.

But the hammer is big and shiny- and expensive, so there’s loads of money to be made studying it all, and building prototypes.

“Hey, technology is huge these days! We’ll figure out fixes for the problems later!:”

Just like they did for corn ethanol- a direction now abandoned by all not brain dead or deeply invested.

CEOs of power companies; and legislators, really need to ask for a full-scale, long term (500 year) plan and extrapolation. If the process proposers don’t have one- that’s really really good evidence they haven’t thought beyond their big shiny hammer, at all.

Do we have time to waste, and money- on Allen head bolts flattened and mashed beyond extraction by big shiny hammers?

That’s supposed to be rhetorical.

— Greenpa

Used to be only ninnys didn't think problems all the way through- but it seems to be a pathway now being taught to PhDs.

The next example, which pushed me over the edge, is from BBC Science.

This professor guy (and not a minor professor, but "the director of the scientific aquaculture programme at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts") is spending huge amount of money working on training aquaculture fish to come back when called, in the ocean; by a specific sound.

Then, see, they could go find some of their own food, and wouldn't always be pooping in the same toilet, but would come back when you wanted to feed- or kill them.

First try didn't work. Predators ate them, as soon as they were allowed to escape from the cage. I'll be darned.

Besides which- gosh, if you've got your fish trained to come and be fed, and the signal is a sound... exactly how long do you think it will take the predators to learn that the sound means- time to come and get fed? Right here?

I think any signal, in any medium, you can use to train your fish will emphatically be intercepted by the predators, immediately.

At first, the fish began to forage outside of the aquadome, moving in and out at the prompt of the sound, just as the researchers had hoped.

"But then we start seeing these bluefish circling our cage. And these are notorious for being ravenous and ruthless hunters," he says.

"Very frustratingly, we went back day after day to find these fish still showing up at the cage, and we couldn't for the life of us call the black sea bass back.

The tags helped the researchers to identify their bass

"They were scared to death - we went diving, and we could see them amongst the rocks, but nothing was going to make them run that gauntlet between the rocks and the cage when it would put their lives at risk."

And the fish had good reason to be scared.

When the team caught one of the bluefish and slit open its belly, they discovered 12 tiny tags - the fish that they had been attached to had already been digested.

But. Big, hopeful, news coverage on the BBC!! Hey, the funders will love it.

And his answer? Gonna build robotic sheep-dog sharks to keep the little predators away.

What a good idea.

sigh.

Ok, so the hammer is not working on this machine screw. Maybe if I hit it from the side, with more money...

Norman Borlaug.

I left a comment on the NYT article on Borlaug's passing. Here it is:

The one time I met Dr. Borlaug, I made a complete fool of myself. We'll pass over how.

He was very gracious about it. There was nothing in the least pretentious about the man. But it was awe-ful to be in the same room with him. A large part of that was his complete accessibility. He would listen to you- no matter who you were. Which is the mark of a true scholar.

As an ecologist, I'm quite aware of the shortcomings of the Green Revolution.

He was, too. And it hurt him to have to cope with the sometimes sharp and unfeeling criticisms.

His motivation was simple. And pure. When people are hungry- you feed them. Gandhi had the same thought.

He fed them. Yes, it wasn't perfect, and he knew it. He bought us time; only that, and he knew it. In part, he figured he'd done his part- and now it was up to someone else to take the next steps.

That would be you. And me.

We miss you already. And will for a long time to come.

Norm was a man.

It's too easy to forget that about towering figures, and he was one.

Yes, I know I know I know; many aspects of The Green Revolution have not worked out well, or to the benefit of the common people.

But that truly was not Norm's fault. He was not a great philosopher; not a politician, though he tried consistently to use the weight of the Nobel Peace Prize as a bludgeon on the World Bank officials and other politicians he had to deal with. It wasn't his skill.

His skill was understanding crops, deeply. And need.

Could you stand and see a starving child- with food in your pocket- and not feed the child?

If your answer is yes- either you have never actually been in the presence of utter poverty; or you are subhuman.

Norm saw the poverty- and injustice, and all the rest that goes with living at the bottom of the human pile. His skill was plants. So he gave his life to working for the poor, primarily in that way.

Others saw ways to profit from his work, and often heartlessly derailed it. He hated that; but the starving, dying children still faced him. He never could do nothing.

Down deep, I think he expected others to give as he did; everything, their lives; to deal with the other aspects of the problem of too many people on one limited planet.

He was a farm kid from Iowa. Just a man. Not perfect; but he tried, with everything he had in him.

After I'd made a fool of myself, we eventually found ourselves alone together; for about 4 minutes. We talked about what was next on his schedule; he had rushed to get to the meeting we were at, and had to rush off to another. And another.

(Ok, that was how I made a fool of myself. I had to introduce him to the meeting. And I bungled it, because I was so nervous.)

I said; "They don't really give you much time to sit down, do they?"

"No, they don't." And more slowly again, "No, they don't."

We looked at each other, and he told me silently that he missed his family, and the time to savor life a bit.

Then he pulled himself back up, and went off to the next battle.

People will argue forever, I think, about whether his work alleviated human suffering, or created more.

I can't say. Philosophically, how can you say that it would be better if Person X had simply never existed? Very easy, in the abstract- but could you stand next to X, look him/her in the eyes, and think so?

He knew a simple thing that an astonishing number of humans never learn; people do not exist in the abstract. Each one is real, with pains, hopes, fears, despairs- exactly like your own.

He worked among the people, and knew them, face to face. He could not say; "No, you must not have any children. The world has no room for you."

He thought that decision was not his to make. Perhaps one of those whose lives he saved would in turn hold the answers for what happens next. We can't know.

What we can know is that here was a man who fought with everything he had; every day of his life- for the people of the world- all of them; every last one.

Is there more a person can do?

Proof !!

SciFi writer Larry Niven, in his younger days, proliferated "Finagle's Law", which is basically Murphy's Law (Anything that can go wrong, will.) re-written for geeks.

My recollection is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum."

I can now add a corollary (that is, in addition to the one I've already added; Greenpa's Law: "Everything can go wrong. Just wait.")

Right now I'm spending a lot of time mowing grass. This is in preparation for our harvest- it's really hard to pick stuff off of bushes when the quackgrass and thistles are taller than the bushes; and it's also great cover for rodents down there. You gotta get rid of the grass. So I mow.

The guineas, you understand, are part of our long-term plan for the grass. A) they eat some. and B) they are phenomenal "watch" animals. If we wind up with sheep, or calves- the guineas should be all over, and will alert the dogs to any intruders. Theoretically.

Anyway. Partly I mow up on the John Deere, using a following flail. And, I mow using the Grillo walking tractor, with the Ferrari sickle bar; 7.5 hp Yanmar diesel, and the best sickle bar ever made. I'm in love. But you still gotta walk; for miles, holding on to a jerking, vibrating noisemaker.

So, it's, like- THIRSTY work. For reasons probably connected with Finagles Law, my JD 70 hp 4WD utility tractor (open, no cab) has NOWHERE to put or hang a water container. Apart from improvised places, which always result in tearing off a signal light on a tree branch, or the metal water container being dropped into the mower. So- no water. Likewise, the Grillo is a water-free zone; you just don't want to be carrying a canteen; it'll beat you to death, and a "camel" pack is a hilarious idea- you'll sweat out twice the water you can carry because it cuts off air circulation on your back, completely.

THIRRRRSTY.

Having done this a time or two, of course you can plan for work loops that end up somewhere where you can get water. Obviously.

One of them is our 80 year old Aermotor windmill, which pumps all the water for the Little House. When the wind is blowing, of course. But I do usually try to avoid mowing on windless days (which we have plenty of in summer) - because I'll sweat and die.

So- today the wind is blowing, VERY steady; 12 mph from the NNW. A good clear direction; pumps water great.

I get off the tractor, cool it down, turn it off; pull out my earplugs; and walk to the windmill, which is pumping just as steady as can be.

I bend down, pick up the hose from it- and...

The wind dies.

This is ABSOLUTELY reliable. I've been keeping track; for 25 years (we didn't have the windmill for the first 5).

No kidding. In 25 years, here are the data.

No. of times I've taken a drink directly from the pumping mill (or tried to): 264.

No. of times the wind has died when I picked up the hose: 248.

No. of times the wind quit completely, and I gave up: 197.

Fool that I am; today the wind was so steady, I thought I could sneak in a drink.

Nope. Gave up.

Here is the new corollary to Finagle's Law:

The Aermotor Corollary:

If you really need a drink from your windmill, the wind WILL die immediately, and water pumping will cease for as long as you wait for it to restart.

Those are hard data folks.

Somebody IS out to get us.