Olive Garden, Cigarettes, breastfeeding in public, soda for the poor and Ed Schultz

Outrage!


Our children die in the streets from hunger and lack of healthcare, our soldiers are involved in neverending wars, billionaires laugh at our gullibility, we're slaves to petroleum, and we are outraged over trivialities.


Have a nice day.

:evilgrin:

:hi:

B-)

...To the people who profit from and therefore want to distract our attention from the fact that "our children die in the streets from hunger and lack of healthcare, our soldiers are involved in neverending wars, billionaires laugh at our gullibility, we're slaves to petroleum..."

It's just the moral decay of society that needs to be nipped in the bud!

Where is this happening? This is the 2nd time I've seen this comment from you and I have no idea what you're talking about.

It's just another ridiculous claim that isn't supported by the link you provided.

Is hunger any less important than dirty words?

That's why they exist.

I'm glad you're pointing it out, because I'm not allowed to.

:applause:

:shrug:

Thanks
:toast:

and perhaps you'll understand why I find your drama flakes comment insensitive and sadly ignorant. :-(

:rofl:

4. Yes, that's the average age. Most people think of the homeless as that toothless person pushing the shopping cart or the grubby old drunk guy asking for spare change or the ratty woman muttering to herself. They imagine the hobo and think of the homeless camps we see on television dramas when reality is so very different.

In my county, the number of homeless students more than doubled from 2009 to 2010.

We've had several child deaths from malnutrition and one from exposure already this year. Not that the average citizen would know it. It's not reported in the papers, though sometimes you can find mention of it if you know where to dig. You have to be plugged in to the homeless and childcare advocacy network to even know about it.

It's a well hidden problem right out in the open.

Drama?

Tragedy

sweep that other stuff under the rug, this is an outrage....

Do you have a source for those stats? I'd really like to find it, if you could.

I really appreciate your insight.... it is not common around here.

:applause:

The average age of homeless in my county came from a symposium for creating a network of government and NGO relief agencies about 18 months ago. I can't remember if it was the director of the When In Need program or the IHN.

support an affordable permanent home environment."
http://www.winhousing.org/win.html

Nice words (although this whole "transitioning" stuff irritates me), but the whole point is that NOBODY can "support an affordable permanent home environment" on $674 a month!

So, from my reading, this means nothing...just more words, maybe slanted to blame the victims, and getting no real change.

There was no mention of ages, and I don't know what IHN is, so if you could help me with finding that, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Keep in mind these programs vary significantly from location to location. The one my parents volunteer for is managed much better than another one I am familiar with in the same state. The gentleman trying to lead the effort here has barely gotten it off the ground. My congregation volunteered over a year ago to be a support congregation and our offer hasn't been acted upon yet.

http://www.familypromise.org/program/interfaith-hospitality-network

I wish I could help more on the numbers. Honestly, I'm just going by the figure brought up in the meeting I attended. I don't know how it was derived or if it has changed significantly since. I agree with everyone that four sounds shockingly low and can only imagine it has to include abandoned infants for the math to work.

If I had to completely ballpark a number based on the work I have done I would put the average age below the teenage years, but couldn't get more specific than that.

The stats just can't be accurate, so it was either a guess, or very specific to one location.

Google turned this up... again, may or may not be accurate:

"More than 750,000 Americans a night are homeless and over 40% are women with their children.The average age of a homeless person in the United States is 9 years old!"
http://needykids1.netfirms.com/mainhomless.htm

Again, there are MORE homeless people than that on a given night, so the rest is dubious, also.

I have a very hard time looking at those "programs". I wouldn't want to be there, and of course, I wouldn't be accepted anyway, as I am not a "family". We can just stay under a tree somewhere.

the woman who headed up the WIN program a few years ago was good about bringing singles of the same gender together and recognizing them as a "family" so they could qualify for service. I'll be completely honest, I haven't had any interaction with that particular organization in well over a year. Most of my work has been with the local homeless shelter/soup kitchen that doesn't have any sort of requirements regarding whom they will and will not serve.

It shows a flaw in the program.

THAT is what needs to be addressed.

I have given up trying to get people to understand:

1. Homeless people are people just like anyone else, and no more flawed.

2. That what is needed desperately is LOW-INCOME HOUSING.

I have resigned myself to the fact that permanent low-income housing is now "shelters", and that will be how I will live out my days and finally die.

I am angry as helll about that, as are many others.

But until the housed decide to deal with reality and CHANGE it, that's what we are stuck with.

Thanks for your post.

But I'm finding it hard to understand how that happens mathmatically. That would mean a really high number of homeless babies in relation to a relatively small number of homeless adults.

5 homeless 4-year-olds + 1 homeless 35-year-old averages to 11.

Even reducing the adult's age to 25 gives an average of 9.

How can there be so many homeless babies in comparison to homeless adults?


Edited to add: Math was never my best subject. Am I missing something?

And from what I understand it's actually increased and used to be lower. Yes, there are a lot of young homeless mothers with infants and toddlers. At the largest shelter in town we have a much higher need for diapers and formula than anything else. Teenage pregnancy is very much related to homelessness. So many things are connected to others I don't even know where to begin. We live in a really sick system.

I'm sorry, I just don't think it's possible unless people are leaving their babies there and going away, or there's some other reason why the population of children is so much higher than the population of adults, even if they are teenagers.

If a 15-year-old had 4 kids, twins ages 3 and 1, that still averages to 4.6. And that's pushing the limits of what is medically possible.

Sadly, the last "family" I helped relocate was a 13 year old girl with three month old twins. That gets you under the 4 year average, but I wouldn't dream of saying she is representative of homelessness any more than the old man with the shopping cart is.

I have no idea if the number is still valid, but I do know I remember it quite clearly. A number that shocking sticks in your head. And many people in that room resisted it as well.

Really the only point I want to make is that homelessness affects people of all ages, both genders and all genetic variations (races) and American children dying as a result is not some sort of histrionic pronouncement. It's a statement of fact.

"It MUST be in other parts of the world."

DENIAL is, as you say, deadly. :cry:

Thanks for posting this. If you ever find links, I would appreciate it very much.

It's more like

Homeless 18 year old with a three year old, two year old and six month old for an average age of less than six. I'm guessing they must be including abandoned babies perhaps?

I can't wrap my brain around it either, but several individuals at the meeting said the numbers were bang on. I also imagine it varies greatly by area of the country and at any given time. It may have just been the latest statistic they had for our specific county at that point in time.

Regardless, the reality of homelessness is far different from what most people see or believe. Children are dying as a result.

Which relates to other national problems. Even sadder.

hundred thousand children die of malnutrition every year, worldwide.

If none of them are on Maple Drive in your home town, does that make it any less tragic?

Considering this article is nearly two years old, is it possible that conditions have worsened because of increasing numbers of unemployed, especially in the United States?

<snip> Record numbers go hungry in the US
Government report shows 50m people unable to put food on the table at some point last year

<snip> More than a million children regularly go to bed hungry in the US, according to a government report that shows a startling increase in the number of families struggling to put food on the table.

<snip> President Barack Obama, who pledged to eradicate childhood hunger, has described as "unsettling" the agriculture department survey, which says 50 million people in the US – one in six of the population – were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy at some point last year... <more at link>


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/17/millions-hungry-households-us-report

edited to add 'rec'

all over the world.

for stateing the overlooked obvious , because they ARE our children.A child is a child where ever it was born.

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!1!

:rofl:

not a pretend nursing but an actual nursing?

are movies avoiding this natural act too?

:hide:

I've never eaten at one.

A relative had given me a bunch of Olive garden bredsticks to feed the ducks and geese at Lake Lafreniere and even the bread eating addicts would waddle away, ignoring Olive Garden bread.

That one too.

One concern neither diminishes nor denies another concern.

In the face of wars, class warfare, and gas prices, I am also concerned about a presentation I'm giving at the office next week.

That may or may not be too much for one brain, but I'm guessing it's in the "may not" column.

When my heart was breaking over a suicide that I couldn't prevent, American Idol rolled on as usual.

Whem my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Justin Bieber continued to make headlines.

We don't get to set the agenda for others.

This attitude that we should just accept lousy shit because hey, that's just the way it is, guarantees that the way it is will always be that way. Maybe you should try to set the agendas for others and see what happens. When your wife was dying did you speak up about the ridiculousness of Bieber still making headlines, or did you just accept it? And which of those two options assures that nothing ever changes?

I said don't expect others to share your priorities. Not everyone will join the picket lines, even if they're on your side.

And my wife isn't dying. She's responding well to treatment. It's terminal, but stable for now.

Rather Victorian.

I didn't even imply you shouldn't express it. Just don't expect others to follow.

Luckily, there are others who are more sensitive.

You make no sense at all. I don't think you read my post. Nothing I said indicated anything about accepting my fate. I said I don't expect others to be affected by the things that affect me.

The OP indicated that trivial matters should disappear when there are serious issues at hand. That's just not realistic. Trivial matters didn't go away for the Civil War, or WWII, or 9/11 or Fukushima. And people who follow trivial matters may be every bit as concerned about the big stuff as anyone else, but we all need diversions.

It was the only message I could get from it. You told the OP he needed to learn about life, that bad things happen while trivialities continue. This is the "life" you said the OP needed to learn about. It sure sounds like you're accepting it to me in that post. I appreciate the added clarification in this post and the other, but in your initial post that was definitely the message that came across.

I don't think the OP indicated that trivial matters should disappear, I think he was pointing out the insanity of focusing so intently on them while worse things are going on that deserve far more attention. And he's 100% spot on with that. It's not just a matter of following these stories for a diversion, which I agree we all need, it's about following them to the point of exclusion of the more important things, and I know tons of people who do this every day, both offline and on. There are 40 million people on food stamps, yet only one thread on the topic. Ed Shultz calls someone a slut and there's been at least 50 threads on it. That's what the OP is talking about.

I'm sorry about your wife's condition, but happy to hear that she's stable. I lost my mother last year to a combination of brain tumor, lung, liver and bone cancer, after she had just passed the 7 year mark of surviving breast cancer. Thankfully for her, and for us kids as well I guess, her death happened within 5 weeks of finding the brain tumor, so it was quick and the end was painless for her. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have to deal with that kind of feeling over a long period of time, and my best wishes go out to your wife and to yourself.

It seems you approve of that.

Have a happy life.

You have no idea about my struggles or tragedies, be gone forever from my sight.

to talk about anything other than major disasters? Personally, I think If we ignore those thing you find to be "trivialities", the right wingers will be allowed to have their own way with them, and our society here will erode even more. Freedoms are freedoms....we can discuss them all. We are not intellectually limited to dealing only some of them.

You have a nice day as well.

That's right, there's motherfucking jerking off right on the motherfucking plane. Oh shit, I just called the alleged self pleasurer a bad name. I truly apologize.

:)

you get your badass Tacoma yet?

Sorry you can't.

people not stickin' to the schedule.

Hardly fair.

I was a lurker when the broken salon chair thread came about. Found it very interesting.

:eyes:

What an outrage!

though no thanks to your schoolmarmy lecturing.

:toast: