hunger

Action Required


Trump has abandoned nearly all presidential duties since November 3. What’s missing from this list?

Reading time – 3:09  .  .  .

You’ve seen the visuals of miles of cars in line to get a little food from food banks. People are waiting in line for hours because they can’t feed their families without assistance, so you already have a sense of the need. These are our friends and neighbors hit hard by forces beyond their control, so it doesn’t take much effort to imagine yourself in such a situation. You can feel the horror, because if circumstances were slightly different, it could be your kids going hungry. Here’s an idea for how to make things a bit better for those who desperately need things to be better.

We have a family tradition of doing a holiday talent show, where each of us gets up and does a 3-minute routine to entertain us all. It’s great fun. Be sure to ask me about my grandchildren’s amazing talents, like solving a Rubik’s Cube in under 1.5 minutes or reciting the alphabet backwards in under 4 seconds or doing magic tricks.  There was some discussion that this year’s event was perhaps the best, in spite of having to do it via Zoom.

What’s important is that at the end of each of our shows we discuss what we’ll do with the money we’ve all contributed throughout the year to a big jar sitting on a table by our front door. What’s in that jar is the funding for our family philanthropy project, designed both to help those in need and to instill in the young ‘uns a sense of duty to others. Sadly, this year nobody came through our front door to toss money into the jar – just another casualty of Covid.

What we did instead is to noodle at the end of our talent show Zoom about the massive hunger problem we have across the country and what our little tribe might do to help. What we came up with is to place a donation box in front of our house and ask the people in the neighborhood to pitch in food and then donate it to the local food bank. We already checked and learned that they’ll accept unopened cans and boxes of food still this side of their expiration date. We sent an email blast to the neighborhood yesterday and are looking forward to hauling boxes of food to where it will do some good.

You can help that way, too. Maybe you have better ideas. The point is to do something. Take action: children are hungry.

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The warm-ish weather is gone and in the mid-west the party is over: it’s cold. If you know someone who needs a safe, warm place to escape the winter weather, visit KeepWarm.Illinois.gov to find a warming center nearby. If you live outside of Illinois, find the safe places in your state and pass them along to those who need one or those who might know who needs help. Just do a search of “warming shelters state” (substitute your state name for “state”). The point is to do something! Take action: children are cold.

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Just It Figured Out

I’ve found it most curious that in this peculiar time when the President of the United States is ignoring every presidential duty that he would suddenly and belatedly become interested in the Covid relief bill and insist on direct payments being increased from $600 to $2,000. This is the same president who refused to become involved in negotiations over this issue for 8 months. This is the same president who told us the economy was doing great, as millions applied for unemployment aid. This is the same president who refused for a year to lead the nation in a full court press to minimize the suffering and death due to this disease. Why would he suddenly want to provide greater financial benefit to We the People?

I’ve heard pundits speculate that the reason for his sudden interest in aid to suffering people is to instigate yet more chaos, one of his favorite activities. Sounds plausible.

Maybe he wants to look like a last minute (actually, past the last minute) hero. Foolish, but plausible.

Some kindhearted folks have suggested that he’s just realized the scale of the human suffering in this country and cares deeply about people going hungry or becoming homeless. Does not sound plausible at all when ascribed to a totally self-absorbed sociopath with a perfect record of ignoring the needs of others.

Many have simply scratched their heads. I get that. But I think I’ve just figured this out.

Trump has done all he can to make the transition difficult for the Biden team. He’s booby-trapped every door to every department of the Executive Branch. He’s stopped or slow walked cooperation. He’s removed knowledgeable people who could help the incoming administration. And he’s done all he can to make governing difficult for Biden after January 20, 2021, which brings us to the $2,000 mystery.

Any increase in benefits to Americans likely won’t happen through this Congress. It’s too late for that and McConnell won’t bring it to the floor for a vote. That bill will pass to the new Congress to do the right thing. That will give Republicans and Trump the opportunity to excoriate Democrats controlling the House and perhaps the Senate for flagrant over-spending, labeling them the profligate tax and spend demons. After all, with a Democrat in the White House, Republicans will rediscover the awfulness of deficit spending, something about which they developed amnesia when voting for the $1.5 trillion tax act in 2017.

Trump doesn’t care a bit about suffering people. This $2,000 demand is just a ploy to attack Biden and Democrats and set himself up for a 2024 run for the presidency.

Never underestimate the genius of this cruel, vicious, self-serving monster. He isn’t the president of all the people. He’s a president serving just one.

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Stuff I Just Don’t Get


Reading time – 3:29  .  .  .

I don’t get “pro-life.” Republicans overwhelmingly call themselves pro-life, perhaps to make anyone disagreeing with them get labeled “pro-death.” Good sloganeering, but  .  .  .

They are overwhelmingly anti-abortion. Okay, if a fetus is considered a person, that’s understandable. But the anti-abortion thing – we’ve always had abortions. Before they were legal they were mostly done in alleys and filthy rooms equipped for little more than spreading disease. Complications and possible death awaited a woman having an abortion. Women at severe risk of dying from complications due to pregnancy were kept from having an abortion and some of them died, too. Is any of that pro-life?

Republicans are also overwhelmingly in favor of capital punishment – the death penalty – killing bad guys. I have trouble seeing how our state sanctioned murder is pro-life. That’s made more poignant by the huge number of innocent people released from prison and death row through the marvelous work of The Innocence Project. Nevertheless, the current President is rushing to get half a dozen people executed before he leaves office. I don’t suppose those people would view that as very pro-life.

And what about our concentration camps on our southern border that were built at the direction of the President and tolerated by meek Republicans in Congress? People in those camps have died from heat, malnutrition and more and we’ve been stingy with our healthcare for them. Are those camps pro-life? Is our indifference to the suffering and death of our concentration camp prisoners pro-life?

From a CR report about the Safe Water Drinking Act of 2005 (AKA “The Halliburton Loophole” – you’ll want to read both of these reports), passed during the Bush-Cheney administration:

“[The act] exempts industry from having to disclose the chemicals it uses in fracking and prevents the EPA from regulating fracking fluids.

“The purpose of the [Safe Drinking Water Act] is to protect our drinking water, and the industry that is pumping toxic chemicals, carcinogenic chemicals underground doesn’t even have to tell us what those are.”

Those toxic chemicals are consistently leaked into the drinking water resources for human beings. And, “The oil and gas industry is also exempt from federal EPA hazardous waste regulations and Superfund regulations,” meaning they can make a toxic mess and never have to clean it up, leaving pollution and the health dangers to the rest of us. Does any of that sound very pro-life to you?

I don’t understand those pro-life Republican legislators who refuse to provide relief to hungry Americans, including 1 out of every 6 children in the country. Is that pro-life? Is the refusal to prevent upcoming evictions caused by unemployment due to the pandemic pro-life? It sure isn’t going to look that way in January when millions may be tossed out of their living quarters and onto very cold streets. That’s going to look very pro-death.

Is it pro-life to enact legislation that protects Monsanto from accountability for their product, Roundup, that has poisoned people, given users cancer and killed them?

Is it pro-life for the Republican President of the United States to refuse to lead and only do minimal things to protect Americans from the pandemic? Several studies have shown that between 75 – 99% of death from Covid could have been prevented by strong federal leadership, but that leadership never showed up and more people died unnecessarily – at least 200,000 more. That doesn’t sound very pro-life to me.

During this lame duck period the President hasn’t even mentioned the pandemic that is killing 3,000 Americans every day. And there hasn’t been a peep from Republican lawmakers calling for desperately needed leadership to mitigate the worst of this pandemic. That doesn’t sound very pro-life to me, either.

Our government repeatedly turned down opportunities to secure another 400 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, leaving us with a huge shortfall of protection for Americans and only fingers crossed that other vaccines will prove to be safe and effective. That doesn’t sound pro-life at all.

In fact, from what I can see, once a baby is born our pro-lifers don’t seem to care much about life. Perhaps they should make an honest attempt at accurate labeling and call themselves “pro-fetus only.”

Something else I don’t get  .  .  .

Literally, millions of Americans think that the pandemic is a hoax. I’m not sure what they mean by that. I have my own definition of the word “hoax” and it’s pretty much in accord with Webster’s: an act intended to trick or dupe. But I don’t get how that fits with our medical crisis.

Frank Bruni detailed this claim of Covid hoax in his piece, “Death Came for the Dakotas.” He told the story of a nurse working in a South Dakota ER. That’s South Dakota, the place with the third highest rate of death from Covid in the world. He wrote,

“She was reeling from tending to dying Covid-19 patients who continued to insist that the coronavirus was some kind of hoax.

“‘They ‘scream at you for a magic medicine’ and warn that Joe Biden will ruin America even as they’re ‘gasping for breath,’ she wrote. She added, ‘They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that “stuff” because they don’t have Covid because it’s not real.’

“‘They stop yelling at you when they get intubated,’ she wrote. ‘It’s like a horror movie that never ends.'”

That doesn’t sound to me like the pandemic is a hoax.

Click me for the story

I have asked dozens, perhaps hundreds of people to help me understand how Americans can call this pandemic a hoax, even with death all around. My question became almost silly upon hearing about people denying coronavirus even as they themselves were dying from it.

I wonder what the reaction of the deniers might be to hearing what this looks like from the point of view of a few more nurses. My notion is that if you can read that piece of reality without tearing up, if you can read it and still deny this wicked sickness, you should check your pulse immediately, because something is terribly wrong.

Let’s make a reasonable assumption that the people who deny the disease, or whatever it is that they think is a hoax, are reasonably functional adults in other aspects of their lives. They made it through school, they care for themselves and their families and are law abiding folks. Still, they deny what is right in front of their eyes and perhaps what is right in their veins and their lungs. Somewhere, somehow they are seeing a hoax. I don’t get that.

Of course, there are lots of other things I don’t get, like quantum physics, the meaning of life and whatever happened to tongue-shaped Saf-T-Pops, the ones on a loop of rope instead of a stick. Root beer was the best flavor.

But those topics are for another day. For the moment I’m more interested in explanations for the pro-life and hoax issues. Can you help?

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Food Insecure


Reading time – 2:37; Viewing time – 3:30  .  .  .

I’ve been a dad for a long time and for some time my children have been adults for years with children of their own. I’ve been so very fortunate to never have had serious worries about providing for my family.

But I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve become semi-numb to statistics. 200,000 new cases and 2,800 dead every day – these are statistics. It became a little easier to understand the meaning of those numbers when I heard someone say that we are having a 9/11 every day.

I can still see those awful pictures in my head, the airliner crashing into and through the second tower and exploding in a huge orange fireball, people jumping out of the towers to their death, the collapse of the buildings, the smothering fallout of dust and debris and the disoriented, confused New Yorkers wandering in the streets, and the shuffling, stunned, silent foot parade across the Brooklyn Bridge. You have those same pictures in your head, too. I know you do.

That’s when I finally got it. That we’re doing that every day. Our friends and family are dying every day in numbers as large as the 2,977 who died on 9/11. We were right when we called it a tragedy then. What do we call it when this happens every day?

They talk about Americans who are food insecure and just after seeing those images in my head is when I finally got what that means, too. I projected back years ago to when my kids were little ones and I imagined the horror of not having food for them. My babies could go to bed hungry and go to school hungry. That’s what “food insecure” means.

We’re on our way to 50 million Americans, including 17 million children – 1 in every 6 kids – who are hungry. That means there are 33 million moms and dads who aren’t able to feed their kids. Moms and dads who, just like you and I, want to protect their kids and who surely are horrified that their kids are hungry. Just like you would be. Just like I would be.

You have to see that in your mind’s eye: children; toddlers; 10-year-olds; teens who are growing fast and have voracious appetites – all now food insecure. Hungry. And those moms and dads are frustrated and humiliated because things were okay just a few months ago, but they cannot properly care for their kids now. That’s not how it was supposed to be.

The big picture talk about the pandemic, the economy and unemployment statistics isn’t about the numbers we’re shown. It’s about real people like you and me, with real kids like yours and mine and for whom hunger long ago passed the point of being just a concept. It’s an every day reality for them. So is the threat of homelessness. So is the threat of death by pandemic.

The president has gone totally AWOL and Congress has gone demonically stingy and glacially slow. But, no worries. None of them will be going without a  meal. 50 million others will.

Contact your local food bank. Today. Ask them for at least 3 ways you can help.

Hurry. Our kids are hungry.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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