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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (140603)	7/10/2010 12:54:07 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541736

It's also true that it's hard to get fresh fruit/veggies in areas where the poorest people live. The large supermarkets won't build in those areas- for perfectly logical reasons- and the small mom and pop stores that sell "food" in some of the poorest areas cannot absorb the waste of stocking such perishable items. This problem has been in the news a lot- but people still don't seem to get it. Your point about high fructose corn syrup dovetails with the lack of fresh food- because HFCs and carbs are what's in most products with a long shelf life (along with all the other garbage in those "foods")

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (140603)	7/10/2010 2:20:43 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541736

If you don't believe me then step into the kitchen of the last busy restaurant you ate in and look for the person cleaning leftover food off the plates you left on the table, reaching into the steaming hot dishwasher to pull out the clean plates and stack them, loading the dirty ones and sweating like crazy, red faced, chapped hands, moving hard to keep up with the never ending buckets of dirty dishes. Ask how much he or she makes. In busy places that person will be the hardest working and lowest paid in the business. Now why is that? Why do liberals have such a penchant for trying to shame people into their point of view? I don't want to be mean, but it's just so unbecoming for someone with a keen intellect like yours. And it's pointless, don't you think? Everyone knows that cleaning dirty plates and picking produce is grunge work. The main thing I see when stepping into the kitchen of a busy restaurant are mostly young people, many of whom are high school or college students. They aren't going to stay in this kind of work for long....it's a stepping stone. The hotter the steam and the nastier the work, the more likely they are to knuckle down in school. The owners of restaurants will sure jump in and do that work when necessary. In fact, lots of franchisees started out in the kitchen. One thing I think many liberals should get fixed in their heads is that the unemployed, the welfare recipient, and even some of the disabled are generally a group of people in transition. Things are different now, but typically the average length of time on welfare has been six months. Bleating about them as though they are a fixed group, trapped forever in the grind of poverty flies in the face of the facts. The typical recipient is younger, hasn't built up an asset base yet, and something unexpected happens to them. Job loss, divorce, injury, etc. This country has a pretty good safety net of programs that can bring multiple forms of assistance to them. This is a very good thing and allows them to get their life back in order and transition off welfare. People on the right should also keep in mind that welfare assistance is typically a temporary situation and quit railing about the 'welfare queens' as though this group is the norm. Having said this, I have to agree more with Q. I've done quite of bit of volunteering through the years. Both in my church which operates an extensive system of welfare assistance and also quite a bit in my community. When I encounter people past 40 or so who are still struggling to hold down jobs, whose family life is dysfunctional, and who can't budget even when they have a job there are things going on that can't be blamed on society. Sometimes there is a missed or untreated underlying illness, which was my focus in my community volunteering. I was trying to find out if this was the case and steer them toward the appropriate assistance programs. Personally speaking, I wouldn't be surprised if one-third of those who are on welfare and/or struggling to stay afloat don't have some kind of unresolved health issues. Sadly, most of the time there are specific reasons for their plight....drugs, alcohol, lack of ambition, chip on the shoulder, and way too much ignorance to function in our more complex society. There's not much really constructive help that can be given. IMO, they have to hit some kind of bottom.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (140603)	7/10/2010 4:46:21 PM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541736

To earn a decent living in the USA you only need a few traits and capabilities, show up to work on time and be interested, be able to read and write, be willing to work hard and be flexible, continuously learn whatever you need to get ahead. You ignored a few key traits in your response. You left out that there is not much you can do for stupid people or those who dont what to study and continuously learn. Also when I said get ahead I meant enjoy a decent living, not be abject poor. Your fat and poor people get fat and sick on food that is not cheap or necessary. You know full well the vast majority of people on the planet live on basic staples such as rice, beans, etc. Throw is some ground beef, chicken legs, eggs, cheese and some veggies and they would still eat cheaper. Cheaper than the crap they eat now from Pizza Hut. No doubt I am not talking about people with disabilities or poor health through no cause of their own. Nice trying to characterize my statements about with poverty. With fat and lazy you should have added stupid. Because I see immigrants coming to this country of every color, race and creed and many of them are living the American dream. They work hard, they save and they make sure their kids study. Dont confuse working hard with being reasonably intelligent or someone who wants to continuously learn. Many of these kids in inner cities have situations that are a bit more complex. Even a kid with a average IQ has the odds stacked against him. I dont know what the answer is there. Their odds would be better if they did not have to compete with illegals for wages.