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POPSFood Stamp Use on the Rise in the US as Poverty Increases and Stigma Fades
With most of his co-workers laid off, Greg Dawson, a third-generation electrician in rural Martinsville, considers himself lucky to still have a job. He works the night shift for a contracting firm, installing freezer lights in a chain of grocery stores. But when his overtime income vanished and his expenses went up, Mr. Dawson started skimping on meals to feed his wife and five children. He tried to fill up on cereal and eggs. He ate a lot of Spam. Then he went to work with a grumbling stomach to shine lights on food he could not afford. When an outreach worker appeared at his son’s Head Start program, Mr. Dawson gave in. “It’s embarrassing,” said Mr. Dawson, 29, a taciturn man with a wispy goatee who is so uneasy about the monthly benefit of $300 that he has not told his parents. “I always thought it was people trying to milk the system. But we just felt like we really needed the help right now.” - more @ clip source
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POPSAmerican Casino: A Documentary About the Home-Mortgage Crisis more @ clip source the Cockburns meet one guy in "American Casino" who understands the whole mess better than most, a California real estate investor named Jeff Greene who smelled the end of the housing bubble around 2006 and bet $1 billion against the mid-decade exuberance of Wall Street. Sitting in his walled and gated beach compound in Malibu, Greene calmly tells the camera that the opportunity for his successful hedge bet (which has yielded $500 million so far) involved massive pain for millions of homeowners.
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POPSRubbish Problem Worsens in Cairo More at clip source. Today, we've not had any water in the neighborhood where I live. This has never happened in the two years I've lived here. The authorities are fixing the water main: I doubt we'll have water by tomorrow morning. Bottled water is unhealthy, but I am happy to have it today. About the rubbish pile up: In the affluent and powerful areas like where I live rubbish is not piling up in the streets. And I doubt this is a problem in New Cairo or 6th October. My friends in Giza do not enjoy the same privilege. If the government really cared about public hygiene they would have cleaned up this city long ago. Egyptians deserve better.
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POPS Cuting the Ties Between Poverty and Obesity I had to move to a completely different neighborhood in order to have regular access to fat-free milk. ... When we talk about obesity and the way it correlates is poverty, we spend most of our time talking about pushing low-income consumers into making healthier choices and probably not enough time discussing how we can get food retailers to sell healthy food them in the first place. more @ clip source
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POPS[WATCH] Ousted Honduran President Zelaya Goes to Washington Interesting: according to Real News the San Jose Accords requires Zelya to abandon the consitutional referendum that he advocated when in office. The referendum, if successful, would have brought participatory democracy to Honduras. In Honduras, particiipatory democracy is prohibited by law. People are forbidden to ask questions about taxation, social programs, etc. The only way to change the law is to amend the constitution: Zelaya was ousted by the elite for his efforts. In Honduras, six (6) familes control 90% of economic activity while 75% of the people live under the poverty line.
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POPSSouthern Poverty Law Center Report: Climate of Fear Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y.[ Less than one year ago, on Nov. 8, 2008, Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant, was murdered in the town of Patchogue, N.Y. The killing, police say, was carried out by a gang of teenagers who called themselves the Caucasian Crew and targeted Latino residents as part of a sport they termed "beaner-hopping." ,,, The situation in Suffolk County, in fact, is a microcosm of a problem facing the entire United States, where FBI statistics suggest a 40% rise in anti-Latino hate crimes between 2003 and 2007, the latest numbers available. The number of hate groups in America has been rising, too, climbing more than 50% since 2000, mainly by exploiting the issue of undocumented non-white immigration.
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POPSReligious Right Takeover: The reason the world is facing economic and cultural catastrophies As with all histories, it is best to begin at the beginning. I didn't clip from the home page, but it is best to start there. If I remember correctly, Masbury wondered (paraphrased), why there is such vehemence towards the poor, well the answer is in the second part of this clip. The "divine program," philosophy dates back to the 18h century: a justification for capitalist greed, the wealthy as God's chosen people. If you haven't read The Family by Jeff Sharlet get thee down to your local library or bookstore and read. God save us from His followers. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525
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POPSThe Genius of Photography vs. Susan Sontag's On Photography |quote]Sontag argues that the proliferation of photographic practice has long begun to establish within people a "chronic voyeuristic relation" to the world around them. And that therefore the meaning of all events is somewhat leveled to an unhealthy degree. As she argues, this fosters an attitude of anti-intervention. Within this it's felt that the photographer should leave their subject, whether it be a person or an event, to its own devices while being photographed, regardless of the moral character of the subject. The justification comes in the idea that the resulting photographs will be documents, representations of events already in motion, in the name of truth and enlightenment. Sontag goes even further to say that the individual who seeks to photographically record cannot intervene, and that the person who intervenes cannot then faithfully record, for the two aims contradict each other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Photography Just something I'm pondering.
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POPSSlideshow: Cairo's Housing Divide After all this time living in Cairo I am still amazed at how the people maintain their sense of humor. There's extreme poverty, but Egyptians, the ones I know, laugh and joke all the time. They don't dwell on their problems, but instead they work incredibly hard to live as well as they can. For all its problems and inequality, Cairo is one of the best places in the world to live because the people, despite the odds, make it so.
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POPSU.S. Low-Income Housing on the Chopping Block [Part 1] This began during the 1990s, under the Clinton Administration. I have often wondered why the so-called Black leadership idolizes the Clintons. This demolition of public housing is all a part of Bill Clinton's answer to the problems of poverty in the United States, his so-called welfare reform. Lack of affordable also impacts poor Whites, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans. So what is so special about the Clinton's? What have they really done for poor people in America?
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