"cybercat" > wrote in
:

>> It is for some who only consider the expense.
>
> And for some with no compassion, little life experience, and nasty,
> petty, cramped little souls and tiny hard black hearts.

Poetically put ;-)

"Nexis" > wrote in :

>> That should keep you busy and off the streets for a while :-)
>
> Don't hold your breath, Michel...

Darn, and I was just getting used to oxygen deprivation (starting to feel
like a consie, think like a consie, check my wallet like a consie...).

Michel Boucher wrote:

>
>
> Basically, Dave, I was not talking about people who do it to act cool when
> I mentioned those who are in dire straits, and you know that. What you
> presented was the case of a first nation girl who blew over 200,000$ in
> drugs.

I didn't say that she blew it on drugs. I said the money was gone, wasted.

> I don't think that deep down she spent all that just to look cool,
> but you're entitled to trivialize the issue any way you want. Just make
> sure you clarify that you're trivializing it so we know you're failing to
> address the fundamental point.

I missed the fundamental point? You were the one who jumped to the conclusion
that she blew it on drugs. The fundamental point was about lifting people out
of poverty. She was lifted out of poverty. Well, she was sure given a hell of a
boost, $234,000 worth of boost out of poverty, but he she is just a few years
later and she is poor. Poverty ceased to be an excuse. Instead, it became the
result of attitudes and lifestyle.

Nexis wrote:

>
> > Doing drugs has a lot more to do with being cool and fitting in than with
> > some need to forget. Just like alcohol, the number one favourite drug in
> > North Americium, some people get into the habit. Many others do not. If
> > pot
> > were legal most people would probably rather smoke that than the more
> > addictive drugs.
>
> Are you serious? You think some 35 year old crack addict cares a whit about
> fitting in or being cool?

They didn't start off as 35 year old crack heads. It is what they became.


> Do you think the drug addicted prostitute kili spoke of feels cool? Fits in?
> Really?

She probably doesn't feel so good about herself anymore. Sit her down with a
bunch of church goers and she probably figures they are not at all cool.

> First of all, I was talking about a specific group of people. People who
> drink/use drugs/cut/withdraw etc in a futile attempt to mask/forget/deny
> their pain.

It is a self perpetuating. They are poor because they don't have jobs. They have
too much spare time so they party, do petty crime, waste their lives away. Then
they end up poor and feeling sorry for themselves. BTW.... most people get high
to have fun, not to "forget".It is a distraction.


> They don't give a rat's patoot about fitting in. Do you think
> someone who was molested by their father their whole life (for example) EVER
> feels like they fit in?

Molested by their father's??? Is that why people do drugs?

> Do you think they EVER feel cool? Yes, high school
> and college age kids may do drugs to fit in and look cool to their
> friends...that has nothing to do with what I was talking about, however.
> They are generally recreational drug users, and generally not really
> addicts. Addicts could give a sh*t about fitting in OR being cool.

Most of the people I know who became addicts used to think they were pretty cool
when they first started doing drugs. BTW..... the process of becoming
physically addicted to most drugs takes a long time.People abuse drugs for
recreation and develop a habit long before they become addicted.

Michel Boucher wrote:

>
>
> I suggest though that you inform yourself first before going any further.
> There is much available on first nations and addiction your local friendly
> google search engine can find for you. Hell, let me get you started:
>
> http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/s...nlaada-eng.php
>
> http://www.nnapf.org/
>
> That should keep you busy and off the streets for a while :-)

Do you think I am unaware of the drug and alcohol abuse problems on native
reserves? I have no doubt that if I had actually said that the woman in
questions blew that $234,000 on drugs and booze you would have called me a
racist for suggesting that is what it was all spent on. But I didn't you did.
I was speaking about the problem of throwing money at social problems. Most of
it gets wasted. The native community is a prime example. The federal
government hands out $10 Billion to native bands every year, and what is there
to show for it?

My son used to work in a Montreal hotel that had a lot of Innu staying at it
while their children were in the city for rehab. Each child was accompanied by
as many as a half dozen adults, and while the kids were in rehab, all the
adults were on benders. IMO, it was the adults who should have been in rehab,
and individually so that they wouldn't get together for drunken parties. Fine
example the set for the kids.

But who can blame them. They want to live on the reserves and pretend that they
are living a traditional lifestyle. There are no jobs on the reserves, or for
hundreds of miles around. There isn't much to do but get drunk and stoned.

On Jul 26, 1:50 am, dsi1 > wrote:
> On Jul 25, 6:35 pm, "Edwin Pawlowski" > wrote:
>
> > "dsi1" > wrote in message
>
> > > Personally, I had to chuckle about all the good people out there hating
> > > them poor folks. :-)
>
> > Only poor fat people that complain they don't get enough charity to buy
> > meat. They can still buy Shredded Wheat if they want to.
>
> We must have all read different articles. I didn't read no article
> about those gals saying they wuz starving nor did I read one where
> they wuz begging for charity so they could buy some pork chops. Make
> no mistake about this - the only reason we talking at all is because
> of a photo of 2 chubby chicks. Otherwise, nobody would give a crap
> about what the NPR series is really about: the tough times that


They aren't "chubby chicks," they are morbidly obese women.

The saddest part of the whole issue is that they aren't even
knowledgeable enough to realize they have other problems than having
no meat to eat, not the least of which is that they are too naive to
see that they are being ridiculed because they gave the photographer
and writer permission to use them in their story.

N.

wrote:
>Perhaps they should be throwing money more accurately. Per-capita
>funding for public education, just to take the most obvious example,
>has steadily declined since Reagan's days. Better education would go
>a long way toward solving several of these interrelated problems. -

It's funny how the rich don't mind paying tens of thousands of dollars
for private schools, yet often object to being taxed much less to help
fund public education.

Orlando

wrote:
>Oh, please. These women are milking the system. They can't afford meat? Eat
>a salad-eat 500 salads. They won't starve.
>All they want are freebies-on the system. Pretty obvious.

I entirely agree with you. When's your first shipment of salad
vegetables arriving at their door?

Orlando

Nancy2 wrote:

>
> They aren't "chubby chicks," they are morbidly obese women.

It's a matter of perception, isn't it? Some Pacific island cultures
consider "morbidly obese" women as attractive. I have a pencil drawing
of a "morbidly obese" Hawaiian woman hanging on the wall and it's
beautiful. I try to stay away from being judgmental if I can help it.

>
> The saddest part of the whole issue is that they aren't even
> knowledgeable enough to realize they have other problems than having
> no meat to eat, not the least of which is that they are too naive to
> see that they are being ridiculed because they gave the photographer
> and writer permission to use them in their story.
>
> N.

Your culture and upbringing makes you see it that way. There is a
possibility that they're not as naive as you think and that they viewed
this as simply taking a picture. Good for them. I've noticed that a lot
of women in our culture seem to be deathly afraid of this simple act.

wrote:
>I am entitled to Kvetch about cost. I pay taxes. I would rather have the money
>for my own use. If you want to donate your own money and throw it into that
>bottomless pit of need, feel free.

I suspect, given your attitude, that "your own use" wouldn't allow too
much of your money to help the needy. So, just because you work for your
money, you feel entitled to widen the gap between you and those who have
less than you? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?

Orlando

wrote:
>You tell the kids we spend more per pupil on you than anywhere
>in the state! and they still come to school unprepared from broken
>homes with unmotivated parent(s) on welfare. Anyone who knows
>how to fix that will have plenty of listeners.

Pay teachers more and reduce class sizes. If it needs to get down to one
teacher per student, that's what it will take, unless we want to give up
on an entire generation of educable children from broken families.

Orlando

Dave Smith > wrote in
:

>> I don't think that deep down she spent all that just to look cool,
>> but you're entitled to trivialize the issue any way you want. Just
>> make sure you clarify that you're trivializing it so we know you're
>> failing to address the fundamental point.
>
> I missed the fundamental point? You were the one who jumped to the
> conclusion that she blew it on drugs. The fundamental point was about
> lifting people out of poverty. She was lifted out of poverty.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble but, for one thing, you cannot lift
anyone out of poverty. This is where well-intentioned (or even some ill-
intentioned) programs assume they have power over others. Unfortunately,
it happens that in a society such as ours, people will rarely do anything
such as change radically if they cannot realize it is in their self-
interest, not the interests of the government or the public purse. I
other words, you can't shame people into changing.

This applies to people "being lifted out of poverty" (tm applied for) as
well as any other addictive behaviour pattern, for example smoking or
gambling or voting conservative.

Self-interest however requires some education before engaging in whatever
activity is involved. Too often those left with such massive decisions
have not got the means to assess the situationj and make rational
decisions. Too often people are given as choice but not told what the
implications are because the person explaining it has no idea. You can't
blame them for not knowing.

Just as we require drivers to educate themselves in the proper
manipulation of a large object which will hurtle at great speed, in order
to avoid causing unnecessary injury (and by the way, that's another thing
your taxes pay for and you can thank the gods for that), or crane
operators so they learn not to drop things on top of us (you see where
I'm going here?), there are massive changes which should be accompanied
by a training seminar. But I don't think it's going to happen any time
soon and governments of the dexter variety tend to leave matters like
that to the appropriately named Invisible Hand.

Steiglitz argues that the invisible hand often seems invisible because it
in fact is not there. In other words, there are things we can't leave to
random chance. How much we can't leave to random chance depends on what
you think is important. Personally, I think social well-being should
trump economic well-being so you can tell what I think of the current
gummint ;-)

Ok, I have a camembert which has reached room temp and I'm going to go
eat some.

Orlando Enrique Fiol wrote:

>
>
> It's funny how the rich don't mind paying tens of thousands of dollars
> for private schools, yet often object to being taxed much less to help
> fund public education.

What is funny about it? There are definite advantages to some private
schools. They pay for their own kids' education and then they have to pay
for the public system too. Some of them send their kids to faith based
schools because they disagree with some of the things being taught / allowed
in public schools.

Orlando Enrique Fiol wrote:

> wrote:
> >I am entitled to Kvetch about cost. I pay taxes. I would rather have the money
> >for my own use. If you want to donate your own money and throw it into that
> >bottomless pit of need, feel free.
>
> I suspect, given your attitude, that "your own use" wouldn't allow too
> much of your money to help the needy. So, just because you work for your
> money, you feel entitled to widen the gap between you and those who have
> less than you? Where does this sense of entitlement come from?
>

You don't know much at all about my attitude. I have no problem helping the needy.
It is the lazy that I resent having to subsidize. I went to school, finished high
school and went on to university. I got no allowance from the time I was 8. I had a
paper route to earn my spending money and later had part time and summer jobs. I
paid my own university tuition and books. The mother in this story never finished
high school and never worked. Her excuse was that she was disabled after a car
accident at age 23), by which time I had graduated university and was working full
time. Call be old fashioned, but she could show just a little bit of effort toward
supporting herself.

Michel Boucher wrote:

>
> >
> > I missed the fundamental point? You were the one who jumped to the
> > conclusion that she blew it on drugs. The fundamental point was about
> > lifting people out of poverty. She was lifted out of poverty.
>
> Well, sorry to burst your bubble but, for one thing, you cannot lift
> anyone out of poverty.

It doesn't burst my bubble. I am well aware that some people are destined to
be poor, and it does not always have anything to do with the poverty or
wealth into which they are born. That is why I gave the example of that
woman who got close to a quarter million dollars just for being a member of a
band that had oil on their reserve. Some people have turned a lot less into
fortunes. There are many others like her. Just look at the number of lottery
winners who have blown millions.

> This is where well-intentioned (or even some ill-
> intentioned) programs assume they have power over others. Unfortunately,
> it happens that in a society such as ours, people will rarely do anything
> such as change radically if they cannot realize it is in their self-
> interest, not the interests of the government or the public purse. I
> other words, you can't shame people into changing.

True enough. Oddly, that does not stop them from insisting on more and more
handouts.

>
> Just as we require drivers to educate themselves in the proper
> manipulation of a large object which will hurtle at great speed, in order
> to avoid causing unnecessary injury (and by the way, that's another thing

Perhaps we should have welfare licences too. Make people take a course and
pass a test to show that they have learned the rules, that is is supposed to
be a temporary support system and that they need to get out of it.

>
> Steiglitz argues that the invisible hand often seems invisible because it
> in fact is not there.

He can argue all he wants. It is only a figure of speech. There is not a
hand. It is a social welfare system. It is funded by taxpayers, the type of
people who go out to work every day instead of sitting around watching Dr.
Phil and the soaps while stuffing themselves with junk food.

> Ok, I have a camembert which has reached room temp and I'm going to go
> eat some.

Isn't that rather selfish. You could have sent it to Mrs. Nunez.

Orlando Enrique Fiol wrote:

> wrote:
>
>>You tell the kids we spend more per pupil on you than anywhere
>>in the state! and they still come to school unprepared from broken
>>homes with unmotivated parent(s) on welfare. Anyone who knows
>>how to fix that will have plenty of listeners.
>
>
> Pay teachers more and reduce class sizes. If it needs to get down to one
> teacher per student, that's what it will take, unless we want to give up
> on an entire generation of educable children from broken families.
>
> Orlando


Amen.

I left my career as an accountant to stay home and raise my children.
About 6 years ago I began substitute teaching on a per diem basis
primarily because the lack of of available subs was directly impacting
my kids. Specifically, any time their elementary school was unable to
find a sub for any given class they would cancel Spectra (gifted
education classes) and force that teacher to cover the open position.

My daughter lived for those classes. They were the only time she felt
normal, average. I went out and got my sub certificate to make sure
this wouldn't happen any more. In Missouri, all this entails is proving
you've got 60 hours college credit and a clean background check.

I also began subbing in other classes. I currently sub K thru 12,
district wide. After my son's middle school accelerated math class
teacher went out on medical leave I covered his class for a few weeks -
as long as state law would permit for a non certified teacher. Later I
found out that when I had to leave the students went to the principal
with a petition, pleading for an exemption. But state law is state law.

I found out I love teaching. But would I be willing to go back to
school to become fully licensed in order to be able to work at it
full-time? No. The financial rewards are in no way, shape or form,
worth the mental and emotional commitment required.

I am looking to re-enter the full-time job force, but as an accountant,
not a teacher. When I told my daughter's former Spectra teacher she
actually cried. I've been subbing for her for so many years that she
could phone me at 6 am with the flu, ask me to cover for her and tell me
that it was, for example, 4th grade day and they were doing the Egypt
unit and I could step in and cover for her without missing a beat.

But it's not a living. My daughter is graduating a semester early and
will be starting college and I can no longer afford a job that doesn't
pay a living wage.

Michel Boucher wrote:
> Dave Smith > wrote in news:488CE79F.7AEB4A07
> @sympatico.ca:
>
>> I will have more faith in the system when higher percentages of welfare
>> recipients get off the dole and their children don't end up on it.
>
> That will only happen if you invest in it. My son's mother was on welfare
> and because she got the support she needed she was able to get out of it,
> get a job teaching school and is now about to retire. All the women I knew
> in the 80's who were on some sort of social safety net have all graduated.
> Why? Because they were supported in their time of need.

The system saved our family's ass when my wife and I moved to CA some 30
years ago. As luck would have it, we found out she was pregnant with
nether of us with job or health insurance. We were able to get good
prenatal care which ended when our son was born. By then, we both had
jobs and insurance. I have no idea what would have happened if the
system was not available for us but it probably wouldn't have been good.
A lot of folks think the welfare system exists to throw good money after
bad but wadda they know? You and I know the real story.

>
> I think you have this problem backwards because you think you should have a
> say. Here's a flash. It isn't about you.
>

dsi1 wrote:

> Michel Boucher wrote:
> > Dave Smith > wrote in news:488CE79F.7AEB4A07
> > @sympatico.ca:
> >
> >> I will have more faith in the system when higher percentages of welfare
> >> recipients get off the dole and their children don't end up on it.
> >
> > That will only happen if you invest in it. My son's mother was on
welfare
> > and because she got the support she needed she was able to get out of
it,
> > get a job teaching school and is now about to retire. All the women I
knew
> > in the 80's who were on some sort of social safety net have all
graduated.
> > Why? Because they were supported in their time of need.
>
> The system saved our family's ass when my wife and I moved to CA some 30
> years ago. As luck would have it, we found out she was pregnant with
> nether of us with job or health insurance. We were able to get good
> prenatal care which ended when our son was born. By then, we both had
> jobs and insurance. I have no idea what would have happened if the
> system was not available for us but it probably wouldn't have been good.
> A lot of folks think the welfare system exists to throw good money after
> bad but wadda they know? You and I know the real story.
>


Are you white...???


--
Best
Greg

Dave Smith > wrote in
:

>> Just as we require drivers to educate themselves in the proper
>> manipulation of a large object which will hurtle at great speed, in
>> order to avoid causing unnecessary injury (and by the way, that's
>> another thing
>
> Perhaps we should have welfare licences too. Make people take a course
> and pass a test to show that they have learned the rules, that is is
> supposed to be a temporary support system and that they need to get
> out of it.

Who says? What if there is no way out of it? What then? Do we strangle
the poor? Let them starve? Gas them with Zyklon-B?

>> Steiglitz argues that the invisible hand often seems invisible
>> because it in fact is not there.
>
> He can argue all he wants. It is only a figure of speech. There is not
> a hand. It is a social welfare system. It is funded by taxpayers, the
> type of people who go out to work every day instead of sitting around
> watching Dr. Phil and the soaps while stuffing themselves with junk
> food.

Your evaluation seems to assume the worst. Perhaps you have some
underlying hatred of people who eat stuff :-)

>> Ok, I have a camembert which has reached room temp and I'm going to
>> go eat some.
>
> Isn't that rather selfish. You could have sent it to Mrs. Nunez.

I'm not selfish, I'm just keeping it all for myself. It's not often I get
a raw milk camembert and I'm going to eat it all over the next few days.
Nyah nyah.

You really should reread the parts on the worker's paradise ;-)

Gregory Morrow wrote:
> dsi1 wrote:
>
>> Michel Boucher wrote:
>>> Dave Smith > wrote in news:488CE79F.7AEB4A07
>>> @sympatico.ca:
>>>
>>>> I will have more faith in the system when higher percentages of welfare
>>>> recipients get off the dole and their children don't end up on it.
>>> That will only happen if you invest in it. My son's mother was on
> welfare
>>> and because she got the support she needed she was able to get out of
> it,
>>> get a job teaching school and is now about to retire. All the women I
> knew
>>> in the 80's who were on some sort of social safety net have all
> graduated.
>>> Why? Because they were supported in their time of need.
>> The system saved our family's ass when my wife and I moved to CA some 30
>> years ago. As luck would have it, we found out she was pregnant with
>> nether of us with job or health insurance. We were able to get good
>> prenatal care which ended when our son was born. By then, we both had
>> jobs and insurance. I have no idea what would have happened if the
>> system was not available for us but it probably wouldn't have been good.
>> A lot of folks think the welfare system exists to throw good money after
>> bad but wadda they know? You and I know the real story.
>>
>
>
> Are you white...???
>
>

You're the first guy to ever ask me that! Boy those "write like a white
person" lessons are really paying off! My teacher will be so proud...

Dave Smith wrote:
>
> Michel Boucher wrote:
>
> > Ok, I have a camembert which has reached room temp and I'm going to go
> > eat some.
>
> Isn't that rather selfish. You could have sent it to Mrs. Nunez.

You _say_ Mrs. Nunez, but you're _thinking_ of your niece.

Don't try to deny it! :-)

"Dave Smith" > wrote in message
...
> Nexis wrote:
>
>>
>> > Doing drugs has a lot more to do with being cool and fitting in than
>> > with
>> > some need to forget. Just like alcohol, the number one favourite drug
>> > in
>> > North Americium, some people get into the habit. Many others do not.
>> > If
>> > pot
>> > were legal most people would probably rather smoke that than the more
>> > addictive drugs.
>>
>> Are you serious? You think some 35 year old crack addict cares a whit
>> about
>> fitting in or being cool?
>
> They didn't start off as 35 year old crack heads. It is what they became.

Actually some of them never did drugs before they were 35 or 36 or whatever.
That's my point. There is no one story that covers everybody who is addicted
to drugs. Plenty of people had events in their life, later in their life,
that caused them to become addicted. I know 2 people who never did drugs,
one of which never even drank. They both had events that caused them to need
painkillers. They are both now drug addicts. Neither of them were under 35
when this happened.
>
>
>> Do you think the drug addicted prostitute kili spoke of feels cool? Fits
>> in?
>> Really?
>
> She probably doesn't feel so good about herself anymore. Sit her down
> with a
> bunch of church goers and she probably figures they are not at all cool.

I doubt she thinks of anyone as "cool" or not...that's a bit childish. She
may think they are better than her. She may be envious. She may put on a
show of thinking they're, as you say, "not at all cool" while internally
wishing she was them. The point is, she isn't doing drugs to feel cool or to
fit in.
>
>> First of all, I was talking about a specific group of people. People who
>> drink/use drugs/cut/withdraw etc in a futile attempt to mask/forget/deny
>> their pain.
>
> It is a self perpetuating. They are poor because they don't have jobs.
> They have
> too much spare time so they party, do petty crime, waste their lives away.
> Then
> they end up poor and feeling sorry for themselves. BTW.... most people get
> high
> to have fun, not to "forget".It is a distraction.

There are so many prejudicial generalities in that statement, I hardly know
where to begin. First off, everyone who is poor does not "party" or do drugs
or waste their lives away or become criminals. Being poor is certainly no
prerequisite for becoming a drug addict. Plenty of addicts are not remotely
poor, money wise anyway. And as I said before, high school, college
age..yeah, maybe they get high to have fun. But there is a wealth of people
who get high or drink to FORGET. To NUMB.
>
>
>> They don't give a rat's patoot about fitting in. Do you think
>> someone who was molested by their father their whole life (for example)
>> EVER
>> feels like they fit in?
>
> Molested by their father's??? Is that why people do drugs?

Some of them, YES. And it was an example, which I clearly stated. Of course,
you're not known for reading thoroughly, so we'll let that slide. Yes, being
molested by their father, mother, uncle, pastor...anyone really...is the
reason for plenty of addictions and plenty of hopelessness.
>
>> Do you think they EVER feel cool? Yes, high school
>> and college age kids may do drugs to fit in and look cool to their
>> friends...that has nothing to do with what I was talking about, however.
>> They are generally recreational drug users, and generally not really
>> addicts. Addicts could give a sh*t about fitting in OR being cool.
>
> Most of the people I know who became addicts used to think they were
> pretty cool
> when they first started doing drugs. BTW..... the process of becoming
> physically addicted to most drugs takes a long time.People abuse drugs for
> recreation and develop a habit long before they become addicted.
>

The process of becoming addicted is different, not only for each individual,
but for each drug. Some people never become drug addicts. With certain
drugs, it could happen in a matter of weeks, which is why doctors try to
limit the length of time they prescribe certain painkillers, such as
oxycodone. There've been numerous cases of people legitimately needing
oxycodone who later become addicted to it or at least dependent on it (which
is not the same thing, btw).

With regards to "most of the people" you know, they weren't addicts when
they were thinking they were cool. Addicts care only about the fix, and
looking cool is nothing but a distant memory, if that. There are many more
addicts that use heroin and meth because they are highly addictive both
physically and psychologically. This is at least in part because of
succeptibility of the individual to addition, but it also is because of the
drugs themselves. Heroin and meth (as well as cocaine and other opiates)
stimulate dopamine dumps, and set of the "reward center" of the brain,
causing a sense of euphoria. THAT is what a drug addict is seeking, and many
of them subject themselves to extremes of humiliation and degradation in
order to get that high, so please don't tell me they are trying to "look
cool" or "fit in".

kimberly
--
http://eating-sandiego.blogspot.com/

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:47:02 -0500, "Gregory Morrow"
> wrote:

>Are you white...???

You don't need to be white to qualify for Healthy Families, Healthy
Kids or MediCal (which is specific to California).

http://www.healthyfamiliesamerica.or...ator/index.cfm


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:48:59 GMT, Orlando Enrique Fiol
> wrote:

wrote:
>>Oh, please. These women are milking the system. They can't afford meat? Eat
>>a salad-eat 500 salads. They won't starve.
>>All they want are freebies-on the system. Pretty obvious.
>
>I entirely agree with you. When's your first shipment of salad
>vegetables arriving at their door?
>
I didn't see "oh, poor little me <sniffle>" in the article. The
article just stated (what a concept!) problems generated by this
economy from a different POV.


Here's the text from
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=92592545

The amount of money they live on:

she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social
Security check and $102 in food stamps.


About having a baby (daughter is 19):

People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public
assistance if she had a child.

"A lot of people have told me, 'Why don't your daughter have a kid?'"

They both reject that as a plan.


About work:

"I'm trying to get a job," Hernandez says. "I just can't get a job."

Hernandez says she's trying to get training to be a nurse's assistant,
but without her own set of wheels or enough money to pay others for
gas, it hasn't been easy.


About food:

The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third
fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries,
but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive
items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore.
Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.


We all agree that they need to learn more about nutrition.
I'm amazed they can get 8 bags of groceries for $100!


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

<sf> wrote in message ...
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:47:02 -0500, "Gregory Morrow"
> > wrote:
>
>>Are you white...???
>
> You don't need to be white to qualify for Healthy Families, Healthy
> Kids or MediCal (which is specific to California).
>

The average welfare mom is white and in her 20s, living in a rural area.

cybercat wrote:

> <sf> wrote in message ...
> > On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:47:02 -0500, "Gregory Morrow"
> > > wrote:
> >
> >>Are you white...???
> >
> > You don't need to be white to qualify for Healthy Families, Healthy
> > Kids or MediCal (which is specific to California).
> >
>
> The average welfare mom is white and in her 20s, living in a rural area.
>


Feminist Jokes:

A radical feminist is getting on a bus when, just in front of her, a man
gets up from his seat. She thinks to herself, "Here's another man trying to
keep up the customs of a patriarchical society by offering a poor,
defenseless woman his seat," and she pushes him back onto the seat.

A few minutes later, the man tries to get up again. She is insulted again
and refuses to let him up.

Finally, the man says, "Look, lady, you've got to let me get up. I'm two
miles past my stop already!"
----------------------

Why did the woman cross the road?...............
Irrelevant! What was she doing out of the kitchen?


How can you tell if a woman is clever.......
She always starts her sentence with "A man told me that"


Why do women get married in white?
So they match the kitchen appliances!


Why don't women need drivers licenses?
There is no road between the bedroom and the kitchen.


Why couldn't Hellen Keller drive?
Because she was a woman


What do you do when your dishwasher breaks?
You hit her


Why do women live longer than men?
Because God adds them the time that they wasted on parking.

;-D

--
Best
Greg

" I find Greg Morrow lowbrow, witless, and obnoxious. For him to claim that
we are some
kind of comedy team turns my stomach."
- "cybercat" to me on rec.food.cooking

Nancy2 wrote:

>
> > they wuz begging for charity so they could buy some pork chops. Make
> > no mistake about this - the only reason we talking at all is because
> > of a photo of 2 chubby chicks. Otherwise, nobody would give a crap
> > about what the NPR series is really about: the tough times that
>
> They aren't "chubby chicks," they are morbidly obese women.

Indeed. They were absolutely huge. It was ironic to see an article about people
having trouble buying food with their welfare money and food stamps and seeing how
huge these women are.

> The saddest part of the whole issue is that they aren't even
> knowledgeable enough to realize they have other problems than having
> no meat to eat, not the least of which is that they are too naive to
> see that they are being ridiculed because they gave the photographer
> and writer permission to use them in their story.

Part of the problem was public transportation and having to rely on friends
driving them around. Quite seriously, who wants to drive people around when they
are that fat? They destroy upholstery and suspension systems. When you put two
people who weigh that much in the back seat of your car the seats and the springs
and shock absorbers are overloaded.

Michel Boucher > wrote:

>With the cost of prescription drugs in the US, I'm surprised there isn't
>more crime.

White collar crime pays for prescription drugs, whereas street
crime pays for street drugs.

Some would include fleecing the taxpayers to pay for overly-expensive
prescription drug entitlements a form of "white collar crime".

Steve

Dave Smith > wrote:

>My son used to work in a Montreal hotel that had a lot of Innu staying at it
>while their children were in the city for rehab. Each child was accompanied by
>as many as a half dozen adults, and while the kids were in rehab, all the
>adults were on benders. IMO, it was the adults who should have been in rehab,
>and individually so that they wouldn't get together for drunken parties. Fine
>example the set for the kids.

>But who can blame them. They want to live on the reserves and pretend that they
>are living a traditional lifestyle. There are no jobs on the reserves, or for
>hundreds of miles around. There isn't much to do but get drunk and stoned.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that white people
came in and destroyed the native peoples' ecology and economy and
culture (when they weren't killing them off outright).

To be sure, Canada has done a lot more to try to acknowledge and
right the situation than most former European colonies have.

Steve

(Steve Pope) wrote in news:g6n8o3$li5$1
@blue.rahul.net:

> Some would include fleecing the taxpayers to pay for overly-expensive
> prescription drug entitlements a form of "white collar crime".

Some might, not me. If one needs medication, one should receive
medication. What Big Pharma does is not even short of criminal, making
vast amounts of money from human misery. In my mind, they are even lower
than lawyers.

Steve Pope wrote:

> >But who can blame them. They want to live on the reserves and pretend that they
> >are living a traditional lifestyle. There are no jobs on the reserves, or for
> >hundreds of miles around. There isn't much to do but get drunk and stoned.
>
> This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that white people
> came in and destroyed the native peoples' ecology and economy and
> culture (when they weren't killing them off outright).
>

Ahh.... the old myth about the natives all being natural born ecologists who had
such respect for the land, only killed what they needed and used every scrap of
their prey. They had stone age weapons and couldn't kill much and they would hunt
and fish an area until they ran out of game and then moved on to another place where
they killed everything they could before having to move on again. Their big downfall
was firearms, which allowed them to kill even more. The natives in the far north
wiped out the caribou herds long before there was any significant white presence,
other than the odd trading post.

We tried to educate them to help them adapt to life in the 20th century but that
turned out to be a major problem. They recently got a huge settlement from the
government for all the problems they claimed to have suffered from that endeavour.
They had no money at all when they lived in the remote wilderness, but now they
suffer from a lack of money. They demand a share of the proceeds from oil minerals
they never knew existed.

> To be sure, Canada has done a lot more to try to acknowledge and
> right the situation than most former European colonies have.

Michel Boucher > wrote:

(Steve Pope) wrote in news:g6n8o3$li5$1

>> Some would include fleecing the taxpayers to pay for overly-expensive
>> prescription drug entitlements a form of "white collar crime".

>Some might, not me. If one needs medication, one should receive
>medication. What Big Pharma does is not even short of criminal, making
>vast amounts of money from human misery. In my mind, they are even lower
>than lawyers.

I haven't had my coffee yet.

You're saying it's just plain old crime, as opposed to "white collar"
crime?

Either way, I think we're in some agreement here....

Steve

(Steve Pope) wrote in news:g6n95t$li5$2
@blue.rahul.net:

> To be sure, Canada has done a lot more to try to acknowledge and
> right the situation than most former European colonies have.

Yes and no. Constitutionally, "Indians" are class 24 under section 91 of
the BNA Act, renamed the Constotution Act 1867. However, the government
fails to provide services for which money exists, such as clean water in
remote areas, roads, schools and clinics.

Under the Parti québécois, the Québec government underook to provide at
least some of these services to outlying First Nation groups and did it for
many years. This was not their responsibility but as the feds were not
stepping up, they felt an obligation to provide for people in Québec.

Some years ago, the minister of intergovernmental affairs took a bill to
Ottawa which represented the cost which Québec had incurred, asking that it
be repaid as it was in fact the federal government's obligation. They
refused. That's how much they really care.

The recent apology (and the back-handed slap that accompanied it) were
cheap theatrics. Seeing as this government eliminated the Kelowna accord
(when they had said they would respect all agreements already on the
table), I cannot believe that they are in any way sincere. But then again,
sincerity is not a conservative trait...lying through their teeth is.

The US, as flawed as it may be, recognized in the 1930's that the white
man's attitude towards native people (that they must be assimilated) was
wrong-headed. Canada is learning this slowly and despite its government.

I can find the US information when I get back to work next week.

(Steve Pope) wrote in
:

> Michel Boucher > wrote:
>
(Steve Pope) wrote in news:g6n8o3$li5$1
>
>>> Some would include fleecing the taxpayers to pay for
>>> overly-expensive prescription drug entitlements a form of "white
>>> collar crime".
>
>>Some might, not me. If one needs medication, one should receive
>>medication. What Big Pharma does is not even short of criminal,
>>making vast amounts of money from human misery. In my mind, they are
>>even lower than lawyers.
>
> I haven't had my coffee yet.

Just having mine.

> You're saying it's just plain old crime, as opposed to "white collar"
> crime?

Whatever it takes. Hell, charge them with murder, I don't care ;-)

> Either way, I think we're in some agreement here....

No doubt :-)

Dave Smith > wrote in
:

>> This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that white people
>> came in and destroyed the native peoples' ecology and economy and
>> culture (when they weren't killing them off outright).
>
> Ahh.... the old myth about the natives all being natural born
> ecologists who had such respect for the land, only killed what they
> needed and used every scrap of their prey. They had stone age weapons
> and couldn't kill much and they would hunt and fish an area until they
> ran out of game and then moved on to another place where they killed
> everything they could before having to move on again. Their big
> downfall was firearms, which allowed them to kill even more. The
> natives in the far north wiped out the caribou herds long before there
> was any significant white presence, other than the odd trading post.

You missed the opportunity to mention ritual cannibalism and the failure to
meet the basic standards of a capitalist society through ownership of land.
:-)

> We tried to educate them to help them adapt to life in the 20th
> century but that turned out to be a major problem.

Oh, cheez...white man's burden crap again. Hey, "you" tried to educate MY
people to stop being French and Catholic (fat lot of good it did "you").
"You" tried to educate Indians (in India) to chew tallow-soaked paper to
prime their bullets and look where that led. When someone thinks they can
impose their views on someone just because of who they are, I smell the
rank body odour of Imperialism.

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:03:57 -0700, sf wrote:

>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:04:31 GMT, Orlando Enrique Fiol
> wrote:
>
wrote:
>>>Curiously, throwing more money at the problem seems to be what many people
>>>expect.
>>
>>Fiscal conservatives often like to remind us that throwing money at
>>certain problems won't solve them. Yet, they're fine with our current
>>war budget and money being thrown at religious education and faith-based
>>charities. What they really mean is that poor people have had money
>>thrown at them and it's proven not to work. In truth, many problems can
>>in fact be solved with money. Give people more money and they can afford
>>to live in better housing, eat better, etc. Of course, more money
>>doesn't address people's educational inadequacies or lack of values.
>>But, even when it comes to education, more money can mean smaller
>>classes taught by better teachers who are better paid and not
>>overworked.
>>
>
>You know the saying: If it can be fixed with money, then it's not
>really a problem.

it ****ing well is if you don't have the money.

your pal,
blake

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:21:15 -0400, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>Michel Boucher wrote:
>
>> "Nexis" > wrote in :
>>
>> > Many of these people do turn to drugs and
>> > alcohol to numb the pain, and it's not very hard to believe, or
>> > understand.
>>
>> It is for some who only consider the expense.
>
>Doing drugs has a lot more to do with being cool and fitting in than with
>some need to forget. Just like alcohol, the number one favourite drug in
>North Americium, some people get into the habit. Many others do not. If pot
>were legal most people would probably rather smoke that than the more
>addictive drugs.
>
that's hard to say. assuming the use of any intoxicant, some people
are garbageheads, who will take almost anything (to the point of
swallowing unknown pills), and some are very loyal to their drug of
choice, eschewing others and looking down on those who use them.

on a related note, consider caffeine. many users of that drug look
down on pot-smokers and the like, but view groups like the mormons who
refrain from caffeine as ineffably weird.

your pal,
blake

blake murphy > wrote in
:

>>You know the saying: If it can be fixed with money, then it's not
>>really a problem.
>
> it ****ing well is if you don't have the money.

The basic problem is that society generally sets a monetary value on goods
and services and requires ownership as a badge of belonging. With all
lands in some form of ownership (state or private), people can no longer
just go out into the woods and survive on their own without referring to
others unless they play into the game to start, ie buy or lease land.
Without the resources to do that, they are stuck in urban areas in order to
obtain services they are told they need.

I guess the fundamental of liberalism which were instilled in the anglo-
Saxon world (self-reliance, individualism, Star Trek) re no longer valid,
but they are still being used as reasons to deny basic services, as if
there actually was a choice. For most, there is not.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:44:32 GMT, blake murphy
> wrote:

>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:03:57 -0700, sf wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:04:31 GMT, Orlando Enrique Fiol
> wrote:
>>
wrote:
>>>>Curiously, throwing more money at the problem seems to be what many people
>>>>expect.
>>>
>>>Fiscal conservatives often like to remind us that throwing money at
>>>certain problems won't solve them. Yet, they're fine with our current
>>>war budget and money being thrown at religious education and faith-based
>>>charities. What they really mean is that poor people have had money
>>>thrown at them and it's proven not to work. In truth, many problems can
>>>in fact be solved with money. Give people more money and they can afford
>>>to live in better housing, eat better, etc. Of course, more money
>>>doesn't address people's educational inadequacies or lack of values.
>>>But, even when it comes to education, more money can mean smaller
>>>classes taught by better teachers who are better paid and not
>>>overworked.
>>>
>>
>>You know the saying: If it can be fixed with money, then it's not
>>really a problem.
>
>it ****ing well is if you don't have the money.
>
Reread the context.


--
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

Mae West

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:07:21 -0400, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>Orlando Enrique Fiol wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> It's funny how the rich don't mind paying tens of thousands of dollars
>> for private schools, yet often object to being taxed much less to help
>> fund public education.
>
>What is funny about it? There are definite advantages to some private
>schools. They pay for their own kids' education and then they have to pay
>for the public system too. Some of them send their kids to faith based
>schools because they disagree with some of the things being taught / allowed
>in public schools.

what's funny, or rather stupid, about it is that you pay taxes for
lots of things that don't benefit you directly. do singles get a pass
on taxes because they have no kids at all?

if you want to have 'faith-based' teachers stuff your kids' heads with
nonsense like 'creation science,' you pay extra. stop whining.

your pal,
blake