Thank you GW. Is it fair to blame him for all our woes? Yes, yes it is. His failed foreign and domestic policies have gotten us where we are today. And I have to say, it always amazes me to read stories like this one. Not that I don’t think we should help others, but we’re not even taking care of our own.

Philomena Gist understands why it hurts so much to be on food stamps. After all, she’s got a master’s degree in psychology.

“There’s pride in being able to take care of yourself,” says the Columbus, Ohio, resident, laid off last year from a mortgage company and living on workers’ compensation benefits while recovering from surgery. “I’m not supposed to be in this condition.”

Neither are many of the 27.5 million Americans relying on government aid to keep food on their tables amid unemployment and rising prices. Average enrollment in the food stamps program has surpassed the record set in 1994, though the percentage of Americans on food stamps is still lower than records set in 1993-95. The numbers continue to climb.

Gist, 51, is the new face of hunger in the USA. She says she spent most of her adult life working as a mental health counselor before deciding to try real estate. “I’m a professional person,” she says.

As economists nationally debate whether the country is in recession and policymakers discuss ways to drive down gas prices, a new category of Americans combats hunger.

More at USToday

Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all.

Here’s the best video I could find for Billy Bragg’s version of the Internationale, a stirring tune. Pete Seeger pressed Bragg to write new lyrics to it because he felt there wasn’t a good version in English. (In case you were wondering, this is offered in the spirit of democracy and human rights; I’m not an anarchist nor a commie, although I sometimes joke about being a commie with my conservative friends and family to make them laugh. Come to think of it, at least one conservative family member likes Seeger, too.)
Read more »

The situation in Haiti is horrible, with hungry mobs storming the Presidential palace. Food prices have risen so, people are going hungry. Global food stocks are at their lowest since 1980. From the Guardian:

And what part does ethanol play in this problem, not to mention global warming.

Not a good situation, and only going to get worse.

Yes, let’s not figure out how to HELP these people, let’s just figure out how to get the hell rid of them…..because, you know, when people spend $100. for lunch they don’t want to have to see homeless people.

As homeless people were waking up on the stairwells and parks of Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, some of downtown’s most powerful business and community leaders were in a meeting fretting about how to get rid of them.

Downtown has blossomed in the past five years into a city center with more than a dozen new luxury condo towers, a robust retail and restaurant economy on Las Olas Boulevard, and a jampacked bar district on Southwest Second Street, but the urban core also attracts more homeless people than any other city in Broward County.

According to CEOs and others at Thursday’s power broker meeting, the homeless are overrunning downtown like never before.

More at the Sun Sentinel

But things are going great. We’re making progress. Riiiggghhhttt! I find it hard to believe Iraqis are happy we invaded their country to bring them democracy. I’m just not buying it. And the worse things get, the more dangerous it will be for our troops.

Iraqi children are most at risk from the mounting crisis, the joint report says

Up to eight million Iraqis require immediate emergency aid, with nearly half of the population living in “absolute poverty”, according to a report by Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi groups.

About four million people are lacking food and “in dire need of different types of humanitarian assistance”, said the report, released in Amman on Monday.

“Iraqis are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, health care, education, and employment,” said the report, compiled by Oxfam and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI).

The report also says two million people within the country are currently displced, while more than two million are refugees.

Most of those refugees have fled to Jordan and Syria.

Continue reading at AlJazeera

Rule used to be, your house payment or rent shouldn’t be more than 1/4 of your salary. Things are bad. And growing worse all the time.

WASHINGTON - Growing numbers of the nation’s poorest households are using more than half their earnings for rent while waiting years for federal housing assistance that may never come.

The phenomenon is largely playing out in urban and suburban locales, but has exploded recently in rural areas as coveted rental assistance becomes harder to get due to high demand and scant funding from Congress.

The lack of affordable homes for poor families is the nation’s No. 1 housing problem and undermines the stability and security of families and communities nationwide.

A new report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development describes the startling growth of the problem since 2003. It found that 6 million impoverished households used most of their monthly earnings for housing or lived in substandard conditions in 2005. That’s an increase of 16 percent, or 817,000 families, since 2003.

The number of rural families facing this dilemma grew by 51 percent to nearly 1 million households over the same two-year span.

More at McClatchy

We need a modern day Robin Hood!

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The gulf between rich and poor in the United States is yawning wider than ever, and the number of extremely impoverished is at a three-decade high, a report out Saturday found.

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in “deep or severe poverty” defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars — one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the “deep poverty” threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

“The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005,” the US newspaper chain reported.

“That’s 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period,” it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

Read more at Yahoo News

If you recall, the administration was criticized for its decision to hold off on the U.S. Hunger Report until after the elections. Today it popped into my head and I had to look it up and see if it had come out. It had. While the headline reads that hunger is down from 38 million to 35 million, as always, you can make numbers look however you want them to look. There has been criticizism over the new wording, replacing hunger with “food insecurity.” At any rate, the statistic that struck me was this:

• There were more people with very low food security - those who are worst off. The number was 10.8 million, up from 10.7 million in 2004.

Very low food security? WTF does that mean? Oh, those who are worst off? How about starving? There’s a word for you. So, overall, the very low food security number is up from 2004. The low food security number is down.

Who thinks up these God awful terms?

More here

But the economy is booming…….right?

November 21, 2006, 6:33 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) _ The number of city residents relying on food from charities and unable to feed their families is rising, according to a report released Tuesday by an advocacy group.

Nearly one in six city residents lived in households that could not afford to buy enough food during the three year period ending in 2005, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

These households included 15.4 percent of city residents _ up from 14.0 percent between 2000 and 2003, according to the report, which was based in part on figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to the coalition’s survey of the city’s food pantries and soup kitchens, the number of people served by those charities rose an estimated 11 percent in 2006.

More here

What is ONE?

ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans - ONE by ONE - to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is students and ministers, punk rockers and NASCAR moms, Americans of all beliefs and every walk of life, united as ONE to help make poverty history. ONE believes that allocating an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world’s poorest countries. ONE also calls for debt cancellation, trade reform and anti-corruption measures in a comprehensive package to help Africa and the poorest nations beat AIDS and extreme poverty.

read more about The ONE Campaign

Here’s their new and very cool 30’sec TV ad about voting:

[googlevideo]6677763831648081177&q[/googlevideo]

This is just a sign of what’s to come. I have no doubt the numbers will be staggering in no time at all.

All Things Considered,

October 27, 2006 · National Guard Cpl. Joe Raicaldo is home from Iraq with things he didn’t have when he left: an honorable discharge, metal rods and screws up and down his spine, and an arm that moves like a robot’s. He’s also homeless, living in his car. There are at least 600 recent vets who are homeless.

Raicaldo’s story is one that tells how hard it is going to be to weave some of America’s warriors back into the fabric of home.

Read more here