Matt Yglesias finds a real winner of a piece at NRO:
Julie Gunlock complains at NRO that “food snobs” are ruining America by serving unduly fancy food at soup kitchens. It’s actually rare that conservatives get to combined their hatred of poor people with their hatred of “cultural elites” in a single argument, so Gunlock gets so busy dishing out the sarcasm that she can’t quite seem to deliver the “so what?” point where we see who is being harmed by this alleged trend.
Just to give the flavor of the piece:
This attitude is not limited to the shelters in our nation’s capital. A recent meal served at the Meet Each Need with Dignity (MEND) kitchen in Pacoima, Calif., included pumpkin soup seasoned with browned butter and sage, red-wine barbecue beef on handmade puff pastry, artichoke hearts with meatballs marinara, roasted-garlic-and-turnip mashed potatoes, all topped off with fresh blueberries and sour cream. No wonder these places need a bailout.
Don’t charitable organizations, by definition, need a bailout? Do soup kitchens normally turn a profit?
And, by the way, what the hell kind of conservative goes by the name “Gunlock”?
Update. Via the comments, it turns out that MEND receives no government money. It also gets 3 stars out of 4 as a charitable organization (meaning relatively low overhead, the vast majority of money raised is spent on its actual mission, etc.). Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Gunlock was bitching about “gourmet” soup kitchens because of the fact that there was $150 million for soup kitchens in the stimulus package. Seven hundred billion for banks (as part of the bail-out) is fine, but not $150 million for feeding the poor. Modern conservatism at its finest.
Update #2. It appears that Julie Gunlock is a closet food snob herself:
The perfect dish for this type of dinner? Risotto. Warm and comforting (and reasonably priced to produce in large quantities), it’s an infinitely versatile crowd-pleaser. Once you learn to make the base, you can play with all manner of flavor combinations — asparagus or sweet peas, sausage or shrimp, kale or spinach . . . the possibilities are endless.
I always keep a well-stocked supply of the five key ingredients on hand: arborio rice, onions, garlic, white wine and Parmesan cheese. When the urge to party strikes, I need only drop by the store to get one or two add-ins. This time of year, I turn to sturdier components, such as butternut squash, diced and roasted, combined with pan-fried Italian sausage.
asiangrrlMN
I knew just by looking at the tags that this was written by DougJ.
As to the post–heaven forbid that the poor people don’t get rancid meat and maybe a slice of moldy bread. It’s pretty rich (pun semi-intended) to bitch about soup kitchens getting bailed out when the banks and the rest of the fat cats got a gazillion of our dollars.
P.S. Thank you for reading that shit so I don’t have to sully my eyes.
srv
It’s time for one of those three act plays. With some saffron, hola fruta, and street urchins with iPhones.
asiangrrlMN
@srv: Don’t forget the damn arugula ‘coz nothing says elite like arugula.
Fulcanelli
“Flavor” of the piece indeed… I wouldn’t believe that was a meal served at a shelter of any kind, especially in ‘Gullyfornia’ with the budget problems and the thrice-distilled GOP wingnut in that state unless I sat there and ate it myself. It had to be a fund-raiser or special event for publicity and Miss Julie Liplock was whistling through her peashooter (lying, we call it here in New England) to fire up the ‘base’ and garner mojo on NRO. Me smells a red herring, amigo…
Balconesfault
Don’t forget that there are people on welfare out there who own televisions. And PBS can be pulled from the air for free, as long as you got your 100% government rebated digital converter box, enabling those people to get Masterpiece Theater. And last I checked, our library still let them check out Oliver Twist for free. What’s next – Goodwill carrying tuxedos?
asiangrrlMN
@Fulcanelli: Hm. Good point. I do know of a local soup kitchen that does fancier than normal meals, but nothing like this.
@Balconesfault: Yeah! How DARE the poor people not suffer in abject misery?
Zuzu's Petals
Gee, she went to all the trouble to look up the detailed menu for the MEND kitchen, but didn’t seem to notice this important fact about the organization:
So much for “needing a bailout.” What a twit.
Fulcanelli
@Zuzu’s Petals: The Devil’s always in the details ZuZu. Good job…
Calouste
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Good find.
Sky blue, grass green, sun comes up in the east, wingnut lies. What’s new?
Nylund
I’m reminded of a few weeks back when my girlfriend and I visited her relatives (who, with pride, refer to themselves as rednecks) for a BBQ. She, not being a bit meat fan, brought some veggies to grill, one of which was asparagus. Not only had none of her relatives ever eaten it before, many had never even heard of asparagus. We urged them to try some, but those who did scrunched their noses like a little kid and warned the less brave ones to stay away. We then got teased about our “fancy city food” for the rest of the day. They already hate me because I get paid money despite the fact that my job does not directly result in something being physically built. This just added flames to the fire about what they think is wrong with liberal city folk like me.
And, despite their constant claims about the superiority of their more “natural” life out in the country, not a single one of them is less than 50 pounds over weight (and some are closer to 100 pounds too heavy), and none is capable of walking more than a block without nearly passing out when they visit us in the city, making it about impossible to show them any of the things we enjoy about our life.
asiangrrlMN
@Zuzu’s Petals: Oh, good grief. Nice going, Zuzu’s Petals. Sheesh. i know they want to cram the elitist label down the throats of the Dems, but really.
P.S. I would love to see what, say, Sean Hannity eats every night.
Fulcanelli
@asiangrrlMN:
Fixt for you, grrly.
Josh
I especially liked the garlic and turnip mashed potatoes. Turnips are cheaper (and taste worse) than the very cheap potatoes. Adding a basic spice, like garlic, might make them edible. All I see is a very cheap food being diluted with an even cheaper food. LOL at those darn homeless people eating like kings…or destitute peasants. Meatballs? Ground beef and bread crumbs? Where does this person live where they don’t notice what a cheap squash pumpkin is… No, wait, I’m sure that the beef was Kobe or filet mignon…
Really, blueberries and SOUR cream…WTF is wrong with you.
The stupid, it burns.
Zuzu's Petals
@Calouste:
I just never trust wingnut research on anything.
Calouste
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Me neither, although I don’t really think that research is the appropriate word here. That would include providing sources and reasoning, which in the wingnut universe is usually condensed to “some say”.
gwangung
It wasn’t the fact that it’s almost all volunteer labor, very few paid staff?
And wouldn’t it be a possibility a local, four star restaurant might have donated in-kind material stuff to them? Is it a problem for the charity?
Hm. When was the last time Ms. Gunlock spent any time helping poor people?
Zuzu's Petals
@Calouste:
True. I guess it’s more accurate to say I never take their word for anything.
Lesley
How dare the poor eat gourmet food?
If donuts and cheetos are good enough for republicans – and God knows, these fucktards keep the manufacturers of those items in business – they’re certainly probably too good for poor people, never mind mushroom risotto.
Johnny Pez
@asiangrrlMN:
He didn’t Sully your eyes, but he did Matt your hair.
(Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip the veal and try your waitress.)
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
What’s so stupid about this whole piece is that there’s nothing exotic or expensive in that menu, just a little more-than-minimum labor, which is volunteer labor anyway, and 3 cents worth of spices. What do they want, a limit on the amount of time and effort people can expend when they do volunteer work? Silly me, they don’t want anybody to do volunteer work, anyway.
What if this charity was “faith-based?” Would that make it all right?
Calouste
Sourced!
The original article
gwangung
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: The assholes want the poor to suffer. If they have to go to a soup kitchen, by God, they’ll just have to make do with gruel and bread and water!
gwangung
Oh, dear. That won’t do. That won’t do at all.
Zuzu's Petals
@Calouste:
Now that’s research!
So if that’s where she got her info, just think…she knew she was lying.
Johnny Pez
You know who else had a wispy goatee? LENIN, that’s who!
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@gwangung:
Yeah, whatever happened to gruel? I haven’t had any good gruel in ages!
Gundark927
Why, Mr. Hannity only dines at Ruth’s Chris’ Steakhouse. (A restaurant I will never go to, simply because of their sponsorship of his radio show.)
Martin
I call bullshit. Nobody makes handmade puff pastry because it’s fuckall hard to make by hand. Everyone (and I mean everyone) uses the stuff they crank out by the yard from pastry machines because it’s not only cheaper but is guaranteed to be better.
Seems to me they dressed up an already nice menu to make it seem outrageously nice. But looking at the menu, there’s nothing terribly expensive about anything short of the blueberries. Pumpkins, artichokes, and garlic are grown out here by the townload and are easy to get as donations, and these dishes aren’t even that hard to prepare, plus they all scale pretty well.
wasabi gasp
K-Lo would have penned this herself if not for the conflict of interest with the donuts.
Comrade Kevin
@Josh:
As my brother said about that, anyone who bitches about turnips like that has one at the top of their neck.
tammanycall
MEND’s one of the best charitable organizations in southern California. Julie Gunlock’s an asshole.
JenJen
Coming from the food & beverage biz, I’m pretty sure Julie Gunlock has been a cooking writer for awhile now, and currently writes a column on Budget Cooking for DC Examiner. That alone makes it a bit unusual for her to seem more concerned with politics than nutrition. But it gets just a little bit better… in her LinkedIn profile, she specifies her profession as “Philanthropy.”
ETA: I confirmed my suspicion that she’s been a food writer for awhile, but the google also tells me she’s also a lobbyist?
Keith
Sounds like the kind that would be married to one named “Hindrocket”.
JenJen
Oh, that’s it!! Now I remember. She’s the one who, on the occassion of the happy news about the new White House vegetable garden, thought it the perfect moment to take shots at Alice Waters, aka liberal effete crusading food-hippie elitist. That NRO piece was also red herring-laden; for example, the organic food prices she quoted were immediately laughable.
Mnemosyne
You’d almost think we grow fresh fruits and vegetables year-round out here in Southern California with that kind of menu, wouldn’t you? Maybe it would make her feel better if MEND drove their clients 45 minutes to the north where they could probably pick everything on that menu for themselves straight from the farms. Hell, we’ve got a winery in downtown LA.
I was always pretty sure that the Giant Evil Corporation I work for wasn’t just throwing away leftovers from our six cafeterias (or as we like to call them, “commissaries”), but it was still comforting to see the truck from the LA Regional Food Bank pulling away from one the other night.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I suspect that by “handmade” she means “cut by hand from frozen sheets of puff pastry instead of using pre-cut shapes.”
harlana pepper
whew, thanks! for a minute there I thought you were republican
Bill E Pilgrim
Wait,, that’s why “they need a bailout?”
Because what, the food’s too fancy schmancy and not selling well?
They’re really starting to mix up their attacks now, this could get interesting. Talk about just throwing food at the wall to see what sticks, yeesh.
Next they’ll be criticizing the poor people on skid row for windsurfing too much.
Lupin
Don’t you get it? That’s TEH GAY food!
geemoney
This is one area that I really don’t get with the wingnuts. On the one hand, they’re all about getting government out of the way, and letting people just “get things done”. I am thinking here of Jindal’s speech, but it is also my understanding of the Randian philosophy.
On the other hand, once people do get together to do what they think is right, and do it without the help of the government…
It stinks to me of being intellectually bankrupt. It’s like the constant nonsense about the free market, then bitching about the illegal immigrants that businesses hire.
bago
Am I the only one posting from a nightclub rockin the techno discussing linq?
Cerberus
Fresh food also isn’t just cheaper than prepackaged, but also healthier.
I think a lot of what gets into it is that the whole “race for wealth and status” thing usually has two main baromoters, size of house and car and fanciness of food stock. Meaning one can go to a “fancy” restaurant and buy “french sounding shit” that may or may not taste any better, but is expensive and snooty and tells you how rich you’re being.
So if the poor can access what that “rich food” actually is by its cheap ingredients and make better tasting, good quality dishes, then they remove the extra-special quality of being rich and makes people question the why of their lust for money. Same thing happens if poor people can just be “given” free housing.
This reminds them that they live shitty lives no matter if they’re doing well or poorly and have no imaginations on how to spend their wealth because they have no introspection as to what genuinely makes them happy. This becomes a biting pain as they look at all the happy looking “losers” like hippies and gay people.
And I suspect that’s about half of the culture war right there. How dare people who haven’t “earned it” enjoy their lives while they have them.
Calouste
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Btw, thanks for inspiring me by your original research to write a Great Orange Satan diary about this.
linda
MEND received an overall rating of 3 of 4 stars; its financials 4 stars (administrative and fundraising expenses account for only 4.2% of their budget — that’s highly efficient and unusual); and it receives no friggin federal funding relying on donations as stated on the frontpage of the organization’s website! ugh.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10357
WereBear
Tipped and Recc’d your GOS diary. Nice job Calouste! Only… it’s Zazu’s Petals.
Yes, this is screaming elitism at its worst. How ironic that it’s a winger.
Nylund @10: Yes, you are describing a distant chunk of my own family, and it’s both sad and exasperating. They actively discourage intellectual pursuits because then the children will want a life that isn’t unremitting toil and they will leave.
gus
Obviously, conservatives can’t cook. Here we have a meal whose primary ingredients are beef, potatoes, turnips, pumpkin, white flour and blueberries — all rather plebian — and it prompts a rant about cultural elitism. Must be the sage and the sour cream that tipped the guy over.
Maybe the GOP will tell us what kind of meals real Americans eat. Probably sticky buns for breakfast, MacDonalds for lunch and frozen pizza for dinner.
kay
They’re really morons. This is discussed constantly among people who work with poor people, and has been for at least 5 years.
They have a horrible diet. They eat cheap food that comes in boxes. There’s a couple of reasons for that. Fresh food is harder to carry home from the store. You can’t prepare it without a kitchen, and you can’t prepare it unless you grew up in a home where someone prepared food, because you don’t know how. Food in boxes is cheaper, and it doesn’t spoil, so you can pay for one cab ride to the store instead of four every month. Go in a grocery store in a poor neighborhood (if they have one, most don’t) the choices of fresh food are limited.
Everyone knows this. Social workers know it, teachers know it, preachers know it, police officers know it. It’s why poor people are so often fat, and their children are fat. They’re not hungry, they’re malnourished.
It’s a real tell that these folks don’t know about both the problem and effort to address it. They haven’t been within a mile of a poor person.
WereBear
Thanks for nutshelling this so well. When our body is not getting nutrients, it sends the “constantly hungry” signal. And we eat some more; it’s like trying not to breathe.
The more truly nourishing, tasty, food I eat, the less I eat of it. It’s what has driven me to cooking at a considerably later date than many others; but I’m here.
What I’d like to see is a somewhat different take on restaurants; community kitchens, self-sustaining, where someone can drop in and get a salad, a main dish, or even some homemade desserts. Bring your own container for takeout. No alcohol, self-serve; but a lot of happy people and some employment and satisfaction for those running the place.
I’m considerably handicapped by having a kitchen stuck under an attic eave, with no counterspace and a tiny apartment stove which has to have its temperature mentally calibrated and a lot of sticking toothpicks into baked goods.
Yet a lot of people don’t have even that.
kay
@gus:
The whole point of a soup kitchen isn’t the “soup”, it’s the “kitchen”. It’s the space, utensils, oven, refrigerator, utilities and know-how to prepare food that actually has some nutritive value, and then serve it, at a table.
I really wonder about these people, in terms of things like caring for themselves. They seem completely disconnected from any practical reality. So many of these rants are based on a misunderstanding of how things actually work, things that are common knowledge.
vacuumslayer
The poor should eat slop, dontcha know? That or cake.
kay
@WereBear:
The baby teeth on poor kids kill me. Rotten teeth are so painful. I wince talking to them. It has to hurt. It’s all that sugar: in cereal, in pop tarts, in all the pre-prepared kid’s food that comes in boxes.
I’m thrilled they’re getting a real blueberry.
kommrade reproductive vigor
They should eat mud n’ old boots. Buggrit, buggrit, buggrit, millennium hand and shrimp!
gnomedad
I’ll bet those kitchens have fancy countertops, too.
aliasofwestgate
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Discworld reference FTW! Now all we need is Duck Man and Gaspode, especially Gaspode to talk up this Gunlock lady. *evil grin*
John S.
When my wife got laid off on January, we did something radical.
Instead of eating out so often and relying on the crutch of frozen or processed meals – as so many low income and two income earning families do – we started buying real food, planted an herb garden and started cooking our own meals.
Not only does the food taste a LOT better, but it’s also healthier, saves us about $300 a month and caused us both to lose a lot of weight (I lost 30 lbs. since we began). It helps that my wife is fantastic in the kitchen.
The Daily Show had a bit on this topic the other night with Samantha Bee where some lobbyist for big Agra/Pharma was decrying the Obama’s organic garden. This NRO piece could have been written by him just as easily.
The fact is, big business has a vested interest in keeping Americans fat, unhealthy, obese and sick. It makes them a lot of money. And they are truly freaking out over the signals Obama is sending to the public.
vacuumslayer
@gus:
They browned the butter. BROWNED IT!!!
Jackie
@kay: Yes. To say nothing of the health implications. Plus you can’t buy toothpaste and brushes with food stamps and in my state I haven’t seen anyone suggest they be able to buy it with their medicaid drug card. I worked in a government run health clinic for 3 years that had a dentist. I think they had a 1 year lag time to see the dentist. We at least could walk over people with abcessed teeth and squeeze them in. They couldn’t dream of providing routine cleaning. It was an enlightening experience for someone who grew up with all the basics taken for granted.
harlana pepper
@John S.: Good for the both of you. Honestly, I cannot *believe* how much I spend on food each month, and I really don’t eat that much! However, I’m no cook, I just try to eat as much arugula as I can. ;^D
WereBear
Jackie @58: Too, too, true!
Kids in this country do grow up without brushing, at all. And that’s just sick. Free toothbrushes, even skipping the toothpaste, would do a world of good. And what the heck is in a tube of toothpaste that is worth over three dollars?
That’s a public health program that would do wonders.
JL
@Jackie: Since I use an electric toothbrush, I always drop off the little tube of toothpaste and the toothbrush that the dentist gives me,at the local food bank. Many food banks will accept personal care products.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@aliasofwestgate: They can come to her house and stand outside forever and ever and ever, lookin’ at people in a funny way and gobbin on their boots!
Yes, I am a huge nerd. Why do you ask?
Maybe this is local, but Monsanto is running a big ad campaign out here. Apparently, they’re all that stands between the world and a steady diet of rats. Unfortunately, I’m cynical so when I hear “We put scientific tools in farmers’ hands.” I picture a big sack of hybrid seed that requires special soil, fertilizers, insect and fungus control. Needless to say the plants it produces are sterile. Total cost to the farmer – About 80% more than what he would spend if he did it “unscientifically.”
Fuck them and the high fructose corn syrup bastards right in the ear.
warren terrah
Are you fckin serious? We have a waste not program in my county where they pick up food from various places and I have seen the vans come from some pretty nice areas where I bet they aren’t picking up mac and cheese and ramen noodles. My gawd. How stoopid are these people? Oh, wait I forgot. She’s a member of the “I can see Russia from my backyard” party.
Dennis-SGMM
OT, so sue me; Roll Call has a list of those Congress Critters who’ve appeared most often on Sunday talking head shows so far this year.
John McCain holds a solid first place with seven appearances, followed by Barney Frank, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer with five each.
In all, forty-five Senators or Reps made the list.There are twenty-three Republicans, twenty-two Democrats.
Jackie
@WereBear: $3 worth of advertising and ceo bonus’
@JL: Well duh. I never even thought of that. Heck, next time I see a cool sale I’ll spring for a case and drop it off. I tend to just donate cash figuring they can stretch it better than I can and know exactly what they need. Any food bank juicers that know if they do buy such stuff or if food is such a priority that only actual donations will work?
Michael
Green bologna and stale bread are all that the poor should get……
maya
It’s the code name for the head of the new, slightly organized, Velveeta Mafia.
Andrew
Don’t you understand, if the poor people are allowed to eat nice food; they have no motivation to start working. Or at least I think that’s the logic my wingnut mother used. If you feed them gruel, they’ll want to work hard so they can eat better. Makes no sense to me, but I’m not crazy.
Michael
Wonder which wingnut de-elected GOPer stay-at-home mom (and bitter twunt) Julie Gunlock staffed for before qualifying for wingnut welfare.
That might be the most offensive article on NRO I’ve seen all year.
Scott
Does anyone else think Jules Crittenden is sounding increasingly desperate for attention?
Dennis-SGMM
Bob In Pacifica
Salt is addictive. Poor people’s food shouldn’t be salted.
Aaron Baker
First they came for the Dijon mustard; but I was not a Dijon mustard enthusiast, and so I said nothing. Then they came for risotto; but I had no love of risotto (too bland, too starchy), and so . . . .
gil mann
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.
Teach a man to mock smoked trout canapes, he gets wingnut welfare.
Laura W
Reading this thread while CNN just did a Heroes segment on the woman who founded this in 2002. Timely. Family-to-Family.
kay
@Jackie:
I still think it’s diet rather than brushing. I have given this a ridiculous amount of thought, as you may be realizing.
I live in a rural area with a lot of working poor, so that’s the context.
There’s another piece. Adults here regularly get all of their teeth pulled at about 40-50, because it’s one trip. You see my point: one 500 dollar trip to the dentist rather than repair, which costs thousands. Gum disease, etc. They just get their teeth pulled. It’s cheaper.
They then purchase poorly-fitting cheapo dentures. The problem with cheap dentures is, they don’t work for chewing. They’re almost like a “prop”. Just cosmetic.
They then can’t eat fresh food. They have to eat mushy processed food. Thus, their health declines further.
I missed my calling. I should have been a dentist.
JackieBinAZ
They really do believe that people would choose to stay in poverty if the handouts are too nice.
El Cid
It’s funny. I read the piece very differently.
I think the point the NRO author’s trying to make isn’t that the poor are being treated too well, but that they’re suffering because they can’t eat the sorts of things they might like, but instead the dour liberal elites are forcing them to eat strange, snobby food because it’s what the liberals prefer.
It’s a really lazy effort in general, but it’s about the supposed sensitivity and appreciation conservative have for the proletarians’ (or lumpen-, I guess in this case) cultural preferences.
It all boils down to something like, “How come these poor people can’t just come in and get a chicken pot pie or salisbury steak or other common comfort food and instead are forced to eat two rice grains of uncooked organic brown rice perched on top of a couple wilted arugula leaves?”
This point isn’t entirely ridiculous — I once lived in a town with a youth group collective which wonderfully and generously helped feed the homeless but began with the sorts of low salted vegan curries that the collective members tended to eat, which at first the homeless guys I talked with didn’t seem to like too much, but then it seemed to change over time as the two groups came to know each other better. I can’t be sure, because I didn’t do a real study or real journalism research.
See, though, if this NRO story had been written by a real journalist, she might have ventured forth to make sure that her stereotype of the situation — i.e., already bedraggled poor being forced by food snobs to eat foods they don’t like — was accurate by carefully gathering the reactions of those people being provided food by this service.
The way not to approach it is to assume that one’s Proletarian Preference Detector is on and fully calibrated and magically allows one to glance over the menu and write as if the huddled masses were yearning to eat something simpler.
This is the same PPD which allows conservatives to know each and every time, wrongly, that the majority of Prole America is just burnin’ up at Obama and the effete liberals because they ate arugula or used brown mustard, etc.
DougJ
Could be. It’s hard to say what her point it.
I think it falls into that “Big Sleep” of conservatism category. It’s impossible to follow the actual points (if there are any), but it conveys a general sense of corruption and decay among liberals.
Svensker
@DougJ:
Yes.
JGabriel
Jules Crittenden » “Ignore The Noise”:
Meanwhile, this thread has 80 responses and Crittenden’s has: 2.
Jealous, Jules?
.
Laura W
Italian sausage and kale risotto?
I’m weeping into my rice protein green shake.
John Cole
@JGabriel: Just ignore him. He just wants to provoke a response. Don’t give it to him.
harlana pepper
@Michael: Nope, they don’t even deserve green bologna. Molded head cheese, and they should be thankful to get it, by god!
JGabriel
@John Cole: Fair enough. Will do.
Dennis-SGMM
Are there no dumpsters? seems to me that bleeding heart liberals would applaud forcing the poor to pick their meals from garbage in the interest of recycling alone.
/wingnut
OriGuy
@Jackie: Second Harvest in Santa Clara County runs a drive for cash donations for rice and beans that they buy in bulk by the boxcar. In combination, you get complete protein and it keeps for a long time.
I never understood going to the store to buy food to donate. You’re paying retail, plus sales tax, and giving it to a charity that can buy in bulk and may not be required to pay sales tax. I guess it’s easier to get people to to that than write a check, where they don’t know how the money will be spent.
ppcli
Or as my friends from the Maritimes like to say: Teach a man to fish, and he’ll be out of work for a lifetime.
ksmiami
But it isn’t just the craven stupidity of the current Republican party, it is the sheer evil nature of it that seems to be humanity crushing. No good food for you, no healthcare, slave wages. I mean WHAT THE HELL DO THEY WANT AMERICA TO BE? A DICKENSIAN NIGHTMARE???? And then they wrap it up in God and the flag even though it is pretty clear what side Jesus would be on.
Sorry, end of rant now, back to lurking
leo (from Chicago)
“The perfect dish for this type of dinner? Risotto.”
Risotto? Is that even a soup? Back in the day, it used to just mean ‘rice’.
JL
@Jackie: It depends on the local organization. Where I volunteer they hand out food for qualified clients once a week. Large can goods or big bags of rice wouldn’t be as handy. The food is to help stretch their food budget. Clients can also get two outfits of clothing a month for each member of the family. We also have a resale shop where anyone can purchase items and that money helps with the utility bills or mortgage of individuals who need it.
Maude
@Jackie:
If you can, stop by a local food pantry and ask what they need. It changes because stores and companies donate different things. They do run out of personal care items.
I live in an affluent county and the food pantries serve over 5000 people.
There’s a townwide sale today and I bought two Pyrex baking pans. The proceeds go to the food pantry.
I’m probably at the end of this thread and a bit too late.
Jackie
@kay: I suppose it is very culturally dependent. I was in a suburb that had the distinction of being the lowest income suburb in the country. Their diet sucked ,either preprocessed empty calories or incredibly high fat,sugar, salt home cooking(some of which was mighty tasty but you could feel arteries clogging before the meal was out) but once I started asking almost no one was brushing. It was an expense, if your teeth are in bad shape it hurts and just wasn’t thought of as a routine and really necessary thing. They thought I was a bit odd for asking but I saw some of the most horrific mouths. Malnutrition and poor oral hygiene isn’t a winning combo for a bright happy smile.
I ended up believing that a decent grocery store, a cooking class and a toothbrush would have done more for their health,education and social issues than my big ticket medical skills. It was an education of another sort for me.
I admire that you can manage long term. I had to distance from the misery and throw money and political good will at it. They were breaking my heart.
Joel
When nutwings stop donating for the NRO staff to go on cruises, what will they eat then?
JGabriel
ksmiami:
Yes. SATSQ. Sorry.
Although perhaps it’s more accurate to say that they don’t care if America is a Dickensian nightmare, as long as it makes them richer and everyone else weak
.
BruceFromOhio
@Calouste:
… which at noon Eastern on Saturday now sits at the top of the rec list. And thank you for the donation link: $35 went in the hat to MEND, and another to our local food bank just to be a prick about it. In my elitist self-interest, I’m now curious as to just how much donation traffic to MEND has been generated by Julie Gunlock being an asshole.
Somewhere, somehow, a tiny measure of balance is restored in the universe. Nicely done, Calouste.
BruceFromOhio
Deleted.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I don’t know if it’s still ongoing, but my late mother was able to get a law passed in Illinois in the 1970s that had dental hygienists going to public schools once a year to distribute supplies and show the kids how to floss and brush. That was a big part of her job at the county health department and she thought it would be good for the whole state to have the same program.
Theron
The wingnuts who spout this line tend to forget that our new fisherman also needs a pole, some line, a lure, tools to clean the fish, resources to cook it…..not to mention a clean lake or stream to fish in.
Of course, if he eats it raw, they’ll make noises about elitist sushi.
Michael
Holy shit – the FReaks had a thread, and it was predictably Conservative.
In other words, it drowned in Teh Stupid.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2251857/posts
Mike in NC
I still recall seeing Gingrich pop up on TV many years ago to complain that America was the only country in the world where so many poor people were morbidly obese. Not sure what his whole point was, as if it mattered coming from The Newt.
Zuzu's Petals
@Calouste:
Wow, great diary…great research and info.
And thanks for the shout out!
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
Probably the same kind of conservative that goes with a faggy sounding French name like “Jules Crittenden” but then tries to butch himself up and look less faggy by putting pictures of armored vehicles on his blog.
bago
@JGabriel: I’m actually curious as to what democratic attack politics are at this point, beyond letting cheney, bachmann, and palin speak.
Calouste
@Zuzu’s Petals:
My pleasure.
If you hadn’t started the ball rolling by looking at the MEND website and noticing that they don’t take government money, I wouldn’t have dug further into the story to see what else was true or not.
Zuzu's Petals
@Calouste:
Sort of amazing how obvious it is, huh? Click click.
PurpleGirl
MEND’s 4-star rating from Charity Navigator (CN) is quite good. As a former fundraising staffer for a non-profit which received 5-star ratings two years in a row, I know what it takes to get a good rating from CN. They base their ratings on a very detailed study of the organization’s IRS Form 990 (their tax return). They have own criteria for percentages of how funds raised are utilized. They do not interview or talk with the organization’s staff/management. They base everything on the latest Form 990 they can read.
PurpleGirl
Sorry, I went back CN’s own website (should have done that before) but their ratings only go to 4 stars max. So my former employer was 4-stars not 5. My bad.
Scott
Hey folks,
Just hearing of this after the storm has settled somewhat, but wanted to thank you for your posts and the money being donated. We keep plugging away and trying to treat every member of the human family with whom we come in contact with respect and dignity. We appreciate your support and encouragement.
Scott Mikels
Accountant
MEND
http://www.mendpoverty.org
Zuzu's Petals
@Scott:
Thanks for all the good work!
asiangrrlMN
@Scott: Cool. You guys do tremendous work, and you deserve all the positive publicity you can get.
TenguPhule
Or the Prachett version:
Give a man a fire, he’s warm for a night. Set a man on fire, he’s warm for the rest of his life.