From Lamar Hankins at Freethought San Marcos:
In America, most of us have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, though there are still plenty of people without enough food and shelter, especially since the great recession hit just over a year ago. Actually, the Great Recession has been going on much longer for those of us on Main Street and Side Street and Back Street. It was only when Wall Street started hurting that the politicians got concerned enough to respond to their needs. The needs of Main Street, Side Street, and Back Street have yet to be met, except for getting rid of a few clunkers for cash to stimulate moribund automobile and truck sales.
Congress has virtually ignored the high rate of unemployment, which exceeds 15%, if those job-seekers who have become discouraged from ever finding a job are included in the official unemployment figures. If the Works Progress Administration worked during the Great Depression, why wouldn’t it work during this Great Recession?
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In the rest of the world, malnutrition, chronic hunger, famine, and death are greater concerns than food insecurity. In the world, ten children die of hunger every minute–one every six seconds–according to the United Nations World Food Programme, which adds that, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.”
And America goes merrily along for over eight years now spending about $265 million per day in Afghanistan, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Associated Press figures reveal that the War in Iraq has cost American taxpayers about $400 million per day for the last six years. All of this is happening while about one-seventh of the world population is hungry or starving to death.
The United Nations has estimated the cost of ending world hunger at about $195 billion a year, less than $535 million per day–about $130 million less per day than the cost of prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These figures do not include the secondary costs of the wars for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, nor do they account for the money needed to take care of the physically and mentally wounded veterans and their families in the US and among our allies.
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As most Americans sit down with friends and loved ones for Thanksgiving dinner this week, thanking god for our good fortune seems hollow, self-centered, and crass, an exercise in arrogant pride. A Thanksgiving Blessing more in keeping with our reality might read like the following:
A Universal Blessing for America’s Thanksgiving Dinners
For the blessings of the earth that gladden our lives, we give thanks.
Blessings are not shared equally. May we find within ourselves hearts of generosity and sharing.
Continue reading about Reflections on Thanksgiving in America 2009
From Pew Research Center:
The journey home for Thanksgiving won’t be quite so far this year for many young adults. Instead of traveling across country or across town, many grown sons and daughters will be coming to dinner from their old bedroom down the hall, which now doubles as their recession-era refuge.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that 13% of parents with grown children say one of their adult sons or daughters has moved back home in the past year. Social scientists call them “boomerangers” — young adults who move in with parents after living away from home. This recession has produced a bumper crop.
Census Bureau data confirm that proportionately fewer young singles are living solo now than before the recession. Overall, the proportion of adults ages 18 to 29 who live alone declined from 7.9% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2009. Similar drops in the proportion of young people who live by themselves occurred during or immediately after the recessions of 1982 and 2001.
The current decline has been particularly steep among young women; the proportion who live by themselves fell by a full percentage point to 6.1%. Among young men, the share living on their own fell 0.2 percentage points to 8.4%, a statistically insignificant change.
Continue reading about Home for the holidays and every other day
Happy Samhain and Happy Halloween to all! Yesterday I made my famous butternut-squash macaroni (and I confess I have been delinquent in updating my fall recipe collection on this site as promised). I’ll be adding that recipe here later today. Times are especially tough right now and I have been trying to come up with new, creative ways of making hearty, peasant food. Not that I don’t have plenty of practice in this department, mind you. But I figured I would try to brush up and enhance my repertoire. So, yesterday I googled “poor man’s meals’ and I came across the delightful Clara of “Great Depression Cooking.” I fell in love and you will too.
94 year old cook and great grandmother, Clara, recounts her childhood during the Great Depression as she prepares meals from the era. Learn how to make simple yet delicious dishes while listening to stories from the Depression.
Below are a couple of her episodes, but in the next few days, I’ll be adding “poor man’s meals” from my own repertoire.
Check out her youtube channel for more!
Happy Samhain!
