Grocery chains resist opening stores where sales of high-markup gourmet products can't be guaranteed, and they often close existing supermarkets in poor areas. For residents of these neighborhoods, the choice comes down to traveling long distances to buy groceries or shopping at expensive corner stores that sell high-fat, high-sugar convenience food and little or no fresh produce. The consequences are the wages of poverty: diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
And save me the lucky duckie serenade, please. Life is more than money and accumulated wealth, it gives no sensory input, no life, no emotional warmth. It buys things. Yes, it can be used to help with the other values of life, but it, by itself, does not.
Imagine you go to work today and there's nobody to talk to about the exciting Charger victory over the Raiders, no friends to share a high five, talk about how stupid Jackson was throwing that ball down, how good LT is, and so on. Spoils some of the fun doesn't it?
We all share this planet, like it or not. And we're all fouling our nest, all eating a hole in the bottom before we're ready to fly, some more than others. It's up to all of us to start taking actions that change our course. We don't have to become self sustained hermits living off the land, but we all need to do something more than we're doing now. That Sierra Magazine has some good ideas, really good ideas that work on many levels, educating kids and adults, keeping some pesticides out of the earth, getting people healthy food, building community bonds, and so on. Well worth a look see.
2 comments:
Thanks for the link, Duckman; I've heard about the community gardens and community farms. What great ideas to get some healthy foods available to families that otherwise couldn't afford it.
I've got a large back yard and I was thinking of installing some raised beds for veggies next year. (We've got mass slug, and racoon problems here.) And I want to look into canning my own foods, or at least making jams for the winter. I feel too dangerously dependent upon the corporate teat for my comfort. Self sustaining hermit doesn't sound all that bad, if I have the 'nets and a tv/dvd player!
Thanks for the comments my friend. I usually grow tomatoes in my small yard, even though they tend to take over, but you can't beat a real tomato picked just right over that disgusting crap they sell at the grocery stores!
I've been thinking about schools and community gardens too, and somehow getting a local HOA involved as well, but have yet to make any concrete plans, just the idea. I'll keep at it.
I think a lot of us progressives are just plain contrarian to the corporate free market model. Oh how they must hate us heretics!!
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