Minor Wisdom

From Chad

This video from Chad, courtesy of SaveDarfur.org, includes eye-witness accounts of the atrocities spreading there from neighboring Darfur. If you're sitting comfortably in front of a computer screen right now, the one thing you ought not do is avert your eyes.

A debate between two founding fathers

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Benjamin Franklin.

"A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous." Alexander Hamilton.

A milestone

The Onion says that the war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in WWII. I wish that were a joke.

Blawg Review # 85: Freedom to Differ

This week's installment of Blawg Review is at Freedom to Differ, written by Australian law professor Peter Black. FTD "mainly covers issues relating to the legal regulation of the internet and the media, but at times Constitutional law issues and politics are discussed. And occasionally I get distracted and post on movies and TV. While the focus is on Australia, developments in other nations around the world are considered as well." The title is inspired by this quotation from West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943):

But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

Ask Sister Mary Martha

If you enjoyed Late Night Catechism, then you'll enjoy Ask Sister Martha Mary, a blog purportedly written by a no-nonsense nun. Quoting Sister's tag line: "Life is tough. But Nuns are tougher. If you need helpful advice just Ask Sister Mary Martha. She'll help you. Just don't expect any sympathy." Do expect, however, some gentle humor. (Hat tip to dotCommonweal.)

Thanks

Many thanks to Dan Hull for writing a humbling review of this blog the other day. Thanks too to everyone out there who's linked to or said something nice about this little web project. (Thanks to Technorati, I know who you are!) Thanks to whoever invented blogging, for giving amateurs a chance to write and to connect with readers. Thanks to the readers for reading, and to the commenters for commenting.

Closer to home, I'm thankful for the progress that's been made around here since Thanksgiving 2005. A year ago, my wife and I were grateful to be reunited under our own blue-tarped roof. We had no refrigerator, just a big ice chest, which necessitated some adjustments in preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Mail service was sporadic; only first-class mail was delivered — about every third day or so. All over town — even the unflooded "sliver by the river" — businesses remained closed, due to storm damage, evacuated employees, or both. Today, we have a refrigerator, and the house's exterior is fully repaired and freshly painted. Just outside, traffic on Magazine Street is back to normal. Most businesses in the unflooded part of town are now re-opened. We still have some interior damage to repair, but meanwhile the house is comfortable.

We were going to celebrate Thanksgiving by cooking a real Thanksgiving dinner, which, after last year, would have been cause enough to celebrate. But a couple of days ago, some friends just down the street invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner, so we'll be going there instead, thankful to have friends like them.

I close by offering this meditation by the Big Man, a.k.a. The Kid From Brooklyn, contemplating Thanksgiving and a $15,000 bottle of wine. Enjoy.

Good to the last drop

Improbable Research led me to S.A. Wilsons Therapy Blend Coffee. These folks will sell you specially blended organic coffee and various implements for giving yourself a coffee enema. This, uh, therapy, is touted as "by far the most effective means of detoxifying the human Liver."

We can only hope

Can Donald Rumsfeld be prosecuted for war crimes? Maybe so. (Hat tip to Howard Bashman.)

Another Blawg Review — and a personal milestone

This week's Blawg Review is hosted by Transcending Gender, whose proprietor, Jen Burke, informs us that today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Jen speaks for the world's most misunderstood minority.
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Now for the milestone: This entry is # 1,000 for Minor Wisdom. So far, this blogging thing has been an enjoyable obsession hobby, and I'm not anywhere near tired of it. A big thank-you to Ernie Svenson, who inspired me to give it a try.

Hunger in the United States

In today's Times-Picayune, columnist Jarvis DeBerry takes the USDA to task for coining a new euphemism, "food insecure," to describe hunger in the United States. I think he's referring to the USDA's report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2004.

What does "food insecure" mean? The USDA defines a "food insecure" household as one that, "some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources." What does that mean in practical terms?  Appendix A of the report provides some answers. According to the USDA's survey, the following percentages of all U.S. households experienced the following condition sometime during 2004:

• Worried food would run out before (I/we) got money to buy more: 16.6%
• Food bought didn't last and (I/we) didn't have enough money to get more: 13.1%
• Couldn't afford to eat balanced meals: 11.6%
• Relied on few kinds of low-cost food to feed child(ren): 17.1%
• Couldn't feed child(ren) balanced meals: 9.8%
• Child(ren) were not eating enough: 4.6%

Overall, the USDA rates food insecurity for 2004 at 11.9%, or 13.5 million households.

Of that number, about one-third (3.9% of all households) "were food insecure to the extent that one or more household members were hungry, at least some time during the year, because they could not afford enough food." Food insecurity with hunger was 3.5% in 2003; if my math is right, that means that from 2003-2004, hunger in the United States increased by 8.75%.

So there you have it, citizens of the most powerful nation on Earth. Nearly 12% of your neighbors are unsure of having enough to eat, and nearly 4% actually go hungry sometime during the year. And from 2003 to 2004, the problem got worse instead of better.

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p.s. I think DeBerry was being a little to hard on the USDA. The purpose of the term "food insecure" is not, as DeBerry suggests, to make hunger go away through humbug, but to describe a large group of our fellow Americans who, though perhaps not "hungry," literally don't know where their next meal is coming from. Even if the people in the bread line are being fed, the bread line's very existence means we have a problem.