A Food Watch: 2nd View

. . . . . Well, time time time to see what's become of me. i me me mine. Just decided to leave the next paragraph in from my first edition of Food Watch:

. . . . . It was not too long ago I thought about (well, that makes it sound almost proactive and I think that's a bit much) telling the preacher that desserts must be a sin. Well, of course not (and that wasn't what I meant to say; I was only pointing out that God could not be pleased with us eating huge [the four of us that night had two whole pies in the oven] while eight hundred million people [800,000,000 PEOPLE] go to bed hungry that day; I was saying OPEN YOUR EYES and be satisfied with bread at least until everybody has bread!), it's just the big picture bothering me then and maybe the realization that it might not take too much of an adjustment to rectify the situation. May be that if we all put the money we spend on just desserts into the pot for hungry people that we could turn the corner on malnutrition. I don't know. But I do know that saying it might be in our best interests to do something might be the understatement of the last century even.

. . . . . Darn, I just realized all the stuff I've been working on for days isn't in my (would-be) journal but in my mundane food report. Oh well, I can't switch it around now, I'll just post this under my journal entry like the first one.

. . . . . Okay, notice the Albertson's ticket on the right was a week before the (now) Winn Dixie (which bought out Jitney; don't know what will happen to Albertson's here in the hub city area). I don't know if the 911 call ( September 11 ) would have changed my purchases on the 6th, which struck me as outrageous when I made them and perhaps even more so now. Did want to mention that Albertson's got me to go there by putting catfish nuggets on sale for .99 a pound. Yeah. The guy behind the counter said "No way" would he bag me five pounds (the max allowed) in half-pound bags. Or in five one-pound servings. "We're giving it away already," he complained. After I commiserated with him about his employer maybe folding he did give me some empty bags. I cooked maybe half a pound and froze nine servings.

. . . . . The rest of my purchases there were kind of crazy. Over-the-top you might say. Well, the bread was a great deal, and the milk I needed. The lunch meat was a deal too, good stuff for like three bucks a pound. But parmesan cheese? (Okay, I've been meaning/wanting to buy some since I've been in Petal; the soy sauce I was needing and this was lite stuff; don't know how to justify the stir fry, which is just fancy seasoning I guess.) I just always think about Jesus saying "You pay tithe of mint and cummin and ignore the weightier matters" like people starving to death every day. Twenty-four thousand people . . . the hunger site is back.

. . . . . Oh yeah, while I'm thinkin' about it, I scored the livers at Church's the other day. They went up; that should teach me about publishing great deals abroad huh? 1.59 they cost. And to add insult to injury they quit fryin' em when you order; just cook em at 6 am or whenever and put em in the heater with the common cuts.

. . . . . Got a WSP (WideSpread Panic) live show the other day. From '85. Been into the name of the band since I first heard it of course. Because like I've been saying for a long time, if things are the way I think they are, there are a lot of people who are gonna freak when they even hear how things might be. Like CNN had a headline today (it's sept 14 ought one [01]) saying "America's New War" talking about the stock market opening Monday. (Well, maybe that was two headlines at the same time; whatever.) There definitely has been lots of panic talk. Gas panic in my 'hood on the 11th I hear (and lots of places around ameriKa, people charging five bucks a gallon instead of a buck fifty and such). Hey, seems ameriKa's in a recession that just hasn't been acknowledged, manufacturing the lowest since the fifties, another stat off the most it's been in forever. And for six months or more the financial guys have been saying that the only thing keeping the economy going was consumer spending.

. . . . . Maybe the only reason I mention all this is because I also saw somebody say the coordinated attacks Tuesday make up ameriKa's most significant event since the Civil War. Give me a break! I don't want to downplay the horror (which I couldn't watch that morning), and I certainly don't want to jeopardize my reputation as a patriot (ha ha ho ho he he [the "patriots" haven't got a clue]), but when Tom Brokaw called the World War II guys "the greatest generation" he was on the right track. It took that war to pull us out of what we still call the Great Depression. The New Deal wasn't enough. And many if not most of the guys who fought for their country in those days lived their formative years during the depression born of the stock market crash of '29. A solid decade and it took a war to get the economy going because the people who were filthy rich quit spending their money and that was all the money there was.

. . . . . Six percent of the population controlling fifty percent of the wealth (a preacher said) huh? Abomination. (2022 note:  last i heard eight people control 50% of the wealth in ameriKa) And it wasn't that those guys were so bothered that their fortunes weren't growing (and consider that at least ten years ago the fortune of "The Royal Family" in England grew by three hundred fifty million dollars [$350,000,000] one year, a year of recession actually as I recall), it was that what they sometimes call their kapital might actually (God forbid! they cry) shrink. I mean, the Rockefellers and Gettys gave thousands of people "good jobs" for years building huge mansions, monuments to what they believed was wealth (millstones around their necks) while they basically sat on their money and watched a nation undergo unspeakable agony for a solid decade and then when the war created a huge demand for factories they were glad to invest. Not at the prospect of increased wealth. Oh, no, no. Glad to invest in ameriKa you betcha.

. . . . . And hey, it's not like they had the money to spend anyway you know. It's all about cash flow and liquidity and trusts and foundations. The fortunes are pretty invisible. Lots of rich people have reputations for never having money, forcing other people to pick up the dindin tabs. Really funny ya know. Poor rich people (Jesus says). At least now there's a middle class (though it's disappearing). Those folks won't let us fall into depression. They'll keep spending. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me that the ameriKan upper middle class, maybe, what the five or ten percent below that first six percent of the despicably rich, it wouldn't surprise me if they control fifty percent of the rest of the wealth. Yeah, they'll not try to protect what's left of their portfolios say, their personal fortunes. And since so many of those guys are like big business types, you know, the movers and shakers we ameriKans like to say, I bet we won't see many more big layoffs in industry and people scrambling to protect their bottom lines. You bet.

. . . . . But that's not what I was starting to say. And it's really pretty complicated anyway, my letter (here) to the editor in '87 shows how naive my economic understanding is. (Couldn't be an ordinary mind reading this? Eh? Eh?) I was just trying to make the point that nothing has shaped this country, I mean kountry, made this kountry what it is more than the Great Depression. Nothing. Not the Civil War, not the Revolutionary War (those guys, when they met, they started with prayer, the original supreme court always began deliberations with prayer), nothing comes close to the Depression. . . We are not the country we were and the main thing since the Great Depression is fear that I might not have enough of something/anything.

. . . . . Okay, full disclosure is headed your way. I spent $63.94 on cookware this month. Can't say I needed it. (Well, my covered skillet was shot and I like to cook cornbread in one on the stovetop [this should be taught in home ec' huh?; it really works (figure how with half the recipe; a wok is great and real easy 'cause you can flip it at the half-way mark) and conserves energy pretty huge], and my non-stick sauce pans disappeared and it was maybe a great deal on a Revere ware set; also wanted to mention I came over here with two pairs of jeans and a pair of sweat pants and three out of the four pair of jeans I've bought since were the wrong size inseam: two 30-inch and one 34-inch when I wear 32-inch [I finally figured it out . . . and hey, I'm only 52!], so it's not that I'm able to rationalize or need to justify my actions huh?)

. . . . . Spent $35.99 to get a 256-meg chip of ram headed my way. Can't say I need it. Spent $26.41 at Ace Hardware for one of those multimeters (need to check resistance on some of the Olds' wires [oh yeah, definitely "need" to do this] and a(nother) wire brush for my angle grinder because tomorrow I'm certainly (yeah, right!) gonna pull that fender off the Olds' and work on it and two bolts to bolt the driver's seat in the Olds' down good (and attach the seat-belt that I'm gonna get at the junkyard . . . you got it . . . tomorrow). (The woman at the hardware store said something about my doing my part to keep the economy going. I said "I hear ya.")

. . . . . Oh yeah, I sent a guy $10.95 to send me a Live Aid t-shirt, just like the one I paid $35 (thirty-five dollars) for back in '85 maybe. Y'all remember Live Aid? Remember me living in that trailer and eating hot dogs on a good day? Well, I'm not complaining, believe me. Just statin' some facts. Just the facts man. Er, ma'am. (That was a Joe Friday line in one of the original television police series. Dragnet it was called.) Here's one of those lines from Lao Tsu (hopefully prophetic):

Heaven's net casts wide.
Though its meshes are coarse, nothing slips through.. . .

. . . . . Okay, spent 1.37 on postage and just put two flower stamps (33-cent?) on an envelope. (I'm gonna build up to disclosing everything like bills and rent [see here*] and charitable giving and income and such I'm thinkin'.) Also went back to the grocery; Albertson's again only because it was right on the way from an errand; here's the proverbial bottom line (at the bottom):

ALBERTSONS BONUS BUY PROGRAM! 9/20/01 12:27 2785 06 0052 105 2.36 LB @ 2/LB/1.00 CABBAGE BRN 1.18 B ALBTSN MILK 2.99 B BREAD .79 B LARGE BELL PEPPER .50 B BASTING SPOON .99 T YOU SAVED .50 ON BONUS BUYS **** TAX .45 BAL 6.90 CASH 20.00 CHANGE 13.10 YOUR SAVINGS TODAY! BONUS BUY SAVINGS $ .50 ******TOT AVINGS*** $.50 TOTAL SAVINGS 7% *************** TOTAL NUM~ER OF ITEMS SO &mdash 5 THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT ALBERISONS! WWW.ALBERTSONS.COM

Five (5) days after the Albertson's run above:

WINN &mdash DIXIE ** AMERICAS SUPERMARKET ** MORE CHOICES, LOW PRICES PUMPERNICKLE 2.29 6 @ 10/5.00 BREYERS A LA MODE .50 SAVED .14 ON POWER BUY ITEM BREYERS A LA MODE .50 SAVED 14 ON POWER BUY ITEM BREYERS .50 SAVED .14 ON POWER BUY ITEM BREYERS LI .50 SAVED .14 ON POWER BUY ITEM BREYERS LI .50 SAVED .14 ON POWER BUY ITEM BREVERS .50 1 SAVED .14 ON POWER BLr' ITEM 4 @ 10/4.00 SB CHRY/AMARETO AO I SB NF BANANA CRM .40 I SB NP BANANA CRM .10 SB CHRY/AMARETO .40 VEL CORNMEAL 2.90 1 JIF R/F CRUN PNT BTTR 1.99 SAVED .30 ON POWER BUY ITEM K F 40% BRAN 1.29 SAVED .20 ON POWER BUY ITEM K.FRSH FAT GRANOLA 229 U/F AMBR MOUTHWASH 3.29 1 CREST REGULAR 1,99 I SAVED .60 ON POWER BUY ITEM 1 @ 5/10.00 12PK OT CHRY 2.00 F SAVED .79 ON POWER BUY ITEM OS PRESERVES 1 .99 F S/B FAT FREE MILK 2.89 *~** TAX 1.93 TOT 29.45 VP VCA XXXXXXXXX531S 29.45 TOTAL NUMBER OF ITEMS SULD 20 9/25/01 3:04 PM 1327 02 0149 114 YOUR CASHIER TODAY IS MICHEAL POWER BUYS,DISCOUNT DEPARTMENT AND WEEKLY SPECIALS · 2.73 THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH US MANAGER DALE KELLY STORE ~t 1327 &mdash PETAL MS PHONE (601 )584&mdash6254

I think this next was Thursday the 27th:

**** U.S. POSTAL SERVICE **** PETAL, MS 39Li6~ HENDERSON 03 09--2S--Th1 11:35:07 CUSTOMER RECEI PT 10~ POST VAL IMP .80 109 POST ~AL IMP 1.03 ~Q¶ VAL IMP .57 109 p()5~ YAL I ME' 1.49 109 POST VAL IMP 1.10 TOTAL 4.99 CASH T 20,00 CHANGE 15.01 *** THANK YOU *~ NOT the post office: HWY 11 gasoline @ ? 10.01 Main St. convenience store Petal, MS candy bar .74 air bicycle tires .50

. . . . . Well, I kinda rationalize going back for the buy-one get-one-free at Domino's here (aiming for the city council meeting; not that I rationalized it so much, I just would like people to know how there does seem to be this constant awareness that people are starving, people are hurting, people are hating with me; it's a very painful awareness and I spend most of my time, like I've said over and over I guess, trying to escape, trying to not think about it, but there are things like food that force a lot of this into my (maybe semi-)consciousness:

. . . . . Put three, count 'em three stamps on an envelop to mail; my postage is a pretty big expense this month. Still kind of aiming at full disclosure I guess obviously huh?  (2022 note:  sad, huh?)

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