Donald Trump And The Symbionese Liberation Army

It has been a couple of weeks since the Trump Administration floated the idea of handing out boxes of food to SNAP recipients, rather than food stamps or plastic debit cards, so the story has made its way out of the news cycles. Donald Trump thought that a "Blue Apron" style of delivering food to poor children (most food stamps beneficiaries are children) would be a groovy way to re-vamp that aspect of welfare. Humiliating parents and children who are not as fortunate as Trump and Family is, these days, what being a Republican is all about.

Something that is not addressed by this "food delivery" idea is food allergies. All it takes is one mistake; one accidental or deliberate delivery of peanut butter or tuna to someone with a peanut butter or seafood allergy to kill that person. No kidding. Also not addressed are restricted diets: not everyone can safely eat the same stuff. A person with diabetes is often prescribed a restricted diet. A person with celiac disease experiences autoimmune reactions if he eats anything containing wheat products. A generic box of food cannot address this, but a person who knows what foods are medically safe for his own family can. It appears that the Trump administration just wants to put all poverty stricken families into one category, and any recipient of assistance who does not fit the category is simply out of luck.

Another group demanded, in 1974, that Hearst Publications try the same thing. This group was a terrorist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Patty Hearst, the daughter of one of the heirs to Hearst Publications, was kidnapped by the group in February of 1974. A demand made by the group, as a condition of Patty's release, was for the Hearst family to distribute $70.00 worth of food, in boxes, to every needy person in California. The approximate equivalent, as of 2018, is about $420.00 per person or family. Hearst went ahead and started distributing food at one location, hoping to get his daughter back. What ensued was chaos, not unlike Donald Trump and his charitable act of throwing paper towels at people in Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria. Such actions facilitate the risks of hurting people, and there is no guarantee that everyone who needs food or paper towels will even benefit. Since we all know that this type of charity did not work well for a group of domestic terrorists, why would the president thing it is a good idea?

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Between Mabon and Samhain

Back in the day, before the retail industry owned most of our holidays and before corporations had become "people", (could a presidential candidate have chosen anything stupider to say?) it was customary among European Pagans to give gifts of homemade food to relatives and friends on Winter Solstice. At that time of year in the northern hemisphere, harvest had been completed and Nature was at a loll, in between seasons. Food was a highly appreciated gift. The process of canning, of course, had not been invented, but our Ancestors dried herbs, brewed wine, distilled spirits, and baked. In fact, dried herbs and teas were the traditional ways everyone got enough folic acid during the winter.

The time between Mabon and Samhain is a very busy season for any type of agriculture, but the Ancients probably never had time to spare as the days got shorter, and Halloween, the last holy day of the year, got closer. The Goddess has blessed this Witch with a great garden and lots of creative ideas, and this year, the retail industry will have one less customer for Winter Solstice gift giving. Blessed Be!

The Cauldron At Lammas

On Lammas, yours truly spent most of the day in the kitchen, stirring the cauldron and baking bread. The cauldron bubbled over with homemade salsa, diced tomatoes with oregano and basil, and blueberry jam. One of her little Witches in Training baked some yummy zucchini bread and peanut butter brownies. Hopefully, everyone had an abundant Lammas.

Abbie Hoffman Moment

I'm Getting Nothing For Christmas

There will be no Christmas for me this year
That is the unvarnished truth

Above is a stray "wahwah" from a flock of "wahwahs" left over from Christmas, 2013. It got lost in Facebook, on the page of a homeless person who has been offered help many times over the past twenty years, but turns it down every time because she does not want the employment situation which would accompany a permanent address. The wahwah girl is someone who has an income, of sorts, and refuses to use it for food and shelter. Instead, she uses it for computers, and other electronics, and for accessories for them. She stays in shelters that are meant for people experiencing true emergencies. She also eats three times as much as she needs, caring very little about any children for whom the food is meant.

Santa Claus isn't real. This is important to remember when celebrating Christmas. Santa Claus isn't real, and Christmas is best celebrated by giving, not taking from those who cannot afford to buy into the commercial ideal that has perverted Winter Solstice.



The Wahwah girl who didn't have a Christmas this year needs to grow up. That is the unvarnished truth.

 

The Nerve She Struck

There's a person out there who feels entitled to the resources, including but not limited to, the vehicles, the homes, the time, and the food, of everyone she sees who has those things and has them honestly. She refuses to use her resources to establish residence anywhere, and by default, her lack of permanence becomes an unnecessary and huge expense. It is her personal opinion that Uncle Sam owes her an hotel room every night of the week. It is also her opinion that every driver who passes her on the road, when she hitchhikes, has a moral obligation to pick her up. What she does not see is that sometimes these drivers are en route to places such as........employment (!) and do not have time to stop and dick around with her. Or, some drivers have children, and if all of those children are in the car, there may not be enough seat belts for another passenger, especially a morbidly obese passenger.

When people send angry comments to this woman via the internet, she does not appear to understand that those people who have happy marriages have them because they actively, are, happily married people, and they repeat the act of being happily married each and every day. Those who have children have them because they either bore them, adopted them, or agreed to bring them up via other auspices of guardianship; or in some cases, all three! The Gods did not simply award certain lucky people with love; those people actively participate. The notion that this woman is entitled to the relationships and resources of others, to whom she has contributed nothing.....except to take, sorta like a parasite......is insane. Yet she feels that people send angry comments to her out of guilt. It's not out of guilt; it's out of rage. Indeed, this woman strikes a nerve, but not the one she thinks.

 

Stop depending on the general public, Ruthie. You get a check every month; use it for something sensible, like housing. Why should emergency shelters and long term shelters house you, when their purpose is to house those who have emergencies or no resources at all? Is it the government's fault that you spend all your money on enough food for three or four people, instead of on a place to live? Which brings me to another thingy about you: you eat enough for three or four people. The reason my kids did not get enough to eat while you stayed in my home was that you were eating, literally, ALMOST ALL the food I bought. Hundreds of dollars worth a week. We still have not recovered.

 

You may think you shouldn't have to work, but you quit working, and quit trying, at a much earlier age than most people. You literally have not paid enough into the "system" to expect everything from the system that you expect. If you get a job, that will go a long way to remedy the problem of not having a place to live. It will require that you put your laptop down and show up for work when they need you, but such is life. Deal with it. All the people of whom you take advantage deal with it, why would you be special?

 

Something else that is helpful, when staying in the homes of others, is leaving their wallets and other personal property alone. Stealing simply isn't cool. Especially when the aforementioned wallets belong to children.

 

Speaking of children, at least half a dozen children in my personal acquaintance will testify that YOU eat like a PIG! Specifically, food bought for children! You take a lot more than your share of anything and everything. Bulletins about you have gone out in certain areas, advising well-meaning citizens to avoid you and drive past you while you hitchhike, because of the way you take advantage of others. Your table manners are also disgusting!

 

You've struck a nerve? Probably not. You've got some nerve, though!

 

 

☼Thankyou for indulging me, everyone who read this. The one for whom the message is intended knows exactly who she is.☼

 

 

Here; Kitty, Kitty!

Shared on social media! What a hungry raccoon!

Homeless And Hungry

I saw this on Facebook and liked it, and so shared it here.

I used to work at Subway a couple months ago, but I quit. And what made me quit was one time a homeless man came in to get a sandwich. He asked if the sandwich would be more than $10. One of my coworkers told him no and he carried on. When he got down to the register, he was searching frantically for his money, and with such shame on his face he said he couldn't find it and started to leave. But I called out to him and said I would pay for it. I got my credit card and paid for an entire meal for this man, with no discounts. Completely in full. He thanked me over and over. Then when the next person in line got to the register she told me how nice of thing I did. Now when everyone left I was in the back cleaning and my manager yelled at me. Telling me that if someone can't pay for their food you tell them to leave. I told her that I wasn't going to let him starve. It was 115 degrees outside. He was probably exhausted, dehydrated and very hungry. I was so baffled about the fact that I just got in trouble for helping someone in need. I was being constantly told by owners and supervisors of the company that this was a business about people and making people happy. But I guess the homeless aren't people. So I quit a week later.