Amy Bender Webb
via nytimes.com
One small step in the right direction for low income urban dwellers with really poor food sourcing options.
Amy's Yard
Cvillian, 40-something, mother of 2; full-time Realtor, sometimes vegetarian & local foods devotee, quilter; trying to find more hours in the day, like you.
I use this Posterous when what I have to say or share just won't fit neatly into the allotted box or 140 characters!
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New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer - NYTimes.com
The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies.
via nytimes.com
Finally, the government catches up. Get ready for the push back from industry.
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by Amy Bender Webb
Charlottesville Calendar: Zero Garbage Workshop 2.6.10 at Ivy Creek
Check out this great blog by Cvillian Rose Brown about her year without garbage.
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by Amy Bender Webb
Home is Where The Food Is.
via youtube.com
Wonderful, joyous animated tale....local eating illustrated.
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by Amy Bender Webb
Dive! The Movie. Thought provoking.
via youtube.com
A year ago, I would have called Dumpster Diving a fringe lifestyle choice. But is this really about ecology, human rights and economic justice?
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by Amy Bender Webb
Welcome to our New America
Two stories in the NY TImes this weekend speak to the changed socioeconomic landscape of this country.
Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades
With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
Locally, 28%, nearly a third, of the children in Charlottesville rely on food stamps and in Albemarle County, the figure is 10%. Here is a County by County Interactive Map.
for more, don't miss the NY Times series The Safety Net and the personal stories behind the series: Living with Less, Portraits of a Downturn.
In another heartwrenching sign of the times, Nick Kristof takes a break from his overseas beat to ask Are We Going to Let John Die?, telling the story of mill worker John Brodniak. Diagnosed with a brain tumor and unable to work, John lost his health insurance and could not get new coverage, leaving him with zero access to surgery that could save his life.
Meanwhile, Robert Shiller warns the Recovery May All Be In Your Head.
My take:
- Economic Recovery, which may not yet have begun, is going to be tentative and slow.
- In the meantime, millions of American families are falling into the cracks we stubbornly refuse to mend, sometimes with fatal consequences.
- Even if/when the economy does recover, the long term aftershocks - physical, emotional and financial - to American families, are going to shape the generation who are children today.
- When the economy does recover, stability will remain elusive for the burgeoning American underclass if we do not:
1) have a solid, solvent, effective national healthcare system in place. Here are some choices. Let's pick one that is better than what we have now.
2) improve our educational system to both ensure basic literacy and provide relevant job training. Lots of people working on it, but we seem to be failing in our efforts to improve. In 2008, our high school graduation rate was a sad 77% (Ripley, Amanda,December 8, 2008, Can She Save our Schools. Time Magazine.). A few hours spent watching Cable News reconfirms that stupid people are everywhere, including quite a contingent in the US Congress. I like to allow for personal differences: each of us has gifts and talents, but why are we not choosing our leadership and policy makers from amongst the best & brightest? The only smart person I have seen on TV recently, apart from Rachel Maddow, is this kid from Arkansas.
3) address the ridiculous and growing disparity between the top wage earners and the bottom wage earners. Today's crisis has roots in decades of corporate misbehavior: the absurd CEO salaries coupled with job-shedding: the use of cheap, part time, benefit-less subcontractors in lieu of full time employees. We need a louder national discussion about Wage Disparity,(read that link - it is brief and fascinating): the US ranks at the bottom amongst Western nations, and the consequences of this inequity are enormous. Full details on the OECD study "Growth Unequal".
I would love to have your feedback on this post. Please share your thoughts with me.
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by Amy Bender Webb
How to Go Green: Halloween
Once a Celtic celebration of the harvest and a new season, Halloween is now a little less spiritual and a lot more commercial; total up candy sales, costume shopping, and decorations, and it's an industry worth almost $6 billion a year. With that kind of consumption comes a hefty carbon footprint and an environmental impact that lasts long after you've see the last of those fun-size Snickers bars.
Luckily, the basics of Halloween—spooky tales, playing dress-up, things that go bump in the night—don't require massive quantities of cash or a wasteful amount of resources as long as you're willing to think ahead and let your imagination run wild.
Read the entire article via planetgreen.discovery.com
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by Amy Bender Webb
Jamie Oliver Puts America's Diet on a Diet
Read the Full Article via nytimes.com
Jamie comes to West Virginia to tackle poor eating habits and the obesity epidemic.
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by Amy Bender Webb
55 + Housing: Builders, Buyers & Beyond. A Recent Study
For those interested in aging in place and senior related housing/issues, here is the September 2009 report from Metlife and the National Association of Home Builders.
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by Amy Bender Webb
