Re: SOUP KITCHENS (fwd)

[Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 20:12:04 -0700
> From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
> Subject: Re: SOUP KITCHENS (fwd)
> 
> >True enough, but not the whole story. If a dog or cat is kept well and fed
> >good quality food they live 10+ years. The average life of an animal on the
> >street is between 2-5 years. As to people, we now live around 75-80 years,
> >prior to all these rules and regulations on food and such the average was
> >20-25. If we go back to what you propose you would be dead a long time ago.
> 
> Hardly a proved correlation. A lot of other factors come into play. But
> never mind. No point arguing.

But it is. I suggest you take a look at any social health text and look at
the comparisons between diets of our ancestors, ourselves, and various
cultures around the planet now. In places like Africa the mean age in many
places is still in the early 20's. It is pretty remarkable that places that
at one time had poor or subsistance diets and now have more modern diets
have the average life span growing (even in places like Samoa and the Pima
Indians in Mexico and the S. US where the high-fat diets are causinga marked
increase in coronary problems, interesting article in this months Sci-Am) by
leaps and bounds. Look at the studies which have tracked the English
population over the centuries (they kept good records) and compaired
physical body characteristics with food intake. It has been clearly shown
that as the food got better and more plentiful the lifespan got longer and
the average height got larger. Pretty strong evidence of some correlation
there. I certainly feel strongly enough about it that I would not willingly
eat food except in emergency conditions that I was not shure of the quality
or purity.

Other factors such as what? Disease? If you have a good diet then diseases
like colds and Influenza (for example) are survivable. Without good diets
high in Vitamen C and such you get Rickets and can die from a simple cold in
as little as 3 days. Certainly if you kill off the local fauna you will
increse your lifespan simply because there isn't as much to eat you when you
aren't looking. But this particular threat was most present for the older
and more damaged individuals. During some recent studies (5-6 years) of
Cromagnon Man it was discovered that these folks were covered in broken
bones, arthritic joints, spongy bones, spinabifida, etc. because of the hard
life they lived having to manualy chase down the dinner and kill up close
with rocks and sticks. If you get a chance try to get a peek at some of the
pictures. I remember one of a girl around 16 whose knees and back looked
like they belonged to somebody 80 years old.

If you feel there is no point in arguing (which I don't feel we are doing
since it seems pretty civil, we have widely seperate views) why resond?
That is like asking somebody a person question and then when getting the
answer saying you don't care. Just for the record, I am enjoying the
discourse. But since you are not I won't continue this thread any longer.

> >I personaly find it reassuring that some bunch of knuckle-heads are unable
> >to start a chip making facility like you support. The thought of finding
> >flourine compounds in the local river (where I get my tap water) or simply
> >dumped in the air is a little unsettling. Just because some group of bozo's
> >want to start a business is not sufficient justification for that to be
> >allowed.
> 
> A straw man. There is is no evidence that these startup companies are
> dumping stuff in rivers. Jeesh. The point is that large companies learn how
> to keep large staffs employed filling out paperwork, and they actually have
> come to see it is a good way to keep small companies from forming.

A straw man is where one claims one situation is analgous to another
different situation. This is not a straw man because we are talking about
the same issue but discussing the effect of size on behaviour.

Motorola, AMD, Sematech, etc. have all been fined over the last years for
doing just this to the waters around Austin. When I was working at Austin
Community College over the last 2 1/2 years (prior to going to work for
Tivoli - IBM 4 months ago) my primary responsibility was building a wafer
fab training facility at the Riverside campus from donations from these
folks and many others localy (Applied Material, Varian, etc.) I got to spend
a lot of time in site in areas that normaly are not open to outsiders. If
these big plants have problems regulating their emissions with their budget
and reams of paper just image what a startup hard for cash would do if they
thought they could get away with it "just this one time". I think the way
Crystal Semiconductor (ie fabless) does their design is the way to go for
small startups, simply rent production facilities from these other
companies. I know that, for example, each of the companies here in Austin
are in the process of shutting down older fabs and don't have plans to
upgrade them for at least a couple of years. For somebody like Crystal that
is a god send. It means they can bring products to market for costs way
below what it would have originaly cost, and the larger company gets to
bring in income on equipment it had originaly written off. Sounds like a
win-win to me.

Sorry, but a simple reading of the Austin American Statesman (admittedly a
shitty paper very highly biased) will provide numerous instances of such
dumps over the last few years.

> >It seems to me that many of the folks who recognize downsized workers pleas
> >for their 'right to a job' as so much bunk are at the same time supporting a
> >businesses right to start up. A pretty humorous double standard.
> 
> Not at all comparable.

But they are for the simple reason that we are talking about two entities
which each claim a right to some behaviour. And in this case directly
comparable because a person working is comparable to a business working.
Each provides services and expects a return.

Now the argument goes with persons that a person does not have a inherent
right to income. In other words if a company shuts down and they are laid
off w/o any other work forthcoming it is their fault for not seeking the
appropriate training and such (ie resources) to get another job with a
better future.

Now with business the claim is that they should have some rights comparable
to persons, however they should also be given the right to open their doors
for business even if they can't demonstrate some level of competency and
ability to survive in the market. This is carried to the point that they
should be allowed to operate without regulation or other forms of checks and
balances on their actions.

Now if a real person does not have a right to income if they don't posses
the requisite skills why should a business be allowed to do it without
showing the same sort requisite skills? Why should the local community be
forced to take on the burden of such a venture simply because the business
is a 'virtual' person? It is becoming pretty clear with the change in
welfare (which I support) that our society does not feel an obligation to
support folks for more than 2-3 years on the social dole without some return
on investment. Why should the city be required to provide utilities and
other services without some assurance they will get the public funds (ie
your money and mine) back? We as citizens in Austin certainly don't recieve
stock or other benefit from this other than the jobs it creates for persons
with the requisite skill.

> >I have never heard of anyone being arrested for giving away food, only
> >selling it without a license. I bet the Salvation Army soup kitchen would be
> >worried if this claim were true (they aren't and it ain't).
> 
> Then you weren't reading the thread, which in several posts described this
> very situation. "Food Not Bombs" was giving away soup, chile, and other
> such stuff at a park in Santa Cruz (and maybe elsewhere, e.g., San
> Francisco). They were busted.
> Now do you understand the situation?

I understand that they were arrested for the noise and such and not for the
food. The reason that the permit was refused (wrongly I agree) was that the
HD did not want the people out on the street causing a disturbance.

What they did should be protected if it is in the right place and at the
right time. The right of the poeple to assemble has an important caveat.
If I may,

 
				ARTICLE I. 
 
	Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, 
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 
 
 
If you will notice it says 'peaceably', I do not believe this should include
standing on the corner with a bullhorn screaming at people. A more
appropriate strategy would have been to walk over and give the government
folks food also with little political pamphlets wrapped around their
weenies. They would have most likely eaten their food, looked at the
pamphlet, got a good chuckle and gone back to being good little prols.

As the situation was at fist described is not quite how it was. This bozo
apparently was on the corner with the direct intention of harrassing folks.
This is uncalled for behaviour in such a situation. I agree with the
conclusion that there was an alterior motive other than feeding the
homeless. It sounds more like a podium for a personal tirade.


                                                Jim Choate