h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You're welcome, GDZ.

Now that I have reread some posts:

Mo, the majority of people on welfare *DO* need it. I know a lot of people who are forced to be on the dole because of laws that go in favor of business, I live in Utah by the way, getting a wage that will allow you to be off of assistance is a joke here.

One more thing I should point out. There is a restriction on how long you can recieve some benefits. With financial assistance you have 36 months of benefits, total, for your entire life, nothing more after that 3 years, as the program now stands. With educational assistance, they have a cap of how much money they will give you for school expenses, typically about $5000. That is for life also and they don't just hand it over, they give you vouchers that you take to "pay" your tuition and books.

I will probably add more I just wanted to make things in the welfare process a little less muddy.

Well, I for one believe that there are a lot of people who need help and are getting it, and a lot more who need it who aren't getting it.

Regarding food stamps, I have stood at the store and watched people buy soda pop, cake, potato chips, and similar junk food using their food stamps. They also use them to buy microwave ready lasagna, which is chock full of chemicals. I have come to believe that food stamps should only be allowed to be used to purchase necessary food items, preferably of the "ingredient" variety: such as pasta, dried beans, rice, tomato paste, meat, salt, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, etc. etc. This might improve the nutrition of some of the recipients and would certainly make their food dollar go a lot further. Since it is a tax dollar extracted from our pockets, I sort of feel like we should have a say about what it gets spent on.

I sort of agree with what you say, hmh, but I pity the woman who has just brought home her child or children after having worked two jobs, and now she has to cook a meal from scratch? I completely understand the lasagne, not so much the potato chips.

Mo, do your constitutional rights extend to impinging on MY life? I sympathize with the right-to-die argument, but not the seatbelts. Your stance adds $100 to my insurance premium.

And that's my problem with across-the-board libertarianism. It seems to posit that we all live in bubbles. The fact is, your actions have consequences that affect me and everyone else. Total freedom is impossible unless you're the only one on the planet.

And that problem, the fact we don't live in bubbles, is why I no longer am a libertarian purist.

> And what right does the government have to tell me I must wear a seatbelt.

Mo, you wear a seatbelt so that your body won't be thrown out the windshield and crunch into my hood, causing me to have a wreck.

I do have some compassion for the poor woman who is coming home from work and making dinner from scratch. But honestly, it isn't that hard to throw together a darn good spaghetti sauce or some sort of pasta sauce, or a stir fry. Or make a big salad and throw a can of drained pinto beans into it and some cooked chicken. The oven ready lasagna, maybe I'll give her that, even though in my experience that stuff isn't really worth eating.

And then there is the wonderful crock pot, an invention that allows you to throw a bunch of stuff into it the night before, put it in the fridge and the next morning put it into the heat sleeve and then when you come home, there's dinner.

The problem that I see is, that the vast majority of people who are trying to get by learn all their cooking from watching TV which is dedicated to the proposition that Americans should BUY STUFF and enrich them. When was the last time you saw an ad for a sack of potaotoes, or a box of plain pasta (Not kraft macaroni and cheese)?

We don't even think about how much more time we have to work in order to pay the labor costs of the "labor saving" "time saving" things like Lean Cuisine, or Rice a Roni.

But I admit that I'm somewhat evangelistic about good, fresh food.

I'm a single parent as most of you know. Being a student also, I have class time, homework, and public transportation on my list of things to do. I do try and make meals from scratch as often as I can, it is much easier on days where I don't have class *and* don't have homework. I have taken to only making my own marinara-type sauces and I must say that I make one hell of a spaghetti sauce. However I do also buy things like Dr. Pepper and chips, not the healthiest of items but I am also not buying all the fattening candy. What I'm getting at is this: I do try and remember that this money has come out of someone's pocket, I try and buy appropriate food items but I also try and shop like I would if I were working and earning the money myself.

MoFoLO: << The majority of the people who receive welfare assistance need it. I seriously doubt it. But even if so -- Why do they need to eat lobster and steak and have a televison in every room. That is my money they are using and I can't afford steak once a month and I work full time. >>

MoFoLO, Who told you that the majority of people in this country are on welfare, and that they are *all* welfare cheats? And that they are all eating lobster?

<< And what right does the government have to tell me I must wear a seatbelt. If I die because of not wearing a seatbelt then I die. But to say I have to wear it because I might die? >>

And what if you don't die after your accident? What about the doctors who took an oath to save and preserve life? You put them in a moral dilemma. Even if you survive "pulling the plug", what then -- since it is not yet legal to actively kill you? You have the right to commit suicide (what can they do, arrest you?), but if you are *unable* to do so, someone will then have to commit murder in order for you to die. Or your family will bear the burden for your care, until all your assets are gone, so their future is destroyed.

So maybe you should use the damn seatbelt/helmet, already. It's a good idea to be personally responsible, the government shouldn't have to resort to being a *nanny* state.

Just my

SC

<< So maybe you should use the damn seatbelt/helmet, already. It's a good idea to be personally responsible, the government shouldn't have to resort to being a *nanny* state. >>

Okay, that last was a little harsh, and I didn't intend it to be quite so in-your-face. But the point is still valid.

SC

I do wear them, cause I do see the wisdom in doing so. But for the government to tell me I MUST is just wrong as far as I am concerned.


One of the major reasons people are on welfare it appears to me is the ladies are having babies and the babies have no father. My one daughter is one of them. And she cannot understand why her Aunts and Uncles look down on her. The first one when she was around seventeen by a twenty-one year old man. We adopted the first one. The second one the bio-father moved out of state and got a college education and has a good job, but does not send support. The third one the bio-father pleads physical disability and says he can not work, so no support there. I wonder how he manages to eat? Oh well. The last one, Midget, won't likely ever see his bio-father. He is serving an eighteen to life for murder.

May be she is the exception but all her friends are in the same situation of raising kids without fathers and the majority if not all of the women who live in low income housing seem pretty much in the same boat. I mean we have whole villages of these ladies. I mean there are clusters of 10 to 30 houses and dupexes where these people live. There rent is based upon their income and no extra charge for the gas, water, and electricity.


Hey, maybe they are not the majority. But there are still too many of them. And the government makes it so easy for them to live this life-style that their friends jump in and their children grow up thinking this is the way it is supposed to be.

Oh for heaven's sake. Get that girl some birth control

I don't mean to be harsh, Mo, but don't you feel you should accept some personal responsibility for the way your daughter turned out, rather than blaming the government for enabling her to continue to make poor choices?

Mo, you make it sound as though these women are having kids just so they can recieve benefits. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way. I will grant that there is a small number of women who do just that, but they are the minority.

There is a woman in one of my classes, the father of her child disappeared 2 days after she told him she was pregnant, not her fault he did that, the guy is just a complete (insert favorite derogatory word here).

There are also women who choose to not have the father of their children involved in their children's lives. My ex is a prime example of this, the father of my stepson, B, didn't know he was going to have a child until W was nearly born, B was basically told to stay away until I came along and insisted he be involved. Only then was he "allowed" to be part of W's life. Of course, my ex was more than willing to sue for child support before she ever let B see W.

MoFoLo, believe it or not, I share your frustration. But, in the US anyway, the government makes it very hard for someone to break out of poverty/welfare. I had a very good friend who was a widow, with 2 kids. I met her in college, where she was doing her damnedest to break the cycle you mention, mainly that her mother raised her in that system.

She got a part-time job out of high school, got married to a cop, then about 6 weeks before she had her second son, her husband was killed. Since he was not on duty, some of her benefits were denied, and the rest were eaten up due to hospital care of her husband before his death.

Then she found herself back in the same system she had escaped from. When she found a low-paying job, however, she had to report all her income (and also reporting the low monthly widow's benefit she received), at which point her social worker reduced her government benefits to make the total household monthly income equal to what it was before she started working. Now, how the hell do you get out from under in a system like that? Granted, now in most states in the US, we have the rules as reported by GDZ. That still leaves a pretty big leap from total aid to independence, trying to find a way to increase your income enough so that when you have to pay for it all, you have enough money. Child support, food, rent, utilities, etc. is a big step for someone who's never had more than a part-time job before. How long do any of us go before we can totally support ourselves, out of the nest? The economy was a hell of a lot better, and I lived at home for the first year and half out of high school, and I had roomates when I moved out to California at 19. Try finding roomates when you're a welfare mother and have only a minimum-wage job.

I personally think that the government should extend more help *while* a family is making the transition from welfare to work. That would be money well spent.

SC

I'm going to dodge all the other landmines (!) and just say that many people don't know how to cook. Their parents don't know how to cook, so they never learned, or they never let their kids in the kitchen to see how it was done.

Your average 22-year-old, given a bag of chicken parts, some vegetables, and a box of Bisquick, would feed the chicken to the cat, eat the vegetables, and put the Bisquick in the cabinet until the weevils got it. Me, I'd make chicken and dumplings. It's all about know-how.

There are lots of cooking shows out there that teach practical cooking and cooking techniques - it's where I get most of my skills.

So my big soapboxes are sex education and home economics. Two classes that should be mandatory for all students!

Boy do I totally agree with that one. Home ec and sex ed and let's also throw in a short course on balancing your budget, which includes a unit on the difference between "I want" and "I need."

We could get inot a very creative mood here: How about instead of a diploma suitable for framing (or losing) when you graduate from high school, each student gets handed a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Even if they don't read it then, later when they get the bag of chicken parts they'll be able to figure out what to do with it.

Now, Lentilla, you are almost there. But why Bisquik???? Why not a bag of flour, some salt, and some baking powder, plus a little shortening. Now you have something that will store a lot longer and has a lot more possibilities for possible uses, and also contains no preservatives.

Not to mention how to manage money in general, like balance a checkbook and how credit cards work!!

SC

Sex ed in Utah? Sex ed in Utah consists of "Don't do it". Congressional Medals of Honor will be a dime a dozen before more than that is taught! I'm not kidding when I say that.

I am not sure what I would make given those ingredients, I will tell you that it wouldn't be cat food.

Unfortunately, Utah seems to be in the Dark Ages when it comes to sex ed. Sad, but true. I've heard it said that unwanted pregnancies and teenaged mothers are more common when sex education is ignored - does it seem that way to you, GDZ?

hmh, Bisquick is the fastest way to make dumplings. I suppose I was thinking of 'fast and cheap.' Most beginning cooks are lucky to have flour and salt! It's also about space - when I lived in a tiny duplex, the counter space was minimal.

But I'm always about making things from scratch. If you make it yourself, it tastes better - and not just because you made it yourself. Especially salsa and home-made bread...