I like to think there's some train of logic I'm not getting.
You're poor. You're fat, so you can afford food, obviously.* So, if you were smarter, you'd spend less on food**, and thus would have the funds to purchase emergency supplies like water***, and then you wouldn't have to loot****.
Shorter Insty: If you're poor and fat, it's because you're spending your money on food instead of planning ahead.
* Proving that you're really not poor because food is cheap.
** Because, contra *, food is so expensive that you could save a significant amount.
*** Because if you managed to save money, you'd have no other pressing expenses like medical care or clothing, and could have $100 sitting around for emergencies. Or, perhaps, you have room in your apartment for 28 gallons of water. (4 people, say, 1 gallon a day each, one week.) Better yet, you should have a week's worth of supplies all the time.
**** Because in something like a flood where waters are 20 feet deep, you'll either haul all your water to the Superdome, or it'll all stay dry somehow in your house.
I saw this on Atrios earlier today. Are we getting upset with the first parenthetical or the second? On Eschaton it seemed to be the first.
If that's the case, I guess I'll be the devil's advocate -- is he wrong? I live a block away from a supermarket where I'd say 25% of purchases are made with food stamps (or whatever their electronic debit card equivalent is now called). All of these people are pretty poor, but many if not most of them are also overweight.
Obviously it's not very nice to point out that some of the poor people who've had their homes destroyed and relatives killed happen to be kind of chubby, but it's not wrong, is it? Nor is what I take to be Reynolds' point -- that squirrelling away a few days' worth of calorically-dense (if not exactly healthy) food can be done very cheaply.
The second parenthetical is a proud entry in the Instapundit tradition of jackassery, though.
They're both bad. The poor aren't fat because they can afford food, but because they can't afford a good, varied diet, and end up eating a lot of empty calories. And, as written, saying that people are fat *because* they can afford food is just stupid, because it entails that everyone who can afford food should be fat.
I think it's wrong because he seems to be arguing, if you're fat, you can't be that poor, because you can at least afford food, so what's the matter with you, tubby? why didn't you prepare? too irresponsible?
and just to clarify: that calorie-rich but nutritionally-poor food is cheap is a real problem affecting poor people (easily refuted in theory, but real in practice), and one I get really upset about. The presence of a full aisle devoted to diabetic cooking and the absence of a lot of feet/legs in my neighborhood are things that really bother me. But for purposes of disaster preparedness, it's not such a problem.
(above written before 4, but I guess it's a decent response)
Sure, people could have food and water put away if they invested even, say, $2/month on it. But failing to do that has nothing to do with being poor, or fat. How many of us have emergency reserves at home?
But, ogged, people informed enough to make responsible choices w/r/t their diet are much less likely to be poor to begin with.
saying that people are fat *because* they can afford food is just stupid, because it entails that everyone who can afford food should be fat.
I disagree with the entailment claim. It can be an insufficient cause--you won't be fat if you can't afford any food whatsoever, so part of the causal history of any person's fatness is their ability to afford food.
The first parenthetical is kind of garden-variety annoying (many of the hurricane victims I saw were not, in fact fat). The second one was bad even for Insty. Stupid poor people! You're irresponsible! That's why you didn't plan ahead and why you're fucked now! You should have had the foresight to have had a father who was a (considerably less assholic) college professor, like meeee!
I disagree with the entailment claim. It can be an insufficient cause
Yeah, that's true.
Really it's a combination of the two--healthy food (fresh vegetables, low-fat cuts of meat, etc.) is expensive. Fattening food (Wonder Bread, Velveeta, Chef Boyardee, fatty cuts of meat) is cheap. Hence, poor people are rational economic actors when choosing the food they buy, sacrificing long-term health for short-term fiscal solvency.
Attacking the poor for being fat, and to imply that it's because they're buying and eating too much food, is either willfully ignorant or intentionally deceptive on top of being malicious. In short: what an asshole.
8: implied causal arrow's going the wrong way there, no? ;-)
I'm not rich (grad student, but I don't think of myself as poor), and I certainly don't have enough stored to get myself through a flood. I have a flashlight. A couple cans of beans. A manual can opener. And about two gallons of spring water.
I have no plans to purchase enough supplies to last a week of flooding, either. Where should I store the supplies in the apartment?
(Is Glenn's studio house fully stocked?)
If it's not obvious, I started composing 11 around comment 3. This is what I get for commenting while trying to work.
You mean "trying to work while commenting."
Trying to comment while trying to work.
Oh yeah, as if any sort of stockpile is going to do any good when the house gets flooded all the way to the attic.
Instapundit: so many sharks, jumped so long ago.
No, Doug, you're missing the point! If you prepare for emergencies, you are probably not poor. Therefore, even though the stockpiles are of no use to you, you are better of in an emergency, because you have money. See?
So, to go off topic totally:
I live in a neighborhood that is mostly black, Hispanic, and graduate student. Our local grocery store is, well, crap. Overpriced vegetables and meats, all of poor to middling quality. Yet, without a car and with largely car-less friends, I shopped there weekly for a while, hitting farmer's markets that come to Calatown when I can.
I do okay, and I like to cook, and don't mind skimping on meat. But a lot of the people in the store have kids to feed, and so carts are filled with calorically-dense, nutritionally-void food. Milk twice the price of sugar water soda.
So, now I have a friend with a car. We go shopping now at the Trendy Organic Food Emporium a ways down the road. I expected sticker shock; surely, good food would be sooo much more expensive. But it wasn't! Fresh food was cheaper! I am lucky that I only have to budget for myself, but on average, everything was a significant amount cheaper.
So I'm wondering: Why is crappy produce at local big-chain food store MORE expensive than decent produce at local trendy store? What am I ignorant of that would charge poor people more?
I'm serious here. This blew my mind. We have a problem with childhood obesity because it's cheaper to buy prepacked foods than it is to buy apples.
I now shout 'titties!' as contrition for going off topic.
That's on topic, and I think the fact that the poor often pay more for food is pretty well-documented (a bit of googling would probably find you some papers on this).
I've seen higher insurance in poorer neighborhoods as an explanation, and monopoly pricing also probably has some effect (poorer people are less mobile and can choose from fewer stores). But I don't know in any quantitative sense how these play out.
And I love farmers markets. I'm in a working-class, largely Dominican neighborhood with lousy supermarkets, and the city just set up a farmer's market on Saturdays about a year ago. It's great; cheaper than the grocery store on lots of stuff, and the produce is gorgeous.
It's well-documented but it seems not well-explained, but damn, it's still shocking when the organic lettuce at the nice store is 30% less than the crappy lettuce at the not-nice store.
I think a lot of it is that poor people are less mobile and therefore less able to comparison shop for food, combined with the traditional reluctance of supermarkets to locate in low-income areas. The few stores that do operate in poor neighborhoods are thus able to charge more for lower-quality food (in many places these are different chains than in higher-income areas).
One policy solution to the problem (which is indeed very pressing) might be to restrict the ability to use food stamps on high-calorie, low-nutrition items (soda, especially). I don't know how well this would work in practice, but I like the idea.
24 written before 20. I was going to mention something about insurance costs but wasn't sure about it. It does seem like it might be an issue.
But wouldn't that still leave the grocery stores in poor neighborhoods able to gouge the poor on everything else?--I think I'm defining the problem as 'poor people get ripped off on food' more than 'poor people are fat'. A more obviously relevant solution would be to improve public transportation so the poor were more mobile (not that riding a bus with a bunch of grocery bags is any fun).
What I like about prepackaged-type food is that it keeps longer; when my life is unpredictable I find myself unable to use all the produce I buy before it goes nasty. And when my life is unpredictable I have less time to cook and am tired. Maybe poor people have more unpredictability; but people supporting families would also use up food quicker.
(In Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich found that a problem was that she had crappy cooking/storage facilities. Don't know how this plays out where.)
I don't know how well this would work in practice, but I like the idea.
Involves a lot of micromanaging doesn't it -- juice? Granola bars? Bread? Crisco?
You could knock out anything that could reasonably be interpreted as junk food, and still leave people eating mayonaise sandwiches. As a solution, it's also punitive and intrusive, and doesn't make the produce that you'd like poor people to eat any cheaper for them.
Al a Weiner, I;m wondering whether convenience might have something to do with why poor people are fat. Multiple jobs, manual labor, etc. leaves one too tire to cook. Thus, McDonald's or frozen pizza etc.
I think the proof would be in the micro-managing, and that such micro-managing would get screwed up. Plus, not every poor person qualifies for food stamps.
On the link between poverty and obesity.
Neat. That article has a statistic I've talked about in discussing this issue for years, but haven't seen in scholarly use before: calories per cent. (It may be perfectly conventional -- I haven't done any serious reading on this.)
At a period in my life where I was working as a receptionist and fairly broke, a McD cheeseburger and fries was the only lunch I could fit into my budget that didn't leave me hungry (instead, it left me vaguely nauseated. Much better.) If I'd been broker, or broke for longer, I suppose I would have packed lunch, but if you're buying prepared food, McD and its ilk are actually pretty good value for the money if your goal is staving off hunger.
Though this discussion in the comments is interesting, I don't understand ogged's post.
Reynolds is a (rather unsubtle) libertarian. The quote represents, in unsubtle formulation, what libertarians think. I don't like the sentiment any more than most of you do -- but what did you expect? It's not a stupid position. It's wrong, and for some of the -- by no means completely obvious -- reasons that commenters are citing here.
And Kaus? Is this a reference to the somewhat attenuated status of his liberalism? Or to his emphasis (in the 1992 book, at least) on equality of respect? Or is it all merely personal -- a reference to Kaus's willingness to play devil's advocate for beyond-the-pale positions, but far more cleverly than Reynolds?
27, 29:
Quite right, which is why I'm not pressing very hard for this. The idea is mainly an extension of the fact that you can't use food stamps for alcohol and tobacco. I'm under no illusion that it could actually happen.
There was a WSJ article a couple weeks ago about a supermarket chain that's been moving into poor areas and selling a limited inventory of cheap food. I only skimmed the first couple paragraphs so I'm not sure of the details, but it seems like that's the sort of thing we would want to encourage (by whatever means).
I was just wondering the same thing, Ted.
The quote represents, in unsubtle formulation, what libertarians think.
I don't think I buy this. What about libertarianism requires him to link obesity with the ability to afford food, rather than the inability to afford good food? (The second claim, with its implication that being poor reflects one's choices and character is more in keeping from what I've heard from libertarians.)
Kaus and Reynolds are two bloggers that I like and most other folks here dislike. If I'm alienated from Reynolds, at least I have Kaus...
Sure, people could have food and water put away if they invested even, say, $2/month on it. But failing to do that has nothing to do with being poor, or fat. How many of us have emergency reserves at home?
Just the Mormons. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to set up an emergency stockpile, or that it isn't cheap and easy to do so. It just means that rich and poor people are equally irresponsible in this regard.
Obviously the difference is that you and I can afford bus tickets and friendly cops and competent politicians, which makes the lack-of-food thing much less important. But I think that's might be the point of Reynolds' second sentence (minus the junk in parentheses). Maybe I'm being too charitable.
On the grocery store issue and New Orleans in particular: when I lived in NOLA, the closest grocery store (which was still a 20 minute walk each way) was in a poor black neighborhood. It carried only pre-packaged food and had no produce or frozen food aisle. This really didn't bother us because the store was overrun with cockroaches so it was actually seen as a plus that your food was safely stored in an unbreachable metal container. Also, we would frequently go to the store only to find out that there was no food. Not just "they didn't have what was on my list" but no food at all, like the truck just decided not to come that week. It was truly more like what you would expect in a third world country than (then) 20th century America. The store closed down during my sophomore year, making the next closest grocery store a 40 minute walk each way.
Perhaps Reynolds would like to demonstrate how easy it is to stock up on food and water when you have to carry all of your purchases, your bags are already full of heavy canned goods (because the store only sells packaged food), and you have a decent hike home from the grocery store. I was fortunate in that I was only shopping for groceries to supplement my university meal plan and had friends with cars who occasionally took me to the suburban supermarkets to stock up but I doubt people too poor to evacuate the city had these options.
The argument that we should all be storing food and guns assumes a libertarian world which doesn't exist. We actually have a govt. (or govts.) that we assume, usually correctly, will insure us in some way against the greatest depredations. People don't stockpile water because it is unlikely to be necessary. When it is necessary, it has to be cheaper for the government to provide, say, 2 gal./day of water for each individual, even if we're talking about 500,000 individuals, than for 300 million people to be ferretting away sufficient water to last against some unknown catastrophe.
I think I'm missing something.
"One policy solution to the problem (which is indeed very pressing) might be to restrict the ability to use food stamps on high-calorie, low-nutrition items (soda, especially). I don't know how well this would work in practice, but I like the idea."
Forcing other people to live up to one's personal preferences is generally a remarkably popular notion.
That's simply the Calvinist mindset boiled down to 50 words.
That's a bit uncharitable, Gary. While the thought did occur to me that it's certainly more dignifying to have a policy where someone can spend food stamps however she wants, it's not absurd to consider the idea that maybe assistance should be for healthy food, not crap that causes medical problems but is currently preferable because it is cheaper.
As LB and I pointed out, it's administratively nearly impossible to put into practice (and doesn't make food cheaper, which is the problem), but this suggestion surely shouldn't be equated with 'I don't like sweets, so poor people shouldn't have them.'
When I was growing up, we were always advised during emergencies to fill the bathtub and any large pots with water. Obviously I am an old person, who grew up before there was a Water Aisle in the supermarket. I would assume that this would be a strategy toward which the poor would be inclined, and which unfortunately fails when your house fills up with ocean. To criticize people for not stocking up on sixpacks of Volvic or whatever the fuck they were supposed to buy--hey, that reminds me-- when is Rick Santorum going to suggest that it's just wrong for government to be competing with private enterprise by providing cheap water that the public could otherwise be made to pay for?
I remember that advice, too. Pittsburgh wasn't prone to hurricanes, of course, but when bad storms came through, my mom would fill up the bathtub.
41:
Thanks, Cala. This is what I was trying to say.
Convenience. Aren't any of the posters here working mothers? As a middle class working mother with a full time job, a commute, and kids to pick up from daycare, I got home with a ravening family wanting dinner immediately. For this situation, creating a meal from scratch from fresh ingredients is not always possible. Trip to the store at the most crowded time? Fresh food bought ahead has begun to go bad? Mom is exhausted and wants to stop the uproar with something quick. Frozen food? Take-out? Canned food? Consider the cost of these alternatives, and their availability.
Off topic, and potentially previously covered in comments but I've been out of the loop. Didn't commenter L start at Tulane this fall? Has she checked in with any news? What a way to start (then stop) your freshman year.
Come on, Ogged, it's an elementary syllogism:
1. Poor people are fat.
2. Michael Moore is fat.
3. Therefore, poor people are Islamofascist-loving moonbat traitors.
Haven't you studied Aristotle, the second-greatest philosopher of all time?
Susan-
Previously covered. She's fine, at home, and is pondering whether to put off college for a year until Tulane reopens (and do all sorts of alarmingly responsible sounding stuff instead) or to take up one of the offers of admission at other schools she's been given.
Oh good -- I'd missed that post.
I ran into a Tulane law student yesterday. She says the school is encouraging them to enroll at another school (she's from Connecticut and thinking of going to Yale) for a semester, or to get an internship, but isn't really arranging anything for them. Assuming their career services people are ok, I find this somewhat surprising.
The Tulane baseball team has relocated to Texas Tech.
"...but this suggestion surely shouldn't be equated with 'I don't like sweets, so poor people shouldn't have them.'"
No, it's more closely equated with "I think sweets are bad for other people, so I think it would be good to forbid poor people who are dependent upon government money to spend money on sweets."
Or: "I'm willing to give poor people money from tax dollars, but only if they spend it in ways I approve of."
Or: "I'm sorry for poor people, so we should help them, but only if I get to tell them how to live their lives."
After all, if you're poor, and taking aid, you're clearly less entitled to freedom of choice than other people. And it would be best to use the law to take away poor people's choices, since they obviously can't be trusted with choice.
I'm unclear how desiring to enforce such legal restrictions is not all of the above.
Gary, I'm not in favor of the proposal--at least partly for the reasons you give--but isn't choice already restricted by the fact that this aid can only be spent on food?
"At least I still have Kaus."
This seems to imply that in some way you don't have Reynolds anymore, and yet there he is on your blogroll. Curious, that.
That's still really unfair. No one's here was daintily twirling their fingers in the air and sighing 'Ah, those fat people. We shouldn't allow them to buy sodas with tax money I could be spending on iPods'. This whole discussion has been in the context of how to solve a problem of poverty and obesity when all the grocery stores in poor neighborhoods sell shit. How to make a neighborhood grocery store sell good juice instead of sugar water.
It's more a recognition, for me at least, that food stamp allotments are set by a guesstimation of market prices that include food that's unhealthy. Because processed food is cheaper, I would guess that if the government assumes that some money will be spent on processed food, it can get away with giving less to the poor. So now it's not so much a choice between veggies and packaged junk, because there isn't enough money for vegetables. If we were using a 'basket' that didn't include junk food, wouldn't there have to be more food stamps to reflect the change in prices?
It seems more unfair to me to restrict food stamps by basing it on feeding your family cheap junk food than providing enough food stamps to make healthy eating a real option.
I have to agree with Gary on this one (not so much that anyone's a bad person for toying with the idea, but that on reflection it should be apparent that further restricting what food stamps can be spent on is both oppressive and unlikely to serve the intended purpose.) The problem is that poor people are being overcharged for healthy food, and aren't as likely to buy healthy food as they should be because of various convenience and perishablilty issues. Restricting what else they can buy doesn't do anything to fix that. If poor people have shopping opportunites and life circumstances that make it difficult for them to buy healthy food, saying they can't buy anything else won't make then happily change their diets, it'll just make their lives more difficult. Subsidizing farmers markets in poor neighborhoods might help -- anything that would make produce more available -- but tighter controls aren't the way to go.
Agreed with 58, and especially the point that subsidizing healthy foods in poor neighborhoods would help. All I was saying in 54 is that some restrictions are already inherent in the idea of food stamps--I don't think you can make an argument on the principle that it's wrong to restrict what poor people can spend their aid on unless you want to say that all the aid should be cash grants. But I agree that in practice it would be intrusive and demeaning.
Would it be intrusive and demeaning to give aid that was matched for spending on produce (so produce was basically half price) and not for other goods? I don't think so. But it's not my ox, or whatever, being gored.
not so much that anyone's a bad person for toying with the idea, but that on reflection it should be apparent that further restricting what food stamps can be spent on is both oppressive and unlikely to serve the intended purpose.
I agree. A restriction wouldn't work; I was just saying the reason we were toying with it certainly wasn't because the thought of poor people enjoying cake and soda galls us.
Ho-HO! And now Reynolds is there on your blogroll TWICE! Can I get ogged to link him three times? How about an entire blogroll comprised entirely of links to a blogger ogged only mentions when he says something grotesquely stupid?
Check out the mouseover text on the second link.
Well this is unconfirmed blah blah blah (though it has lots of pictures), but if true certain poor people will be eating unhealthy food for the next few months because FEMA won't let them have anything else. And they won't be getting much exercise, either, if they can't leave the camp. Amanda has the relevant quotes. I hope that the poster was, in fact, making things up.
Food stamps already have restrictions on what you can spend them on. Additional restrictions would make using and accepting food stamps even more of a pain in the ass.
Plus, what samuel johnson said:
Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths.
I don't think "noodge" means what you think it means.
"Gary, I'm not in favor of the proposal--at least partly for the reasons you give--but isn't choice already restricted by the fact that this aid can only be spent on food?"
Sure. But there's always room for more rules to enforce on other people that one never expects to have to live by one's self.
That's true, Gary. In fact, I acknowledged that exact point at the end of comment 59, which also made it clear that I'm not seeking to make those rules. 57, 58, and 60 are also worth engaging with.
"I was just saying the reason we were toying with it certainly wasn't because the thought of poor people enjoying cake and soda galls us."
Not being either a mind-reader, a psychologist, or a judge, or a counselor, I really couldn't care less what's going on in the heads of people who "like the idea" of legally restricting what other people can buy to eat. And, gosh, it's fairly rare for people who like the idea of using either law or government regulation to enforce restrictions on other people to not be convinced that it's for the other people's good.
As I quote on my blog sidebar:
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
I'm not fond of people on food stamps, or other government aid, or who are just poor, being treated as the Other, and given legally enforced rules -- punishable by violation with removal of your food stamps for 6 months, or a year, I forget which, by the way -- by people who, coincidentally, don't consider themselves apt to have to work under the same restrictions. The first part I think is wrong; the second part just pisses me off. And even if they live under a personal regime of only eating raw organically grown dandelions, I don't believe that makes them sufficiently superior in judgment or as citizens to the point where they should be allowed to inflict their moralizing views on others by law.
If a poor person on food "stamps" buys and eats a highly nutrious and balanced diet all week -- or not -- and then is going out of their mind with desire for the comfort of a Hershy bar, or box of caramel corn, or, hell, a cigarette, why the f-ck should they not have the same right as anyone else to buy one and have the psychological and physical comfort for a few minutes of a very unpleasant week? Because it's not good for them? F-ck that. When everyone else is living according to those standards, it would at least be evenhanded and fair to use one's political power to enforce that standard over those who lack such power. Meanwhile, I won't respect those who feel it is appropriate to use such power in such a way.
But, then, yes, I do believe in the negative income tax and a guaranteed minimum income as desirable policies.
"Well this is unconfirmed"
You don't read my blog, I take it.
I'm all for subsidizing healthy food in poor neighborhoods. But it's worth noting that healthy food can be had very cheaply already -- it's just that it's not particularly accessible healthy food. But beans, canned vegetables, tuna fish, bulk rice... all that stuff can be had very cheaply. I had this argument elsewhere and was surprised when the wingers pulled out convincing links showing that you could poor folks really can afford to eat healthily.
Obviously prepared, processed food is easier to use than raw ingredients, but when I see people's carts at Giant it seems pretty obvious that the problem goes beyond that. I still think underwriting healthy food is a good idea, but there are significant cultural issues at work here, too.
Specifically, here, and here, from two days ago. Nice that Amanda is catching up to news so old it's scrolled off my front page, including the update, though.
Um, I do actually read your blog, and I thought that one (FEMA camp in OK confining evacuees and denying access to locals attempting to give them aid, including fresh foods) was still neither confirmed nor debunked. Which one was it?
Although looking at your links, I'm still not certain what exactly is going on (that is, I am neither sure that any evacuees or that no evacuees are confined in a FEMA camp in OK).
Nothing against what you posted, which was very informative, but characterizing the story as still unconfirmed seems reasonable.
Yeah, Gary, I don't read your blog all the time. Lots of people don't. And I think it's really uncool of you to complain about people not reading your blog--not listening to you--when you make a habit of not listening to us, and are often pretty abusive to people who don't deserve it and are in fact pretty much agreeing with you.
Incidentally, if you're poor, it's quite possible to have access to neither refrigerator or stove, or to have limited access. You may be sharing an apartment that has them, but you're only sleeping on the couch and have no rights. Or maybe you're in a building where you have a bedroom, but there's no kitchen. Or there's a kitchen, but you have to share it, and stuff in the fridge gets stolen. Endless more possibilities exist.
I have a perfectly nice little (operative word: little) studio, but I have only two burners and no stove, and a refrigerator that is waist high and about 18" wide (I just measured); this doesn't let me store much food; the freezer will take the equivalent of two frozen dinners, and no more.
This tends to put limits on what I can do with food and how much I can either prepare or store. And I'm relatively well-off, compared to many.
So when I see people cheerily pushing more "restrictions" on others -- hey, something else you can get thrown off food stamps for, and have to go through a quasi-judicial process to contest -- and saying in chipper fashion that they "like the idea," I take it a bit personally.
I might be more easy going if I didn't have to worry if I could afford some potatoes and onions -- and hadn't had to forgo medications for three months in a row now -- and, oh, forget it -- that sort of thing -- but I'd probably still react the same out of long-engrained reflexes. I probably should be sorry about that. Probably.
"And I think it's really uncool of you to complain about people not reading your blog--not listening to you--when you make a habit of not listening to us, and are often pretty abusive to people who don't deserve it and are in fact pretty much agreeing with you."
What complaint did I make? I asked a question about my presumption, which turned out to be correct. If you want to wait days to find out stuff, that's none of my business.
"Not listening to us" -- I'm sorry, do you have a blog I'm unaware of, or a group blog? Or are you complaining that I don't read every comment on Unfogged? What?
I "make a habit" of being "pretty abusive"? Really? Can you cite some names I've called people, or something? Strong disagreement is not, I think, habitual abuse. Of course, I'm obviously not the best judge of my own language or behavior.
Gary, here, at Unfogged, in my personal opinion, you come off as a self-righteous, whining prick. Your blog has less of this tone, but I honestly find your tone so uncongenial that I can't bring myself to read your blog, no matter how good it is.
That shoud read "your tone here so uncongenial"
"...you come off as a self-righteous, whining prick."
Well, just so I'm not abusive.
Don't think of it as abusive. THink of it as stron criticism.
Gary, I'm trying to give you an honest appraisal of how I perceive the tone of your writing. I'm well aware that you are most likely not a whining self-righteous prick (hence the "come off as" in the quoted text). If I wanted to directly call you names, I would--I'm not particularly shy about it, I just don't think it's constructive.
I'd say a case could be made for calling me unserious, indiscrete, and obscene, lacking substance, willing to go way too far for attention, etc. if you took in only my writing at unfogged. I'm sure there are even more uncharitable things that could be said about me. I don't always like that I'm not the most inciteful or knowledgable one around. But I like to think I'm aware of how I come off, and can modulate my tone to match my communicatory goals. Is it unfair to provide you with feedback on your tone and its effects?
(I hope posting this link doesn't make any one think I'm a food Nazi who demands that all children should be force-fed raspberries.)
That is a great story -- I hope it spreads.
"I'm... indiscrete...."
I'm sure you'll become more substantial with time.
"Is it unfair to provide you with feedback on your tone and its effects? "
Certainly not. There are, to be sure, polite ways, and rude ways, of doing that.
In point of fact, I'm perfectly willing to plead guilty to whining at times, to being self-righteous quite often, and to being a prick at times.
I do prefer to think that it's not the only side of myself that I show, however, whether here or anyone else. On the other hand, a) people always remember the worst stuff, understandably, even if it's only, say, 5% of someone's output, so it typically looms large; and b), as I said, one is hardly the best judge of one's self.
Still, I do have trouble seeing how a comment whose original material entirely consists of saying "You don't read my blog, I take it" could be seen as as a "complaint," let alone stimulative of my being told that I'm habitually abusive.
However, if I make Unfogged less congenial, I certainly don't desire to contribute to that with my whining self-righteous prickish nature.
I'd have sworn I'd blogged this NY Times Magazine piece about Geoffry Canada, but I can't find it, so maybe I just meant to.
84: It's sooo important that it does! Especially given the correlation between sugary foods and attention-span problems in the classroom. It wasn't mentioned in this article, but one school I read about somewhere reported an incredible decline in discipline problems once soda and candy was banned from the cafeteria.
"(I hope posting this link doesn't make any one think I'm a food Nazi who demands that all children should be force-fed raspberries.)"
Why would anyone do that, unless you said you liked the idea of force-feeding rasberries to all children?
The idea that poor people can't afford healthy food is semi-mythical. It's hard to afford the range of healthy food that middle class people can buy if you're poor, but healthy items are available for low prices. Convenience/time issues play a much bigger role. It's hard to cook healthy meals at home if you're a single mother, and when it comes to prepared food the cheap stuff (McDonalds, ghetto Chinese takeout such as we enjoy in Shaw, etc.) is much less healthy than what's available at mid-range restaurants.
All that said, the role of culture shouldn't be understated here. Health-conscious eating is a relatively new phenomenon in American life and arises out of specific sociocultural circles, so it's no surprise that it hasn't fully penetrated the consciousness of socially marginal groups like the inner-city poor or lazy, single white dudes who raised in a Manhattan family where cooking was considered low class and now can't afford to be constantly buying sushi as ill-paid liberal pundits (not that I have anyone in mind).
Besides which, whenever the conversation ever turns away from the poverty question, the culture-diet link is obvious. Poor people in South India eat different, and healthier, stuff than poor people in rural Russia. Mexican food is not the same as Thai food, etc. As it happens, most African-Americans come from the cultural backdrop of the American South where the indigenous cuisine is not very healthy. Not coincidentally, even when you control for socioeconomic factors, Southerners -- white and black -- are more prone to obeisity and cancer than are non-Southern Americans. Relatedly, Asian diets are healthy, and poor Asian immigrant groups in America are healthier than other economically similar groups in this country.
The question is what do you do with these cultural insights? Dietary patterns obviously aren't immutable.
Gary, do you really want me to go through just the comments in this thread and show you where I had negative reactions to your comments?
However, if I make Unfogged less congenial, I certainly don't desire to contribute to that with my whining self-righteous prickish nature.
Jesus Christ. How much coddling do you need? I'm not trying to get you to go away. I'm barely trying to get you to change your behavior. I am simply making you aware of how I perceive the tone of your writing, in the context specifically of your comment 69, which frankly came across as petulant and passive-aggressive. If you're not being disengenuous in your response (Mom! I was only making an observation!), then might I suggest reviewing your writing in this thread from the shoes of someone who isn't you? Forget your thinking when you were making the writing. Remember that almost all of us know you only as "that ur-blogger guy."
To bad this interesting thread degenerated...
I just noticed ogged's reply to my 32. I should clarify that I don't believe that libertarians are committed to either of Reynolds' parenthetical explanatory claims. I merely think that libertarians' emphasis and peculiar slant on personal responsibility make it unsurprising then one of them comes out with claims like these.
Though I've never found much of use beyond the occasional link in Insty, I like Kaus a lot. He's one of the few political writers more interested in arguments than in conclusions.
(And yes, I do think that's a good thing...)
Ok, to 90, that's about as heated as it ought to get. I mean, Gary, we don't call you cantankerous because of your sunny disposition, but since everyone here is amenable to argument and responsive to criticism, let's not get too angry.
To bad this interesting thread degenerated...
Ted, it's just a party with many rooms. I agree with your qualified claim that people who are libertarians are more likely to think what Glenn wrote. As for Kaus, that's a really good way to explain what I like about him. He's also sensitive to how things are written and said, and good at finding hints and lacunae in the news (and he's not afraid of being proven completely wrong, which might be the best thing about him).
And, Yglesias at 89 sums things up rather nicely.
Too bad I didn't provide enough substance in 91 for anyone to reply, giving me an occasion to reply in turn with an apologetic aside on 91's appalling typos... (I did wait for a few minutes. In horror.)
Damn, should have waited another few seconds...
Go Kaus!
I couldn't decide if I should quote you with "to[o]" or invoke the ghost of Leiter with "to [sic]" so I left it alone.
You know, I rarely see typos. Even if you drop a beginning letter off a word, I'm likely to just read over it and not notice it. I think I'm fairly normal in this habit. So, set your minds at ease. If you don't bring up your own typos, I, and others excluding, Weiner and w-lfs-n, probably won't see them. Unless you've recently picked on mine, that is. Then it's war.
Second, I should say that I, for one, am not rubbed the wrong way by Gary (the thread about race notwithstanding). The only complaint is that he has a few running comments like 69 which are predictable.
"The only complaint is that he has a few running comments like 69 which are predictable."
I find that people react poorly to those who are completely unpredictable. I try to offer some steadiness to those for whom the universe is a bewildering and overly changeable place.
No, no, don't thank me. It's all part of the job.
Sorry to all if I got overly snarly. I'm low on caffeine today.
I, and others excluding, Weiner and w-lfs-n,
should be "I, and others, excluding Weiner and w-lfs-n...."
Call me out, you get me.
Don't worry about it, Chopper. I've been feeling embarassed about stomping out of the 'Authority' thread in a huff all day.
Gary, the specific comment about not listening to us didn't have anything to do with any other blog--I don't expect you to read my blog, and I don't mind if you don't. It had to do with what I felt is a certain lack of attention to what people are saying on this very thread. For instance, the quote "when I see people cheerily pushing more 'restrictions' on others... and saying in chipper fashion that they 'like the idea,' I take it a bit personally" makes it sound as though multiple people said something along the lines of "I like this idea," when in fact Teofilo was the only person to do so, and s/he (in 33) acknowledged the criticism that it would be overly intrusive. Also, the comments about storage and cooking in 77 seemed like they were along the same lines as my reference to Ehrenreich in 26; it would've been nicer if you had said something like, "I can tell you firsthand that Ehrenreich is right...."
Not that I'm saying everybody has to read everyone's comments closely, it's just that you can be somewhat abrasive--do you accept that as fair?--and when this is combined with a failure to appreciate what other people are saying, it does rub me the wrong way, even when I'm not the specific target.
This is not intended to get you to go away or anything. Not even to get you to be less irritable. It's understandable that you're irritable. But please treat us the way you would like to be treated.
100, I noticed that after I posted. But, I didn't call you out; I lauded your language-observation skillz. But, my comma use was so egregrious I cannot find it within me to declare war on you.