At KCAL 9 News Los Angeles:
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Saturday, September 30, 2017
'Starving Student' Cliche Becomes Reality, or So They Say
Actually, this is bull.
We've got a strong economy. Unemployment's low. If students can't find a job to help pay the bills, whose fault is that?
So, FWIW, at the O.C. Register, "More colleges add free food pantries as ‘starving student’ cliche becomes reality":
More at the link, in any case.
We've got a strong economy. Unemployment's low. If students can't find a job to help pay the bills, whose fault is that?
So, FWIW, at the O.C. Register, "More colleges add free food pantries as ‘starving student’ cliche becomes reality":
Steve Hoang had more than schoolwork to fret about his first year of college. He went hungry.This is leftist socialist culture taking over. It's not as if "food insecurity" is a new thing. If you don't have enough to eat you get a job. You don't worry about college classes. You work to support yourself. It's pretty basic.
“I lost 25 pounds,” said the UC Irvine sophomore. “It was one of my biggest worries, that I wouldn’t have enough to eat.”
The tall, thin 18-year-old was among hundreds of students who lined up this past week to take a peek at UCI’s newly expanded food pantry, intended to help students like him.
Across Southern California and the nation, colleges and universities no longer view the concept of the starving student as an inevitable joke, but a serious issue. To address what’s become known as “food insecurity,” campuses are opening up free pantries.
Some are as small as closets. In fact, UCLA’s pantry is called the Food Closet.
Others began small and grew.
Cal State San Bernardino on Thursday dedicated their renamed Obershaw DEN pantry, which was remodeled and has added refrigeration for perishables.
A day earlier, the UCI campus celebrated the opening of a remodeled pantry touted as the biggest in the UC system. At more than 1,800 square feet, it features not only free food and toiletries but sitting areas, a “kitchenette” with small appliances and a space for weekly food demonstrations and nutrition talks.
There are more than 540 campus food pantries across the U.S. registered with the College and University Food Bank Alliance, which is tracking the trend.
All UC campuses – and all but one of the California state universities – now have food pantries, as do many community colleges.
Even some pricey private colleges, including Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and Chapman University in Orange, say they have students who simply can’t afford to cover the cost of tuition, books, labs, transportation and food.
“Some LMU students were surprised to see that kind of need at LMU,” said Lorena Chavez, the university’s assistant director for community engagement. Then, they began inquiring about it for research papers and to offer donations.
“For me, it was that ‘aha’ moment,” Chavez said. Need isn’t restricted to any one campus, she said, “especially when it comes to food insecurity.”
Going Hungry
For some students who visit local campus pantries, the free food is more than a supplement. It’s a necessity.
Studies indicate a significant percentage of college students are experiencing various levels of food insecurity, ranging from going hungry to poor diets:
A 2016 UC survey of nearly 9,000 students found that 42 percent experienced food insecurity; 23 percent had diets of reduced quality, variety or desirability; and 19 percent weren’t getting enough food because they couldn’t afford it.
A 2017 Community College report found that about 12.2 percent of students experienced food insecurity.
A 2016 Cal State University system study reporting preliminary data based on Cal State Long Beach respondents suggested 24 percent of students were experiencing food insecurity. A second phase of the survey of all the system’s 23 campuses is expected to be released next year.
“The narrative of the starving student is part of the problem,” said Rashida Crutchfield, a Cal State Long Beach assistant professor and lead investigator on the CSU report.
“A lot of people believe that struggle and eating a cup of noodles is just part of the college experience,” she said.
For many of the students, it’s not easy navigating the new terrain of college life. Some don’t want to burden their parents by asking for more financial help. Others know their parents, perhaps struggling themselves, can’t give more.
Today’s students don’t all fit the stereotype of an 18-year-old, single person. Many are returning to school as older students, some with families to support.
Whether there are more students today going hungry or awareness of a long-existing problem is growing is unclear. But officials cite factors that could be contributing to an increased need, including changing campus demographics and more students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as while higher costs for tuition and housing.
“Because no one has been doing this research, we don’t have comparable data to know whether it has changed over time,” Crutchfield said...
More at the link, in any case.
Satellite Phones Running Short in Puerto Rico
This is interesting.
At USA Today, "Puerto Rico's cell service is basically nonexistent. So this is happening."
At USA Today, "Puerto Rico's cell service is basically nonexistent. So this is happening."
Puerto Rico's cell service is basically nonexistent. So this is happening https://t.co/Vesqx3oYKD via @USATODAY
— Blue Alert (@BlueAlertUs) September 30, 2017
Hurricane Maria Aftermath: President Trump 'Lashes Out' After Mayor's Criticism of Administration's Relief Effort
Yawn.
More of the same old, same old.
The president's right of course: Thousands of federal officials are working to help Puerto Rico's recovery. This controversy is all politics.
Screw leftists. They're all hate, all the time.
At LAT, "Trump lashes out at Puerto Ricans after mayor's criticism of administration's relief effort":
More of the same old, same old.
The president's right of course: Thousands of federal officials are working to help Puerto Rico's recovery. This controversy is all politics.
Screw leftists. They're all hate, all the time.
At LAT, "Trump lashes out at Puerto Ricans after mayor's criticism of administration's relief effort":
From the comfort of his New Jersey golf resort, President Trump lashed out Saturday at the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the ravaged island’s residents, defending his administration’s hurricane response by suggesting that Puerto Ricans had not done enough to help themselves.More.
Trump’s Twitter assault, which began early Saturday and lasted until evening, was set off by criticism from Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who on Friday had criticized the federal response since Hurricane Maria’s Sept. 20 landfall.
“Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help,” Trump tweeted. He added: “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 federal workers now on island doing a fantastic job.”
The president’s comments were a breathtaking and racially inflected swipe at residents who have labored for more than a week to survive without electricity, running water, food or medical supplies. Media reports have shown residents in the city and villages sweltering in line for hours with gas cans, hoping for enough fuel to run generators. Nearly every hospital in Puerto Rico lost power in the hurricane, though many have crept toward a semblance of operation. Thousands of crates of supplies have arrived in Puerto Rico, but their distribution has been slowed by destroyed roads and trucks and a shortage of drivers to deliver the goods around the island.
Media reports also have shown Puerto Ricans working together, a visible contradiction of the president’s suggestion that they and their leaders had avoided helping themselves. Cruz has been seen frequently on television reports, including wading through hip-deep water to help people and embracing sobbing constituents as she pleaded for more help.
“I am begging, begging anyone who can hear us to save us from dying,” Cruz said Friday. “We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency.”
Minutes after broadcasts showed Trump telling reporters at the White House on Friday that “we have done an incredible job,” Cruz asserted on camera that the world could see Puerto Ricans being treated “as animals that can be disposed of.”
The controversy created an awkward backdrop for Trump’s plans to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday, and perhaps the American Virgin Islands, also hit hard by the hurricane.
As has been common in other Trump disputes, Democrats immediately condemned the president while Republican leaders — including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — remained silent. But some conservatives lamented the president’s reflexive attacks.
“The people of Puerto Rico are hungry, thirsty, homeless and fearful,” conservative writer and radio host Erick Erickson wrote in an essay. Erickson predicted, accurately, that Trump supporters would contend that Mayor Cruz deserved Trump’s treatment because she criticized the president first.
“Yay, President Trump punched a critic — a critic who is on an island trying her best to help others where most of the people now have no homes, no power, and no running water. What a man he is!” Erickson wrote.
Later in the day, Trump appeared to go out of his way to show some sympathy for the 3.5 million citizens on the island, blaming the news media and Democrats for any suggestion that the recovery effort had been faulty.
“Despite the Fake News Media in conjunction with the Dems, an amazing job is being done in Puerto Rico. Great people!” he tweeted, adding later, “To the people of Puerto Rico: Do not believe the #FakeNews!”
Trump’s comments marked the second straight weekend he has set off a national furor with tweets and comments that targeted nonwhites for criticism. Since last weekend — including on Saturday — he has gone after African American athletes protesting police violence by declining to stand when the national anthem is played. He has demanded that the National Football League fire all such protesters...
ICYMI: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye
I picked up a copy, and this is cracking me up.
It's been so long since I read this book, it's crazy. I can't remember why I liked science fiction so much back in the day, but I read a good handful of sci-fi thrillers.
I've got this one at the bookshelf next to my bed. I'll get to it pretty quick.
At Amazon, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye.
It's been so long since I read this book, it's crazy. I can't remember why I liked science fiction so much back in the day, but I read a good handful of sci-fi thrillers.
I've got this one at the bookshelf next to my bed. I'll get to it pretty quick.
At Amazon, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye.
The Populist Insurrection Spinning Beyond Anyone's Control
And beyond the president's control in particular.
From Robert Costa, at WaPo, "With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms":
From Robert Costa, at WaPo, "With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms":
A political insurrection that is with Donald Trump in spirit but entirely out of his — or anyone’s — control. https://t.co/mU25YE7Odk
— Robert Costa (@costareports) September 30, 2017
The next Republican revolution began last week on a bright blue bus parked at a nighttime rally in Montgomery, Ala., days before a firebrand GOP candidate won the state’s Senate primary.Still more.
But unlike previous Republican revolutionaries, the hard-line figures who stepped out to cheers did not want to yank the party to the right on age-old issues such as taxes or spending. They wanted to gut it and leave its establishment smashed.
Fury infused these insurgents’ raw remarks as did a common theme: The Republican Party has failed its voters, and a national cleansing is needed in the coming year, regardless of whether President Trump is on board.
Longtime Republicans see a charged civil war on the horizon.
“There is an emotional component,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R) said of the frustrations of Trump’s core backers, who have grown increasingly vocal. “They want someone to kick over the table. And my advice to every Republican is: You better have an edge, or you become the problem.”
That populist rage in the base as Trump struggles to enact his priorities — which lifted former judge Roy Moore to victory on Tuesday against Trump’s ally, Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) — now threatens to upend GOP incumbents in 2018 as the latest incarnation of Republican grievance takes hold.
Stoked by former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and his incendiary media platform, Breitbart News, a new wave of anti-establishment activists and contenders is emerging to plot a political insurrection that is with Trump in spirit but entirely out of his — or anyone’s — control.
Central command is the “Breitbart Embassy,” a Capitol Hill townhouse where Bannon has recently huddled with candidates, from House prospects to Senate primary recruits. Hedge fund executive Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah — Bannon’s wealthy allies — have already pledged millions to the cause, said people briefed on their plans.
In the last seven years, the Mercers have emerged as some of the biggest political donors on the right, plowing tens of millions into GOP committees and super PACs. Their money has gone both to shore up the national Republican Party and to finance outside groups taking on the Washington establishment.
So far this year, the Mercers have contributed $2.7 million to federal political committees and campaigns, finance filings show.
Beyond cash, Mercer and Bannon also offer GOP rebels a vast media and advocacy ecosystem that generates attention on social media as well as small-dollar donations. Run by Rebekah, the Mercer family foundation has given $50 million to conservative and free-market think tanks and policy groups from 2009 to 2015, according to tax records compiled by The Washington Post and GuideStar USA, which reports on nonprofit companies.
And that blue bus — sponsored by the Great America Alliance and carrying former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, among other conservative celebrities, across Alabama — is scheduling stops across the country.
“If you don’t do your job, you’re going to see the bus, and you’re going to get bounced,” said Ed Rollins, the group’s strategist.
Rollins and Eric L. Beach, another adviser to the advocacy group, insisted that money would not save their elected Republican targets, pointing out that in Alabama they spent about $200,000, compared with the more than $10 million spent by the national GOP and Strange-aligned groups...
Friday, September 29, 2017
About to Start: Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
I'm almost done with Lidia Yuknavich's, The Book of Joan.
I've got so much great stuff to read, but I decided to go for Cormac McCarthy next, Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West — A Novel.
I bought it brand new back in July. I might as well plow though it. Folks say it's one of the best American novels ever written. I'll let you know.
I've got so much great stuff to read, but I decided to go for Cormac McCarthy next, Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West — A Novel.
I bought it brand new back in July. I might as well plow though it. Folks say it's one of the best American novels ever written. I'll let you know.
'Remember when conservatism involved principles instead of hair extensions? ...'
From Bethany Mandel, on Twitter:
PREVIOUSLY: "Tomi Lahren on National Anthem Protests in the NFL (VIDEO)."
Now she's doing the final thoughts for Fox. Everything is awful. Remember when conservatism involved principles instead of hair extensions? https://t.co/uhYfmD9ZUV
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) September 12, 2017
Watch this clip from @TomiLahren's Final Thoughts on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. https://t.co/kxnnvDYc6g pic.twitter.com/taxiM11nFj
— FoxNewsInsider (@FoxNewsInsider) September 11, 2017
PREVIOUSLY: "Tomi Lahren on National Anthem Protests in the NFL (VIDEO)."
Lucy Pinder
Hey, what the heck?
She's fabulous.
She's fabulous.
#Lucy @Stacey_poolefan @LucyMichelleGLM @BabeDepository @exxxcitement @5tayFro5ty @imperiotetas @Wildcard095 @Coach0302 @arg2012tumblr 🔥👌 pic.twitter.com/GdchbuQPCU
— JCG (fan Sophie) (@buquet1000) September 13, 2017
Stunning Elle Macpherson
She's 53!
Dang, what a woman!
Dang, what a woman!
Three litres of water a day, probiotic powder and sunscreen: Elle Macpherson shares her beauty regime https://t.co/ha02JzMvWd
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) September 18, 2017
Kirsten Powers Deleted Tweet Shaming Hugh Hefner Moments After Announcement of His Death
Sometimes you just need to chill on those hot takes.
Kirsten Powers wisely deleted this tweet about Hugh Hefner. pic.twitter.com/NFr7bDB1VB
— Brittain for Senate (@SenatorBrittain) September 28, 2017
New Demi Rose Bikini Pics
At London's Daily Mail:
Demi Rose shows off her famously curvaceous figure and TINY waist in a plunging blue bikini https://t.co/3eribdqZDz
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) September 28, 2017
Steve Scalise Returns to Congress Three Months After Assassination Attempt (VIDEO)
Standing ovation. Very emotional, triumphant moment.
Via PBS News Hours, a full 18-minute segment:
Via PBS News Hours, a full 18-minute segment:
'Matilda' Ignites Violent Protests from Russia's Religious Right
At LAT, "A movie about a czar's love affair ignites violent protest from Russia's religious right":
Polish actress Michalina Olszanska plays the role of Matilda Kshesinskaya, a young ballerina in a love affair with future Czar Nicholas II, in Russian director Alexei Uchitel's movie "Matilda."
A movie about a czar's love affair ignites violent protest from Russia's religious right https://t.co/SvcBoRpA3X pic.twitter.com/qtMxhdeQUo
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 29, 2017
Puerto Ricans Evacuate on a Cruise Ship
What a nightmare.
At LAT:
At LAT:
"We don’t even know when we’re coming back": Puerto Ricans evacuate to Florida on a cruise ship https://t.co/dXoip3ixUm pic.twitter.com/iHOHlNBn7S
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 29, 2017
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