Epiphany Courtesy The New York Times

"When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."

Phil Conners: Groundhog Day

  

      

Editorial Alert Bait and Switch for today’s blog no “tax discussions” today…

While riding home from a Costco Run (with my “Editorial Critic” and my mom) we had to make a stop at the Dollar Store so my Mother could look for Valentine Cards for her Great Grandchildren, they were two cards for a buck.  While my Mom spent 35 minutes clogging up the Valentine Card area shopping for 5 cards, my mind wandered to “My Blog”.  This tended to upset my Mom who kept asking me to read her the cards (her sight is terrible).  Since she could not see well she kept picking out cards for Mom or Dad or Sister etc.  Over and over again she asked what does this say, my reply “Dearest Daughter and her Husband” or whatever was always met with “that isn’t any good”.  Whenever I showed her an appropriate “relationship” neutral card she frowned with “I do not like that one” because the puppy was not smiling or something.  We finally got out of there with $6.95 worth of Non-Hallmark cards (hey at 2 for a buck why not).  She handed me a $20 to pay the cashier and when I gave her the change she kept $13 and told me I could keep the nickel.  Gee thanks Mom.

Anyway on the way home from the Dollar Store my “Editorial Critic” suggested that I lighten up a bit on the Blog, as sending links to Haidt videos just might get old, like real quick.  She suggested I try to be more “fun”.  Huh?  Well I will try but be forewarned I get pretty philosophical after halftime.

I pondered this as we arrived home and low and behold my Karma came to me.  In the mail was my quarterly check from The NY Times.  I have posted a picture of the check to lead off my blog.  So first a quick bit of humor and then a little some “food” for thought.

A couple (I can think of 2) of people who are blog followers have heard this NY Times story.  If they want they can skip right to the Food Section.  Otherwise read on.

How I became “part owner” of the NY Times:

I cannot remember the exact date it happened but one weekend in the summer of 1998 or 1999 when Barbara and I got or first invite as guests of Hank Greenberg (he actually was away and Barbara did not meet him that weekend) at AIG’s Private Gold Course in Brewster NY.  There were about 5 cottages on the premises and about the same number of couples attended.  It was a regular thing many weekends and an invite (which only happened three times in my career with AIG) was an honor (I guess it was an honor but when two months later your operation is billed right down to the golf balls and golf shirts they “gave you” it’s like I thought I was Hank’s guest!)  Anyway on Sunday Morning before golfing Barbara and I sat down for breakfast.  At the only “free table” was our Corporate Secretaries husband who was reading the Sunday Times and mumbling.  He folded up his paper, introduced himself with some pleasantries (like his wife he was a lawyer) and I honestly cannot now remember his name.  I do remember how he proceeded to describe his hatred for that “Liberal Rag” Times and filled us in on his “plot” to bankrupt them. 

He told us he was buying people he “knew”, a single share of NY Times Stock so they had to spend the money cutting a 2 or 3 cent dividend check every quarter and all the other attendant record keeping.  He was confident this strategy could work.  Barbara and I laughed and kidded him how it was a crazy idea but did say you never know!

About a month later via US Mail I get something from the Times.  Lo and behold a single stock certificate for a single share of stock.  Since then the money has rolled in at 2, 3 or 4 cents per quarter.  I have dutifully notified them when I move and sometimes I even like to bypass mobile deposits and have a teller process the transaction.  It’s a hoot.  The stocks worth has gone nowhere and the paper is still the same.  I must say however it has since become my favorite Sunday Passion to read the Times Op Ed section and smoke a cigar.  I find it sometimes enlightening, many times infuriating but always entertaining.  Many times I clip and save them.  I decided today after getting my check today it was time to use one of them for my Blog.

This article in particular struck me very strongly on one October Sunday in 2010.  Food Stamp usage was rising at the time (see chart below) and when I saw this headline I was drawn to read about “Foodies on Food Stamps”   

(Note because my “Editorial Critic” did not want a “link” this week I simply copied most of the article but do not believe I left out anything important.  However I would be happy send copy of link or you can Google it yourself.  Also note the underlines are mine):  

  

Copied from the NY Times Op Ed 10/10/10

Foodies on Food Stamps

 By ROBIN ROMM OCT. 9, 2010 Portland, Ore.

 My friend Allegra’s had a bad year. First, she tore a ligament in her knee playing soccer. Two weeks later, she was let go from the two jobs she worked to pay her rent in a large, worn house just east of Portland’s Broadway Bridge.

“Yeah, it pretty much bites,” she said. We were walking our dogs at Sandy River Delta, a stretch of grassy meadow near the Columbia River. Allegra’s tight blond curls caught the sun, as did her polyester flowered miniskirt. I asked her how she was getting by, and she just shrugged. “Unemployment. And my SNAP benefits work at the farmers’ market,” she said, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — that is, food stamps. “Some of the markets have this program where if you spend a dollar in SNAPs, they match you a dollar.”

Allegra pulled out a little plastic bag. “Here,” she said, gesturing to a bunch of ripe blackberries bursting on a tangle of bushes, which we started to pick. “I got jars at Goodwill. I’m making jam.”

I went with Allegra to a small neighborhood farmers’ market a few weeks later to experience the match program. The sky was a clogged mess of white and gray, and the market felt lazy and slow.

Allegra doesn’t believe in taking anything unless you really need it. But she can’t work until after her surgery — a surgery that Oregon Health and Science University Hospital is paying for in full because she is uninsured. She gets about $200 a month to spend on food. While we were shopping, we ran into a friend of Allegra’s, a beautiful young woman with loosely pinned black hair, holding a baby. Allegra gave her a hug and cooed at the pudgy 6­month­old. “Are you on food stamps?” she asked her friend, explaining that I was researching an article for this newspaper. Her friend looked momentarily horrified at the exposure, but conceded that, yes, her family was on food stamps. She had recently completed acupuncture school and her husband had just finished a graduate program in art history.  “I spend nearly all my food­stamp money at the market,” said Allegra’s friend. “If you avoid packaged foods, the money goes a long way. And it’s a better way to eat.”

It’s hard not to draw unhappy comparisons between Portland’s markets, where fruit spills from boxes, artisanal sausage sits politely on wooden boards and vats of chèvre soften in the air, and the farmers’ market in Las Cruces, N.M., the city I left a few months ago. Las Cruces sits at the base of the Organ Mountains, craggy, ruthless peaks that cast a shadow over the dry and barren Chihuahua desert. There’s just a short growing season for the smattering of farms and the diversity of crops is limited. Late in the spring and summer, the market does have tomatoes, squash, spinach and basil, but none of it is organic.

Blah Blah Blah etc.

OK This is now a Haidt Test, probably to the extreme.    

A member of tribe A (Progressives / Liberals) reads the article and sees it one way. 

A member of Tribe B (Conservative) reads the article and likely sees it my way.

So how do I see it both in 2010 and today?

First, what comes to my mind every time I read this is the overpriced Stowe Farmers Market selling Artisan Sausages and chèvre cheese while a local band plays Fleetwood Mac to young women in flowered skirts.

Second, the young couple whose wife is an acupuncturist while her husband is getting an advanced degree in Art History, have a baby to support.  I am happy (I REALLY mean that) that this couple is married.  It is something that our society should support and nourish.  However I think of the likelihood that this couple is going to pay back their loans for college in fields best left to Ski Bums or trust fund babies is slim and none. They both seem like likely candidates for a job at Stowe’s Helen Day Art Center selecting big spoons to hang from trees in town and calling it “art”.   I recognize (with a twinge of guilt actually) that I am totally judgmental here.  But in full recognition of my “bias” I cannot read it any other way.  That they choose to live this way is what the idea of a free society is all about, go for it.  What I cannot help but assume is that they want society to provide for them, not just the necessary food but preferably “unprocessed” and (I assume) “Organically Grown” one could probably throw in another buzzword “sustainable”.

Third, as to the young Soccer player who got her surgery for free because of a wonderful volunteer Doctor I like that and agree that volunteerism is a necessary need in society.  Frankly I think most studies show members of my tribe are often more generous with time and money.

 Finally my bias reads so much more into this:

The writer as well as the people she is writing about have, I suspect the “typical” pro-organic, “Anti-Monsanto” mindset.

Now I could branch into the high priced organic food craze where a full share at Vermont’s Peet’s Greens gives you some nice turnips, eggs and some great Elmore Mountain Bread all tasting great but at a cost about 3 times what you pay for non-organic Turnips, eggs and a loaf of packaged wheat bread.   However, should “helping out people” who are down on their luck include artisan sausages and Chevre cheese?  Hey how about Ballpark Franks and some Velveeta.  Yet if I think like this I am somehow less caring about my fellow man?  If you think I exaggerate then why generally does any attempt to restrict or reign in the huge growth in The Food Stamp Program garnered headlines about the mean spirited members of my tribe? 

Any bias needs confirmation so If you think I have exaggerated fears on the Anti Monsanto thing, here is a story for you.  I remember going to get a “message” with Steve and Debbie Clark at Topnotch in Stowe poor Steve got a therapist (maybe she was married to an Art History Major??) who ranted about Monsanto being evil and immoral as are almost all Agri-Businesses.  We all must buy local and sustainable.  Forget that our agricultural system has virtually eliminated food shortages throughout mankind which leads me to my final and hopefully more thoughtful Observation from 5,000 Feet.

Our society, thanks to the greatest economic engine in the world (or because of it) has enabled us to think in terms of more absolute equality.  The poorest amongst us are provided with the “basic necessities of life” beyond our wildest expectations then when say the Great Society Programs got started.  Even those in poverty have cellphones, air conditioning, heat, light and food (we even renamed “hunger” food insecurity) many things only the wealthy had a generation or two ago.  Frankly as a society and a dynamic economy we can likely afford it but in my mind bigger issues are at stake.   

The idea of family being the primary unit of support has fallen by the wayside for millions and the lack of desire for AND in many cases the lack of availability of meaningful work has left so many with less-fulfillment (take the opioid epidemic).  I think that is one thing all this “social justice” misses, as do so many of my own tribe.  Most of us have a desire to help the less fortunate but I am convinced that by giving a pass to contributing ones fair share towards society’s needs (including my Tax Credits) or giving you a pass on contributing to your own support  diminishes us in immeasurable ways.  In a world that has wealth beyond imagination only a short time ago and the prospect that through the advances of capitalism we need less and less “work” for this abundance what does it do to us as human beings??  How to we balance this all in a way that keeps this wonderful engine going yet gets us back to some of mankind’s greater needs, family, community, and faith?

I sure am open to some answers!

Happy Groundhog Day!