Letters to the Editor
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Back to our roots
Almost nobody is old enough to remember them - I only remember the cartoons - but during WWII everyone was encouraged to have a Victory Garden. This idea needs to be renewed. With organic zucchini running at 3.99 a pound, a few plants in pots on your patio will make you feel like giving the finger to Whole Paycheck, not to mention REAL tomatoes. Grow on, America
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Oh well
Personally I never could understand the weird desire of Americans to immolate themselves on the altar of credit and wacky daydreams. Yeah, put yourself five miles into debt just so you can have a bunch of silly toys that will go out of fashion in about three weeks. That's a good idea.
I have no credit cards, no mortgage, and no loans. I also have no monthly bills (outside of rent and utilities) and no nagging fear of identity theft. (Why the hell would anyone want my identity? They can't DO anything with it!) I've never bought a new car, and the one I have now has a 4-cylinder engine, so in my life I've spent a fraction of what most people spend on cars. I'm not rich, but I'm also not nearly as worried as a lot of people I know. Also, I clip coupons too.
In the last couple of decades, people in America have been bamboozled into stupid decisions regarding money, toys and pipe dreams of impossible riches right around the corner. Why anyone ever believed any of that crap is beyond me. Where were their brains?
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Dragging out the recipe books
It's funny how some articles on Salon elicit only warm fuzzy responses, and others generate hissing and spitting polemic. It's always nice to find one of the former.
I was ratting through my Australian grandmother's cupboards recently, and found HER mother's handwritten cookbook, with recipes carefully compounded over the years and begged from neighbours. The lists of ingredients are short and bland -- enough to make any good Mod-Oz-eating Melbournian run screaming -- but the results, my grandmother assured me, are very good. Those were the war years, and the post-war years, when my grandmother moved into back-of-beyond with her new husband, and had to learn to keep chickens and shoot snakes.
I'll put them all online one day, so that while we're tightening our belts we can do it with Aunt Duck's Famous Rainbow Scones.
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Anyone have a recipe . . .
. . . for government cheese and Spam?
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Somebody please advise!
I wanted to buy dried legumes, but ended up buying a dozen assorted cans of beans at the discount Winco, (along with some really cheap bulk rice) because it takes so long for a pot of soaked beans to cook, I was concerned that in the long run, the cost of electricity to cook them would cost more than nuking the contents of $.033 cans. Am I completely off here? I'd prefer cooking the beans and getting creative, but not sure which is cheaper.
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Love this piece. LOVE
I think, as Heather puts it so well, we're all inclined to not want to be as ridiculous as we've been over the past ??? years. Not having the money for Botox IS freeing- it feels so much better to put that money towards something that matters.
One thing we should all be putting our (limited) money towards, of course (as others have mentioned) is seeds. Growing your own food is empowerment personified- and can I tell you how amazed I was to see my little tomato seeds sprout into plants? Fucking awesome, man.
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four bucks for half a gallon of milk IS obscene
Geez... that's literally twice what it is in Memphis. And our prices are way up from what they were six months ago.
You know, the funny thing is, my dog's nanny never had a therapist? I have NEVER bought a pair of shoes that cost more than most people's monthly wages? I didn't need a new challenge. I had plenty of challenges already.
In conclusion: I hate you all. Both the dog-nanny people and the people who "love a challenge."
(Heather - your article was tongue-in-cheek, right? 'Cause folks seem to be taking your masochism literally.)
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Amen, Sister
Heather - I always enjoy your larger-picture critiques of various medias' absurdities and occasional glories, but LOVED your commentary on the sorry state of our once-glorious country and our totally screwed economy. Bean soup has been my mainstay for years along with Big Salads - but who can afford Big Salads when tomatoes cost more than steak?? (see Fast Food Nation for that story, and try not to barf) And ironically I earn a decent wage by most standards, but between helping my daughter through college and launching her into adulthood and supporting myself as a single-income household, and watching my income go in reverse thanks to inflation, I'm about tapped out. Coupon clipping? The Staff of Life!
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The Disgusting Arrogance of Privilege
I'm sure Heather thinks this comes off as upbeat black humor, keep one's chin up in hard times, but apparently she hasn't looked past her own nose to notice the screaming headlines for the last two weeks.
Otherwise she'd realize an article about having to eat somewhat cheaper food like BEANS is not only tone deaf, it's goddamn disgusting. At a time when a lack of rice is convulsing nations with riots and starvation, it is the height of arrogance to prattle on about slightly reduced expectations.
"I'm happier when my options are limited. I like knowing that I can't afford to move and I can't afford to quit my job and I can't afford to think about the boundless possibilities that the universe has to offer, I can only afford to clean my own stupid house and eat leftovers and lose weight so the shitty clothes I already have don't look even worse on me than they would otherwise. Under the duress of an economic meltdown, I have to learn to bake bread and grow tomatoes and hit up my friends for hand-me-downs for my kids."
Damn right you should be happy, you privileged asshole. What you call diminished 90% of the world considers luxury. Hell, what you call "my own stupid house" and "shitty clothes" a lot of bankrupt people in THIS country would be glad to have.
While everyone has been socking it to Obama for his elitist attitude towards the working class, Ms. Havrilesky suprasses him multiple times with "I wonder how I'll adjust to a life of mopping floors eight hours a day.
Will that be the end of the world? Probably not." Well, good to know Ms. H. I'm sure the floor moppers - some of whom have net access (imagine that!) are glad you will hold up.
Enjoy what you have because it's not Bear Stearns which should have you scared, it's the spectre of being hungry and homeless.
As I said some time back you have become the sort of person Suck would eviscerate. Take some solace in knowing Ana Marie Cox got there first.
I hope you took some of the check you got for this to your local food bank.