Now that the economy has “rebounded,” everyone will have a much happier, richer Thanksgiving — except for all the hungry people! Yes, even in a nation as obese as America, tens of millions of people can’t afford basic food. In fact, “food insecurity” is actually a major cause of obesity, as the poorest people will buy the most calorie-dense high-fat processed foods they can afford. Anyway, in America’s “richest county by median income,” which is Loudoun County in Virginia, the food pantry groups are getting ready for the first-ever Turkey Day charity meal for 2,000 families. Jesus christ ….
The Washington Post reports on the economic devastation around the nation’s capital:
With this economy, things are pretty bleak,” Brantley said. “People on Main Street are not rebounding.”
Bread lines have become commonplace, including the 3,000 people who waited for groceries and personal-care items in Northeast last week at a giveaway co-sponsored by PepsiCo and the dozens who gathered in front of the Loudoun Interfaith Relief center Friday.
Many are unemployed or underemployed, and their desperation is palpable.
“Bread lines have become commonplace.” Welcome to the 2010 Holiday Season! [Washington Post]







{ 74 comments }
If only we had some sort of tax breaks for the rich so we could all have jobs again… Oh, wait…
Are you kidding? they can't give away free food if there's uncertainty about whether the tax cut on their earnings after the first $250k will be extended!
Olberman's irritating, but right on this one: "Where are the jobs, Speaker-Presumptive Boehner?"
hungry people are sinners and god is mad at them and that is why they are hungry and everybody knows this is true.
damn, i'm hungry.
Meanwhile, the Natives remain at their semi-autonomous Reservations, getting fat on the profits of the Pale-faces's ignorance of statistics.
In other words: I'll be at the Potawatomi Bingo & Casino for Thanksgiving.
I've reserved a seat at the Binge and Emo-Casino we call – for want of a better term – "family."
“Bread lines have become commonplace.”
I just heard from some lady carrying a fetus in a jar that there's almost no waiting in the cake line.
With all these free handouts, these people are getting a pretty good deal seems to me!
So, we should all hop a freight train to Fuckheadville, VA if we want to give thanks? Sounds like a hassle. The temp here is is 11 degrees, but I got my refrigerator box pimped out pretty nice…
But they will give you nice warm measles- and smallpox-infected blankets as well, as depicted above.
I just replaced my refrigerator, and I got more hits on the box than the old fridge I was getting rid of.
I wonder why those Pilgrims are wearing witch hats instead of the traditional flat-topped Puritan hats. This must be depicting Salem pilgrims, rather than Plymouth pilgrims.
I assumed that they were Delaware Teabaggers, honoring Christine O'Donnell.
This is Glenn Beck for food insurance. If you're like me, you're scared. That's why the cellar of my NY penthouse suite contains 3,792 frozen food pellet entrees.
Food pellets or rat feed pellets he stole from the medical research lab down the street.
Alms for the poor. A ruling class mandate during the holidays. For Xmas they will scrape their leftovers into a trough in the center of the city and the poor can wrestle for a few scraps.
The advent of the libertarian paradise is upon us, after all, also, too.
Food Pyramid designed by Howard Roark.
And ptui, we spit on Ellsworth Toohey!
Hey you know that will be a reality TV show, the haves can stay home and watch fighting for table scraps.
I eagerly await Sarah Palin's tweet that she will donate all the proceeds from her book sales and TV revenues to these types of charities. Really. Any second now…
I'm trying to think of any charity to which Sarah Palin has donated significant chunks of money, other than the Sarah Palin personal enhancement fund. And I'm failing in this endeavor.
The Bristol Palin enhancement fund…
Ah, just like everyone used to make fun of Russians having to wait in line to get bread.
Orange you glad we won the Cold War?
Will there be a Halal option?
THANGS I AM THANKFULL FOAR
1) A lack of venereal disease
2) Cranberry 'business' cuz gelatin is gross
3) Electromagnetism
3.5) Americuh!!!!!
4) Alt-text
ThreeTwo things I am thankful for1) AL Cy Young
2) Two gold gloves
3)
101 lossesThrow the ball, catch the ball. Seems like the Ms are missing something.
Sorry about Dave Niehaus.
Are you going to have salami & rye bread for Thanksgiving, as tribute?
Absolutely!
I can't believe you mentioned electromagnetism but left off accupressure magnetic wristbands.
Yeah those things really work! Unless you play for the Texas Rangers, in which case they suck.
Similarly, I am thankful for all the little miracles. Like magnets. How the fuck do they work!?
… Oh, that way.
So Thursday night we're gonna party like it's 1929.
Actually, I think we are going to party like its 1932, when the effects of the crash had rippled through and everyone but the Bush family was poor.
Meh, if they're hungry they can go and pick their own like those other scapegoats.
NO TAXPAYER BAILOUTS FOR FOOD BANKS!11!!!
That sounds like socialism to me. I work hard all day, I don't want to be buying none of those lazy sloth bags anything with my tax dollars.
"You've heard of mental depression; these are just mental food shortages. We have become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of job and no food. Whiners, all of them."
- Phil Graham, Vice Chairman of UBS AG Financial Division
Phil's just projecting his anger over being fat. But it's his fault. Every time he eats his wife, he's hungry again thirty minutes later.
Dammit, GRAMM , not GRAHAM!
Either way he is just an elitist cracker.
For full effect, read in the voice of Mr Potter from It's A Wonderful Life.
"What do we get for our charity? A restless rabble instead of a thrifty working class!"
Or an Ebenezer Scrooge voice. "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
I guess the rich have always and will always screw over the poor without a second thought.
Since most families eat early on Thursday there should be some rich dumpster diving opportunities by, say, 6 p.m.
Can Oprah just give out those KFC coupons again?
Double-down… on America!
Seriously, Loudoun County is "America's Richest County by Median Income?" How is that possible? Loudoun County is a deathhole of Nevada-style McMansions on land that used to be farms but now grows only carbuncular brick-front colonials (i.e., housefarms). In fact, it's so far west of DC it might even be in Nevada, for all I know.
Also, it's frigging commuter buses that run into downtown DC every minute on the minute are my nemesis. DAMN YOU LOUDOUN COUNTY TRANSPORT!
The fact that Loudoun County is America's Richest County is a far greater sign of the Apocalypse than anything to do with free turkey.
Except for Sterling. That's so downscale.
A lot of rich government contractors.
"Median Household Income: $114, 204
While it has traded the top spot with the neighboring Fairfax before, Loudoun County has had the highest household income average since 2007. Taking the top spot isn’t hard to do when 17% of households in your county make more than $200,000. Conversely, only 16% make less than $50,000, the national average household income.
Of all the communities on the list, Loudoun County also had the lowest unemployment rate, estimated to be around 4.9%."
Oh yeah? Well at least we…
Wait, I got nothin'. Never mind.
Reports of economic devastation are clearly false — the stock market is doing fine.
Huh – America's richest county is full of gummit "consultants". What a shock.
UnChristian? It's practically Communism! Certainly masculine Jeebus would never approve, as he invented capitalism, which is the real meaning of the loaves and fishes story, which is about tax cuts for the Pharisees.
well duh, with a name like "L. Saba Bekele" (what's that L stand for anyway, what is she hiding?) she has to be a kenyan muslin islamofascistcommunisthomosexual, right? I mean, duh.
I dunno, I think she sounds like a one-woman martial art.
Tofurkey? Pfff… Why go small says I. Do that shit up madden style and build yourself a Tofucken.
…sigh…
I suck extra today.
We actually have seven of the top ten richest counties in the country here surrounding the Capital. http://www.wtop.com/?sid=2115275&nid=25
Plus a whole lot of folks whose umemployment is about to run out. And a lot with preexisting conditions who will be royally fucked should they ever be employed again because Boehner and Cantor have decided "Obamacare" is Socialism and thus must be repealed. The What Me Worry Party thinks everyone is just whining. Do they all have empathy removed at birth or is it taught out of them?
So what you're saying here is that you'd like tax cuts for the wealthy?
Ah, I see you are wearing the patented "Republi-Filter(TM)", which translates everything people say into what they really MEAN. So yes, "help me, I need a job and health insurance" really means:
"Fuck the browns. Moar monies for country club membership subsidies"
Needs more urchins to be totally apposite.
Those bloody turkeys in the pic just don't look right without a Palin interview in front of them.
Can illegal immigrants get free meals also?
Were the Pilgrims illegal immigrants?
What time is the meal in Loudoun County? I'll go–I'm not proud.
Have you priced groceries lately? Stupidly expensive.
Have you priced gas lately? Up to $3 a gallon in some spots? That's stupid.
Have you priced houses? Stupid.
Have you priced cars? Stupid.
Have you priced clothes and furniture? Stupid.
Utilities, car repairs, medical bills? Stupid.
Taxes? Stupid.
Well, it's no wonder people are going hungry–and that's not a joke.
When prices come back down to a normal level for the basics of life, and when we're not taxed to death by an over-expansive government, then we'll see less people in food lines.
The turkeys appreciate it though. Turkeys think that freshly caught rat is a perfect Thanksgiving dinner.
I had a tofurkey sandwich with home made cranberry sauce on Saturday. I like it- really!
The original of that clip art is hanging in the East Wing of the National Gallery of Clip Art. One of PowerPoint's masterworks.
You know why this is their first hobo Thanksgiving ever? Because they're hitting that spot in the sprawl cycle. Suburbs go like this: 1) White flight. Yay! Easy commutes, big houses, good schools. But hard to shop. 2) Massive overbuilding. Yay! Shopping. Boo! Traffic is getting terrible, and schools are overcrowded. 3) Inevitable decay. Boo! The Wal-Mart is now a Goodwill. 4) Slumification. Boo! Somos pobres!
The percentage of poor and indigent is too damn high!
Now just because you don't qualify for the Republican tax cut doesn't mean you can't have a first-class Thanksgiving. This year I'm making rat stuffed inside a squirrel, stuffed inside a raccoon. With a side of hobo beans in bourbon and orange zest.
Steven Tyler was right. It is time to Eat the Rich.
Free Pepsi!?!?! I'm willing to be groped at the airport for that.
Protip: If you hang around just outside the security line at the airport, you can collect everyone's half-drunk 20 oz Pepsi bottles and you don't even have to get groped.
I'd go, but it's too difficult to hop freights in the East.
Let them eat cake!
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