Forwarded message:
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 20:12:04 -0700 From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) Subject: Re: SOUP KITCHENS (fwd)
True enough, but not the whole story. If a dog or cat is kept well and fed good quality food they live 10+ years. The average life of an animal on the street is between 2-5 years. As to people, we now live around 75-80 years, prior to all these rules and regulations on food and such the average was 20-25. If we go back to what you propose you would be dead a long time ago.
Hardly a proved correlation. A lot of other factors come into play. But never mind. No point arguing.
But it is. I suggest you take a look at any social health text and look at the comparisons between diets of our ancestors, ourselves, and various cultures around the planet now. In places like Africa the mean age in many places is still in the early 20's. It is pretty remarkable that places that at one time had poor or subsistance diets and now have more modern diets have the average life span growing (even in places like Samoa and the Pima Indians in Mexico and the S. US where the high-fat diets are causinga marked increase in coronary problems, interesting article in this months Sci-Am) by leaps and bounds. Look at the studies which have tracked the English population over the centuries (they kept good records) and compaired physical body characteristics with food intake. It has been clearly shown that as the food got better and more plentiful the lifespan got longer and the average height got larger. Pretty strong evidence of some correlation there. I certainly feel strongly enough about it that I would not willingly eat food except in emergency conditions that I was not shure of the quality or purity. Other factors such as what? Disease? If you have a good diet then diseases like colds and Influenza (for example) are survivable. Without good diets high in Vitamen C and such you get Rickets and can die from a simple cold in as little as 3 days. Certainly if you kill off the local fauna you will increse your lifespan simply because there isn't as much to eat you when you aren't looking. But this particular threat was most present for the older and more damaged individuals. During some recent studies (5-6 years) of Cromagnon Man it was discovered that these folks were covered in broken bones, arthritic joints, spongy bones, spinabifida, etc. because of the hard life they lived having to manualy chase down the dinner and kill up close with rocks and sticks. If you get a chance try to get a peek at some of the pictures. I remember one of a girl around 16 whose knees and back looked like they belonged to somebody 80 years old. If you feel there is no point in arguing (which I don't feel we are doing since it seems pretty civil, we have widely seperate views) why resond? That is like asking somebody a person question and then when getting the answer saying you don't care. Just for the record, I am enjoying the discourse. But since you are not I won't continue this thread any longer.
I personaly find it reassuring that some bunch of knuckle-heads are unable to start a chip making facility like you support. The thought of finding flourine compounds in the local river (where I get my tap water) or simply dumped in the air is a little unsettling. Just because some group of bozo's want to start a business is not sufficient justification for that to be allowed.
A straw man. There is is no evidence that these startup companies are dumping stuff in rivers. Jeesh. The point is that large companies learn how to keep large staffs employed filling out paperwork, and they actually have come to see it is a good way to keep small companies from forming.
A straw man is where one claims one situation is analgous to another different situation. This is not a straw man because we are talking about the same issue but discussing the effect of size on behaviour. Motorola, AMD, Sematech, etc. have all been fined over the last years for doing just this to the waters around Austin. When I was working at Austin Community College over the last 2 1/2 years (prior to going to work for Tivoli - IBM 4 months ago) my primary responsibility was building a wafer fab training facility at the Riverside campus from donations from these folks and many others localy (Applied Material, Varian, etc.) I got to spend a lot of time in site in areas that normaly are not open to outsiders. If these big plants have problems regulating their emissions with their budget and reams of paper just image what a startup hard for cash would do if they thought they could get away with it "just this one time". I think the way Crystal Semiconductor (ie fabless) does their design is the way to go for small startups, simply rent production facilities from these other companies. I know that, for example, each of the companies here in Austin are in the process of shutting down older fabs and don't have plans to upgrade them for at least a couple of years. For somebody like Crystal that is a god send. It means they can bring products to market for costs way below what it would have originaly cost, and the larger company gets to bring in income on equipment it had originaly written off. Sounds like a win-win to me. Sorry, but a simple reading of the Austin American Statesman (admittedly a shitty paper very highly biased) will provide numerous instances of such dumps over the last few years.
It seems to me that many of the folks who recognize downsized workers pleas for their 'right to a job' as so much bunk are at the same time supporting a businesses right to start up. A pretty humorous double standard.
Not at all comparable.
But they are for the simple reason that we are talking about two entities which each claim a right to some behaviour. And in this case directly comparable because a person working is comparable to a business working. Each provides services and expects a return. Now the argument goes with persons that a person does not have a inherent right to income. In other words if a company shuts down and they are laid off w/o any other work forthcoming it is their fault for not seeking the appropriate training and such (ie resources) to get another job with a better future. Now with business the claim is that they should have some rights comparable to persons, however they should also be given the right to open their doors for business even if they can't demonstrate some level of competency and ability to survive in the market. This is carried to the point that they should be allowed to operate without regulation or other forms of checks and balances on their actions. Now if a real person does not have a right to income if they don't posses the requisite skills why should a business be allowed to do it without showing the same sort requisite skills? Why should the local community be forced to take on the burden of such a venture simply because the business is a 'virtual' person? It is becoming pretty clear with the change in welfare (which I support) that our society does not feel an obligation to support folks for more than 2-3 years on the social dole without some return on investment. Why should the city be required to provide utilities and other services without some assurance they will get the public funds (ie your money and mine) back? We as citizens in Austin certainly don't recieve stock or other benefit from this other than the jobs it creates for persons with the requisite skill.
I have never heard of anyone being arrested for giving away food, only selling it without a license. I bet the Salvation Army soup kitchen would be worried if this claim were true (they aren't and it ain't).
Then you weren't reading the thread, which in several posts described this very situation. "Food Not Bombs" was giving away soup, chile, and other such stuff at a park in Santa Cruz (and maybe elsewhere, e.g., San Francisco). They were busted. Now do you understand the situation?
I understand that they were arrested for the noise and such and not for the food. The reason that the permit was refused (wrongly I agree) was that the HD did not want the people out on the street causing a disturbance. What they did should be protected if it is in the right place and at the right time. The right of the poeple to assemble has an important caveat. If I may, ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. If you will notice it says 'peaceably', I do not believe this should include standing on the corner with a bullhorn screaming at people. A more appropriate strategy would have been to walk over and give the government folks food also with little political pamphlets wrapped around their weenies. They would have most likely eaten their food, looked at the pamphlet, got a good chuckle and gone back to being good little prols. As the situation was at fist described is not quite how it was. This bozo apparently was on the corner with the direct intention of harrassing folks. This is uncalled for behaviour in such a situation. I agree with the conclusion that there was an alterior motive other than feeding the homeless. It sounds more like a podium for a personal tirade. Jim Choate