Poll: Obesity’s a crisis but we want our junk food
January 4, 2013 at 5:11 am in Grand Forks Herald
Americans blame too much screen time and cheap fast food for fueling the nation’s fat epidemic, a poll finds, but they’re split on how much the government should do to help. Continue Reading
We need courageous politicians to REGISTER SILVERWARE. We need to restrict the capacity of spoons and forks, and dishes must comply with regulations for the amount of food they can hold. Only federally-registered and background-checked people should have access to high-capacity tableware.
Until we restrict and control the ownership of eating utensils and serving dishes, the Obesity Crisis will continue, and people will die.
It’s a scientifically-proven fact that fat people own or have access to silverware and dishes.
If we save just one child it will all be worth it. Contact Congress TODAY.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Either that or outlaw all tables, and mandate that everyone eat while standing on one foot. Would make Thanksgiving dinner interesting, if not a bit messy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Good idea. Remember: Its for the children!
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Contacting congress is like juggling feces. No matter what you are going to get crapped on.
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If you are fat you are a drain on the system. There is no question of that. The same holds true if you smoke or drink alcohol.
Therefore, if you engage in these behaviors you pay more for insurance.
One and a half to two times a healthy person’s policy is not unreasonable and still leaves the healthy policy holder subsidizing the fat drunk who smokes.
I have no problem with personal responsibility. I am just very tired of my healthcare dollars paying for other people’s lifestyle choices.
Leukemia is largely genetic (blame grandpa). Lung cancer and COPD are usually lifestyle related choices. Type II diabetes is almost 80% lifestyle related.
Why am I paying for your bad decisions?
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Alright nurse … you told us once or twice that you have a weight issue so aren’t we paying for your bad habit?
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Absolutely. That is why I am for an equitable solution: you are fat you pay more. You use tobacco you pay more. You drink alcohol to excess you pay more.
I’m not big on legislating morality or good choices (it almost always fails). I am very big on personal responsibility.
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Or — we could get the NRA to shoot up plates until only the bread plates are left. Smaller plate, smaller problem.
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Who are these one-third of Americans that thinks the gov’t should get more involved? People, look at the gov’t and schools results not their intentions. That removing soda from the schools thing worked so well…oh wait, kids are fatter. Years of new label regulations worked, right? Guess not.
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They are the people who believe their opinion should be the law of the land and have gotten government to legislate it.
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What did I say during the smoking debate… As soon as they were done with my cigarettes they were going to come for something you loved.. The Helicopter Moms just won’t quit until you live your life their way..
I think I’ll move to Russia, I’ll have more freedoms.. Sheesh.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Oh BTW Forum CC.. Can I please get a ‘NOTHING’ option on your poll.. Demanding that I select one of your predefined governmental intrusion ideas does not make a good poll.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Well said.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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It should be easy. The overweight and obese should pay more for health insurance or those of us who are healthy get a rebate. If you want to eat yourself into oblivion, be my guest and consume junk food. Back some 30+ years ago, I had my insurance through an HMO that required an annual physical and provided free preventative care. Each year, if you were healthy, and used less health care services than average, you got a rebate on your premium. Sort of like the rebates they are now giving from some car insurance companies for being accident free. Guess what, it worked to get people to live a healthier lifestyle.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I can agree with that. Problem is, in this society, you’d have a class action suit on your hands before you could say “Pass the potatoes.”
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funny thing about health insurance, it is only insurance where the premium and risk are not divided into groups (other than the elderly) and only applies to large amorphous pool compared to car insurance, home insurance, business insurance where multiple risk factors are used to determine your premium (e.g. how much your drive, where you drive, if you had a DUI, is your home near or far from a fire station, in an area with more frequent hail, or more frequent burglaries). Why should unhealthy behavior not be a risk factor?
How much would that change peoples behavior if it cost you money that came from your own pocket, not some government program?
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Not true. Witness the ND-legislated “high risk” insurance pool.
CHAND is administered by BC/BS, but is a separate entity.
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You are wrong Gene. Most insurance companies now require screening and many do in fact charge more for smokers. They are implementing the same for overweight. Alcohol is the next big thing.
I am all for these changes. Why should I subsidize your bad lifestyle choices.
People get very angry when you tell them that they do not have a medical problem, but a behavior problem. it puts the responsibility where it belongs.
Where society has gone wrong is taking away people’s agency. We used to tell people they were in charge and in control of their healthcare. Now people show up and expect modern medicine to take care of it for them.
Sorry, it does not work that way. If you eat yourself into the grave, I might cry at your funeral but I most certainly am not going to join the wake decrying how unfair it is you died so young.
If you play Russian Roulette long enough the gun eventually goes off.
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Absolutely! Those of us that make the effort to be fit and healthy have to subsidize the obese, unfit folks and those who are more than social drinkers as well as smokers. Go ahead and enjoy your freedoms. Just be sure that your smoke doesn’t waft my way and pick up your butts. When you’re arrested for DUI, don’t get a lawyer to plead that your freedoms have been eroded. If you choose to fill your face with cheeseburgers everyday instead of choosing moderation, don’t whine to me if you collapse of a heart attack before you have grand kids. By the way, for anyone who claims to be only a social drinker: When you’re drunk you’re not funny, despite what you think.
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Hey Scooter don’t forget about those potheads, when they forget to….um..um..,what was I going to say? About nine hundred dollars Bob! Oh crapola that is a different thread! Wait a minute who the hell is Bob?
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You smoke too much weed.
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You talk too much!
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so true …
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Marijuana has about 1/10 of the health related concerns as alcohol. Trading pot for alcohol would save the US billions of dollars every year in health and criminal costs.
On the basis of money alone alcohol should be outlawed and pot encouraged. It is simply a sounder investment
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Late to the game on this comment.. However define healthy.. Is healthy a thin athletic body? I personally know of two people that have contracted cancer, never smoked a day in their life and are now fighting for their lives and they are in that category.
Personally I think it should be more along the lines of car insurance. The more claims you make the more you pay. The more you use the services you costs will increase. I know of several people, myself included, who carry a few extra pounds but really don’t use medical services. I get my yearly wellness checkup and that is about it.
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Eureka! Finally….we can agree once again……Actually we probably agree more often than not…But when we don’t…..We go all out.
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Na you are a good guy.. I like you.. Never take what I say personally. Sometimes I get overly passionate when trying to make my point, or the word was intended to be more in the general sense.
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This issue will only be resolved when the obese become as demonized as smokers. It will be at that point that the GF city council will pass an ordinance prohibiting restaurants from serving anyone whose body fat exceeds a certain percentage.
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Like I said before…the day my or anybody’s junk food causes a potential health risk on those near by…Then take us to the food court where we can do time with Hamburgler and the rest. Comparing to smoke just doesn’t hold mustard……
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I think the time for talking is over. There is nothing left to be said. What is needed is a strong incentive to maintain a healthy weight. The only way to get through to people is by charging them a higher insurance premium, children included. Allow for some leeway. I would think seriously about including anorexics in this as well.
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Too many people sticking there noses into others peoples lives. What I put into my body is my business. What you put in yours is your business. Worry about yourself and quit whining about others. And don’t give me the increased health care crap. Skinny people are walking around with aids, cancer, etc. Their health problems just aren’t as obvious. Welcome to Barry’s police state.
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Smokers are paying a higher cost for their health care premiums. If the insurance industry is going to penalize one bad habit they should be fair and penalize them all. And … I do not smoke.
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Your “skinny” example is such a tiny fragment of the problem that it is laughable. If you don’t want a police state, do you also wish to honor same-sex couples now?
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What’s even worse than the fixation on “weight” is the notion (in many comments here) that the government should keep out of the issue.
First, the question of whether people are healthfully active and fit, and whether they eat a healthful diet, is far more important than their weight. Weight, and body fatness, is largely genetically determined, but with appropriate physical activity and sensible eating it’s quite possible to be fit, healthy, AND fat.
Second, educating people about physical activity and healthy eating is a key role for schools and public health personnel — and as such — is a perfectly appropriate government role IMO.
Now if the government would just stop heavily subsidizing the production of obesity-promoting foods — the opposite of taxing them — we might all be a little healthier through choice.
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Nothing like eating truck stop food (Thankfully they’ve done away with most of the buffets now days…Where you always wanted to make sure you got your money’s worth) and hours of sitting in the rocking chair going down the road to keep a guy slim and fit eh?
Anyway…As for the cheaper junk food….If you like fruits and veggies and get sticker shock all the time. Well besides all the extra cost from fuel in the growing process and delivery it’s also costing more because of the wonderful DOT rules that have made it nearly impossible for a single driver to make it from the coast or the sun belt to northern areas in a timely manner
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The stricter regs along with the practically forced Elogs pretty much makes it a team driving effort to get fresh produce to the stores in two or three days. I don’t personally miss some of those hell runs they used to have us do, but the DOT pretty much made us go to the furthest extreme so we can’t deliver produce in a timely manner in many cases without two drivers switching off to stay compliant…..
They did it all for you…From people who know nothing about the trucking part of trucking, but understood what works best for the drivers.
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The government is the largest insurance company in the nation, bar none, by a factor of 10. They are involved because they (we) foot the bill.
I am tired of paying $300 every two weeks for insurance and getting very little in return. If part of the reason it costs me so much is you are using your benefits too much, don’t penalize me: charge you more.
As someone said above, that is how car insurance works. That is how health insurance should work as well.
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Your health insurance is very high. Is that through your job? Our’s just went up to $264 a month for a family of seven through my husband’s company and that is for a cadillac plan.
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So. Through work. BC/BS. Health, dental, & vision. So many co-pays & co-insurances that I have to do OT just to cover it all.
My ex still works for the only hospital in GF. She pays about the same for a family plan. Where does hubby work? Maybe I can get on there?
I applied for a teaching gig at UND. Since the money is way less I hope the premiums are too or I might have to be uninsured
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I thought obama care said you can no longer be uninsured fn.
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Fox News sound bite Mav. The reality is a little more complex. In THEORY the state run risk pools will decrease the cost of premiums. I don’t buy it.
As I have said 100x before: if healthcare is a right – then tax & provide. A two tiered system like England is the only economically viable choice.
If it is a responsibility: deny care to those who cannot pay. That means babies & grandmas dying in the streets.
America is trying to have it both ways & it is bankrupting the country
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I get to be a SA every once in a while too.
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Ahem! I don’t know how $600 a month fares in comparison to other insurance. But come on….you’ve said you have your own Brady bunch over there. I don’t know of any insurance that has a “Cover two and get the third covered for free” policy. “The more the merrier” really doesn’t pertain to insurance.
As for doing nothing. Hell..we used to have pretty good insurance, but now my cheapest option is to have a $5000 deductible, and the smug SOB’s make it sound like they’re giving you a great deal. I figured out in my head how much more I’d save with this option compared to the higher premiums that a lot of family people get stuck in. So here I have what I call “Insurance for dire needs only” As such I seldom go to a doctor unless I’m really doing bad. My check ups are when I do a DOT, and those are specific without really looking for other hidden beauties. So basically I pay a premium for an insurance I can only use if things get really bad, and pay out of pocket for the rest…..Oh and here’s the topping….This plan doesn’t allow me to have a HSA account, but one of those useless Flex plans where you use it or lose it…Great switch my company made…
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Another thing that requires addressing if we hope to get the obesity situation under control is folks’ “easy solutions” attitude.
What incentive is there to eat healthy and exercise when so many “easy solutions” exist? If I get fat, well…there’s a pill I can take. If I get fat, well….I’ll schedule a procedure and get some of the fat sucked right back out again.
Ads like this one frustrate the heck out of me, and it runs dozens of times every day:
http://youtu.be/S5pkH478LBo
Pay attention to the spiel from :18 to :29 of the clip. There are four reasons cited for the accumulation of “body fat”. Lack of exercise and poor diet are positioned at numbers three and four on their list. Long story short: They’re showing potential customers that it’s not their fault, because the things they CAN CONTROL are down at the bottom of the list of causes somewhere….instead of being at the top where they belong.
But hey, take this pill….everything will be okay.
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Penn and Teller had a series on Showtime called “BS” (Only they used the full title). They did one segment on all the diet cures and wonder machines. One of my favorites that our family actually had when I was a kid was this machine on a post with a big belt that you basically put aroun your butt and then turned on the machine and leaned back so it would vibrate fat away from your rear end. We had a lot of fun with it as kids, but it basically had zero effect on losing anything. I guess it might have shook things up to go take a sit, but that was about as close as this “Miricle Machine” ever got to doing anything
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Useless as a fat-reducer…but an excellent sex toy for a couple.
Better than a washing machine with a the load unbalanced.
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Unbalanced is the perfect word to describe what you are suggesting.
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How about if all eating places have full armrests on every chair.
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I have very little business experience, but that seems like a good way to lose business. It’d be akin to having a bar without bar stools so you stop serving when they start swaying. I think business would move to a more comfort zone
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Why can’t restaurants serve human-sized meals instead of pyramids of grease on hubcaps? The restaurant would save money, prices could be cut so we could save money, and nobody would have to throw out all that extra food or, even worse, eat it all…
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Well Grandma…As someone who eats out a lot on the road….I see a lot of signs that claim “Home Cooking” but it’s generally more like what you describe than what my grandma’s home cooking was like. Part of that problem goes back to the cost. To keep prices down (Somewhat) a lot of places have gone on the cheap and pile on the cheap crap rather than smaller portions of good food
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Have you noticed that McD now puts calorie counts on their menu? I wonder how many people bother to pay attention that a Number 1, with a large fry and large coke has your TOTAL calorie allotment for the day and two days worth of fat?
You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Education only goes so far. After that you simply hold people accountable.
Remember the 1970s Yul Brynner public service spot where he says he knew smoking was wrong but he did it anyway, and how now that he is dying he wished he hadn’t?
Real life has very few do overs.
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First off…He’s still alive? Really. I thought he died a long time ago
As I read a while back that when McDooldle offered more healthy items after so much was made about the limited junk food menu……It just didn’t sell very well. It was more like a few voices making all the noise
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Yul Brynner died in 1985. The commercials ran as PSA around that time because he was famous.
You are correct. Healthy choices lose money. Even then, their salads have more fat & sodium than anything. It is what America wants.
That is why you don’t legislate against, you simply make people pay. In economics we had to calculate how much a pack of cigarettes would need to cost to reduce smoking by 10%. The answer was $7.50 a pack (2005 dollars).
I went up to Canada shortly after. Guess how much a pack of smokes was in US dollars? You got it: $7.50.
We need to adopt that approach. Legislating morality & good choices almost always fails. Just make them pay for their choices
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Repeal smoking bans in bars and restaurants first if you’re so concerned now about government intrusion into your lifestyle choices. Modern ventilation was taking care of the non-existent problems anyway and everybody had a choice about where to dine or go for drinks. It was never about your health and was always about an obscene amount of money these special interest nanny groups make from trying to make your life miserable. And some of us said years ago that when they’d extorted as much money from the tobacco industry as they could, they’d come after fat people next. The same trial lawyers who milked the tobacco industry for billions even said years ago that fat people were next. You might not have believed them at the time, but now it’s your turn. Enjoy.
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DanH you’ve conveniently forgotten that the smoking ban was essentially a workplace safety issue. Also, by blaming the government, I assume you mean “We The People?” After all, the vote was pretty overwhelming last November!
As for government intrusion into food, I’ll be delighted if our elected leaders decide to stop “nannying” the farmers. The foods that make Americans fat are heavily subsidized by taxpayers — so I’d love to see an open market system where farmers get no subsidies, but consumers pay the real cost of food.
Of course, the sugar beet industry would be one of the first boondoggles to disappear!
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“workplace safety issue”
Keep drinking the Koolaid… Someday someone might actually believe what you type.
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…and keep blowing smoke — it hides reality!
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Jean Mills … not all of them are on drugs. But I have gotten to where I would rather fund food banks and churches who wish to feed the hungry than give people money directly to people in the form of debit cards. There is so much many being wasted in the current system. There has got to be a better way of feeding the needy.
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what the heck? Oh well … one more screw up for me. How many do we get before we are disqualified? Does anyone know?
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The only problem with just letting the cost of food go up of course is that those with limited resources who are even now having a tough time stretching them will have to make even more decisions between eating and other expenses. You just know food stamps will end up taking a hit before too long…In the war against the poor.
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It’s not a war against the poor. If the need is there organizations will step up to fill the need. At least that way we know the money is being used to buy food for people and not drugs. That is how this should have been all along.
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If a person receives food stamps, that means their on drugs??
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Yes…That elderly shut in with very limited resources will be kept from getting all those street drugs, and the same with that single mother with dead beat dad who can’t be found for child support, and who works a minimum wage job because that’s all she can get….Lets penalize her too because some other young mothers might actually sell stamps for drugs.
There’s a lot of working poor, and elderly who are on very limited incomes out there that end up taking the brunt of these hits on the poor. You’re afraid of so much inner city violence…where do you think the feelings of despair in children from these situations lead. If your family can’t eat very well and there’s a job opportunity within a gang to make drug money….Pretty damn tough to follow Nancy Regan’s
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I guess “Just say no” got cut out
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I knew who I was sleeping with before I got pregnant. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for women or girls who get pregnant by losers. How damn dumb is that?
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Uh huh…..You skipped the being young and dumb that everyone else went through then? How spiffy for you.
So let me get this clear. Because some young womanly who actually believed some great love would last forever, but is left with kids (You do realize that many if not most were in wedlock right?) that her and the children should be given the third world treatment and have to live on the street and scrounge garages for food? Because without help even the working poor might end up there
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Damn spell correct…I meant “Garbages” not “Garages”
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Hey I listened when my parents talked to me. It’s not that tough. You just shut your mouth for a minute and listen. I was told interesting things like when you have sex without birth control you get pregnant or catch an STD. If you don’t take school seriously you won’t make much money later on in life. If you get caught up in drugs you will screw up your life. It was really simple stuff and easy to absorb.
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That’s one way to look at it DC… Another is a young woman like my mother marries someone who she thinks is the right one to make a life with, but finds out he’s a worthless piece of regurgitated skunk dung who leaves her with a four year old and a one year old. This ass bag couldn’t send child support because he was too busy starting another family in CA. Lucky for us things were relatively cheap so ma could pull off working for low wages for a few years.
There’s a lot of those out there too and many of them like my ma are the working poor…but in today’s economy that’s one hell of a stretch.
I’ve assumed you were female because of the picture you use, but I find it difficult to believe a female…especially a mother would hold such callous feelings against single mothers. Are you just doing drag on here?
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Was the system being abused back when your family needed help … the way it is today? That’s the real issue for me. I want the money spent wisely.
I’ve seen the system abused first hand by people who will work to buy weed but not to buy groceries or pay their rent. They want to spend their entire lives partying.
Two such individuals are siblings of mine. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out the men they chose weren’t father figures. But they were high and not thinking clearly. Still high today twenty some years later.
One of them has two kids that are lowlife slugs. The other her daughter spent half her life living with my parents. She went to UND and is now working for Cargill as an accountant.
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We never went on any assistance. Back then you could get a beginning position with a high school diploma and work your way up….As such my mother became an accountant….Try to do that today. She didn’t make a lot, but we never went hungry or get any other needs met. We also had something a lot of people don’t seem to have today. A great extended family that lived near by. I spent a lot of summers in Argyl at my grandparents farm. I always thought it was pretty cool that I was cousins with about half the kids in town. Now days everyone is scattered all over the country in most families so I doubt a lot of kids really don’t get a sense of that extended family now days. If not for that I just might have grown up mean and ornery instead of just ornery…
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That’s what it was sold as, but in reality they went over board in an attempt to just ban it everywhere. I haven’t smoked since 82, but I still thought they went too far. Especially concerning blocks of smoke rooms, and bars that put money into special smoker dens away from the main bars. I mean it’s a double edge sword because in general it’s not a bad thing to be completely smokeless in public, but then again it is a bit too heavy handed to force even areas like that Hookah place designed for smokers to have to stop the smoke.
As for the workers in these bars and places like the Hookah room…..My guess is there’s enough smokers doing those jobs that you have to ask….Who was it really protecting. Restaurants yes, but some of the others….Not really.
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