Leighbythesea
Leighbythesea's JournalFarmers Markets May have to Stop Accepting Food Stamps
At the end of this month, hundreds of America’s farmers markets will no longer be able to process payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps. The change will disproportionately affect markets in states that offer incentives to help low-income consumers buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
The reason for the service cut is not ideology, but bureaucracy. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled its contract with the Farmers Market Coalition, the organization that provides farmers with the hardware and software to accept SNAP payments. Partly as a result, one of the main companies offering this technology, Novo Dia, is canceling its service and going out of business. While this outcome has been clear for months, the USDA’s new contractor has not installed a replacement technology that would allow farmers to keep accepting SNAP payments.
There is no backup option,” said Ben Feldman, policy director for the Farmers Market Coalition. “July and August are the busiest times of the year. Farmers were promised that they would have functioning equipment and they don’t, and right now there’s no program to help them get it.”
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b48f895e4b022fdcc5941c7
Apologies if someone already posted this.
The Best description of Depression ever (for me) Happens to be a Comic
Because of this last week, I found myself going bavk to a brillant Comic/Illustrator/Story Teller at Hyperbole and A Half.
Her description of the deadening grip of depression is so accurate. Right up to the terrible moment she discovers her darkest moment and beyond.
The drawings are great so please check it out.
This excerpt needs pics:
I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.
I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was.
But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same.
I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled. I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.
Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html?m=1
Watch EMU students/poets switch mics- a black man & white woman
Interesting approach.
I"ve watched just once, cadence is very fast like slam.
My daughter is a poet & regularly gets on stage. I got so used to watching poets live put their soul out there, and feel the authenticity as they read their own work,--that this just struck me as exceptionally creative.
From Daily Kos. Video at link.
Watch Eastern Michigan University students Darius Simpson and Scout Bostley speak for each other—and show us a thing or two about privilege.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/06/24/1396071/-A-black-man-and-a-white-woman-switch-mics-and-the-result-is-amazing?detail=emailclassic
Active Shooting Central Mich Uni--Where I am a Grad Student
I was not on campus, as I am a commuter student.
But here's the salient point for me. If I had been, it would have been MY 2ND "lock down" experience from a shooting event in 4 years.
I was working in Santa Monica in the Lion's Gate building in 2013, when we went on lock down in my office. I was the highest level manager in the office that day. We were on the 4th floor so I didn't feel like shots would come through a window. But this scenario was due to a shooter who had hijacked a car and was on Pico blvd. shooting randomly out the window.
The police were unsure if there was a 2nd shooter. Our building was near a water fountain outdoor cafe area that was very busy every lunch hour. They assumed the shooter(s) were looking for populated areas. There is a lot of confusion in getting accurate info in the early minutes.
It turned out to be a single shooter who went to Santa Monica Community College. There were many fatalities and he was killed. AR-15. I lived one block from that little college. I walked my dog there, and really loved it's quaintness (I had taught at Florida Keys Community College years ago and it reminded of that campus). I couldn't get home by car, as the streets were covered and taped off. I had news helicopters I swear 500 ft above my place all weekend, filming. It was like a war zone. I feel very fortunate to only have experienced that tragedy the way I did, on the periphery.
A couple of weeks later, a man drove his car down Venice Boardwalk trying to hit as many people as possible. Also fatalities. But less for sure. That is where I rode my bike. Not long after, a shooter came into LAX. I flew out of there for business almost weekly. It felt like the world was going mad. I really became sensitive to these events after.
I am thankful today's shooting was "only" two people and not students. But how sad it that?
Right now, everyone on campus there, today, is still in shelter mode, as the shooter is still at large. I am getting automated phone calls/messages from Central Michigan, every hour or so, telling me to continue to shelter in place.
I came to believe, and still do, that if we continue this way without restrictive measures, everyone will come to experience a mass shooting event at close proximity, or will know someone who has.
Highlights:
Two people were fatally shot Friday after a gunman opened fire at Campbell Hall dormitory at Central Michigan University, campus police said.
James Eric Davis Jr., 19, was identified as a suspect in what campus police believe was a domestic dispute. It was the nation's 12th school shooting this year.
Last seen wearing mustard yellow jeans and a blue hoodie, the suspect was still at large and considered armed and dangerous, according to police.
People were advised "to take shelter," law enforcement and school officials said.
The shooting happened about 8:30 a.m. Friday on the dorm's fourth floor.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/us/central-michigan-university-shots-fired/index.html
Jared Kushner and President Postliterate Bestwords
PPD title for Trump got me laughing. Good opinion piece from Daily Beast.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-deep-state-takes-out-the-white-houses-dark-clown-prince?ref=home
Applicants are required to spell out in great detail the specifics of foreign travel and overseas contacts. Investigators need to know where you’ve made your money and to whom you have debts. I did it in my early twenties when my life was relatively uncomplicated, and it was still a pain in the ass. It’s not easy, and it’s not supposed to be. It’s even harder when you’re a corrupt, entitled snake who repeatedly lies about your finances to federal investigators and serves as a living, breathing poster child for privileged venality. It’s even harder when you’ve rather clumsily attempted to use both your familial relationship and proximity to the president of the United States to save your family’s failing real-estate empire.
All of which helps explain Jared Kushner’s very bad day on Tuesday. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a man who has compromised himself and his supposed values to accommodate and indulge President Trumphausen’s various whims, impulses, urges, feuds, and paranoid episodes, finally drew the line and busted Kushner’s security clearance down from TS/SCI to Walmart Greeter Background Check (Provisional). Hear that? That was America’s intelligence community, down to the last GS-7, breathing a loud sigh of relief.
AND
It wasn’t just that Kushner omitted tens of millions of dollars of investments from his SF-86 and was forced to revise again and again and again, or that his listing of foreign contacts and engagements was glaringly insufficient. It’s that he lied and omitted information in a way that was painfully obvious to the FBI and government officials examining his qualifications for the most elevated intelligence clearances. Then, the whispers in foreign capitals started; Kushner, they whispered, is for sale. American intelligence was listening.
Until today, Jared Kushner was one of a handful of recipients of the President’s Daily Brief, a product that compiles the crown jewels of the American intelligence community’s input and analysis. He was exposed to source and methods, high-grade analytical product, and the darkest secrets we have gleaned from the most sensitive sources. Although President Postliterate Bestwords has his PDB presented in graphic-novel form or performed by costumed dancers, Jared was apparently an aggressive consumer of intelligence, ordering up briefings and information outside even his broad purview. What he knows after a year in this position makes him the juiciest intelligence target in the world.
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Rockford
Home country: United States
Current location: Rockford
Member since: Sun Dec 3, 2017, 12:21 PM
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