clevermanka | Hodgepodge

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Hodgepodge

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Found on Cute Overload, Vacuum Your Cat. How much lithium do they give this cat? The owners say she's deaf, which probably helps. Unlike that horrible "cat spa" video (which honestly I couldn't watch all the way through), this is not kitty torture.

Fast-5 is going well! I'm pretty pleased with how I feel during the day, and I'm not binging at night. I only got headaches the first day. Now I need to up the exercise level. Tomorrow marks one week on the plan.

While we're on the subject of food, I recently commented in someone's LJ (locked post) about how the current American food system screws over low income people (in addition to screwing them over a million other ways). Basically, it comes down to: Carbs are cheap. When you've got $1.50 in your change purse, and you and your kids are hungry, those 10 for $1 Ramen noodles look like a good investment. When you do have a few extra bucks, you might spring for a package of the overly processed, nitrate-laden, water-added but cheap Buddig lunch meats. The system lets down middle income folks, too. Because even if you can afford quality food, you don't know what to do with it. We don't teach people how to plan meals, cook, or determine good nutrition anymore. I mean, do home-ec teachers still exist anywhere? Thanks, No Child Left Behind! You're doing a great job! Thumbs up (your ass). The whole thing is such a cruel cycle. Poor people can't afford good food, and don't have time to exercise. Fat parents raise fat children who don't know any better and eventually--through exposure and social conditioning--develop a preference for the crap food, thus spinning down the toilet of high blood pressure, obesity, and bad teeth. Gah! It makes me so angry!

*calming sigh* *again*

One of the recent MFA grads is taking me out to dinner tonight, and then I am going to run about collecting the hardware to (hopefully) finish my corset by the weekend. Thanks a million,

verminiusrex and

aurora_celeste for coming through for me on the hardware, and

solan_t for helping with the construction.

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home ec???? omg that died a long time ago. cause well we cant teach girls to sew and cook. they must be business execs and whatnot

my mom's cat Cleo (who was not deaf) LOVED the vacuum cleaner and when she would hear it would come and harass my mom until mom put on the attachment and vacuumed the cat.

Dude, the sexist comment is not welcome. I know you're trying to be funny, but the second bit especially is out of line.

At my school, both sexes took home-ec and shop.

That is fascinating! I wonder if they like the vibrations? Sort of like feeling mommy-cat's purr when being groomed.

Fetish isn't scared of the vacuum, but she doesn't like it. She'll sit on the couch and glare at me when I use it.

sexist??? i fully expect them to still have boys take home-ec.

What was with the "we cant teach girls to sew and cook. they must be business execs and whatnot" line, then?

I'm so right there with you on the food thing.

Not only are carbs cheap, if you go to markets in lower income areas, you will find that generally the quality of food sold is much less than in say a upper scale Hen House in a moneyed suburb (by that I mean, even the crap food is crappier). I noticed this when my ex-husband, Cliff happened to like a particularly nasty variety of Totino's Frozen Pizza...you could only get it at the Apple Market at Broadway and Valentine (home of stepping over panhandlers to get into the grocery store), not at any of the grocery stores we'd hit out in the suburbs.

People are taught to eat like crap. No one is taught to actually cook actual food...and everything that is packaged is laced with high-fructose corn syrup...even the things that aren't "sweet".

D.

if you go to markets in lower income areas, you will find that generally the quality of food sold is much less than in say a upper scale Hen House in a moneyed suburb

I didn't realize that. Huh.

it is what i believe political feminists (from the 60's not modern) would give as a reason for not having home-ec in schools.because it implys learning how to be a stay at home mom. not that it does. or would. but could. as with you i think a more modern feminist looks at it as a cooking class.but as the old type is in power they don't have home-ec any more. i am sure that in some schools they may have something resembling it. however there is no such thing as home-ec in the school juli goes to. and i do remember home-ec.... i took home-ec. i still have the pillow i sewed.

Feminism has had a miniscule, if any, influence on what programs are yanked from school agendas. The emphasis on test scores and minimum qualification are what's cutting everything from shop classes to band.

"Old type" feminists "in power?" *looks around* Are you kidding me? Where?

Hell, some inner city areas are lucky if they actually HAVE a grocery store in the neighborhood. Even one that sells crap food. There are some places where the only local food shops are convenience stores - and they sell the same junk no matter where they are.

aahh i disagree with you there. as the school was built before the no child left behind act.and there is no home-ec room. none. and it has all of those other programs you just mentioned.

and yes....they would be the ones in congress and in charge at the education department that not many our age could be in charge of yet.

I was just pointing out to James last night, now that we're in a better neighbourhood, that, strangely, the opportunity to save money doesn't exist in poorer neighbourhoods like it does in areas where people are better off.

Better quality food for cheaper prices in areas where the shoppers don't "necessarily" need to save money, and smaller packages of dollar crap which, when you add up the price in the long run, is actually more expensive in areas where people are poor.

It's not just like that with food though. Think of check cashing places and internet "cafes" and all the other businesses that are attracted to low-income areas. You have to pay for the goddamn privelege of being poor.

It doesn't surprise me that a school would choose not to invest in a home-ec classroom. There is a lot of expensive special equipment necessary and if kids aren't taking the classes, why invest the money?

I agree with you in a way, and up to a point--it's unfortunate that domestic activities aren't valued and encouraged. But that starts in the home. Kids weren't signing up for the classes because the classes weren't considered cool, or they were seen as useless. If there was a huge demand for the classes, and if it didn't cut into the money spent for upping test scores, the school board would find a way to fund it.

The theory that a group of man-hating, isolationist feminists is controlling what is taught in our schools simply doesn't hold water. I'm not disagreeing over the fact that such a woman exists. They do, and it's a shame--I'm opposed to discrimination and predjudice of any sort. But I don't believe that there are enough of them to have sway over our nation's public school system. Perhaps in your town there is an unusually large contingent, but that's certainly not the case for most of the U.S.

I don't know if I should feel relieved or disgusted, then, that it's not just the U.S. putting people in this position.

OK, that's not true. I do know--I'm disgusted.

Indeed. That's one of the problems with downtown KC.

The really interesting part of that problem, though, is that it has been next to impossible to get approvals to build a grocery store within that area. Apparently, a grocery store is actually considered something that lowers property values. I was shocked when I found that out.

But then perhaps it is because only certain grocery chains will even consider going into inner city areas (you'd never find a Hen House downtown, for example) and their demographics is what is considered the problem.

D.

>>they would be the ones in congress and in charge at the education department that not many our age could be in charge of yet.

Could you give me some names? I'm intrested in learning more about them.

But if you mean Margaret Spellings, nevermind.

Many high schools do still have Home Ec, only it was renamed Family And Consumer Sciences (FACS) some years ago. And it is open to both genders, as is Industrial Technology (Shop class, to us baby boomers). And they still teach sewing (and fashion), and cooking (although they tend to lean more to the "here's what you can do with a microwave" line at the early levels). And Ind. Tech. teaches some woodworking and metal crafting skills, mostly of the hobby/craft variety.

What is missing these days is FACS and Industrial Tech at the junior high school level, because most of *those* became middle schools, with 6th (and sometimes 5th) graders added to the mix.

And we can't let those younger children loose in a classroom with all of those dangerous machines, can we? (/sarcasm)

Some schools offer those courses for 7th and 8th graders, but the interest in them appears to be waning (enrollments in our schools in those classes have been falling over the last couple of years). I don't know if this is a reaction to the lack of cooking and crafting in their homes or just a natural consequence of more and more dependency on computers and prepared things.

See my response further down. Enrollments are down, even in schools and districts where those practical arts classes have always been taught. The interest simply is not there any more.

It's nice to hear that some schools do still offer the classes. I'm saddened but not surprised to hear interest is waning. I'm amazed the classes exist at all!

Perhaps the current surge of interest in crafting will help boost enrollments.

Since I grew up a poor welfare child, I'll jump in and say, yes, you are correct. You buy whatever you can afford, and when you have $20 left for the month and three kids to feed, you only look for cheap. I never grew up learning to cook because my mother doesn't cook. My mother didn't learn to cook because she was raised by her father, who didn't really cook much either. And she was raised in the 50 and 60s when overly-processed convienence foods first took stage as being "the next big thing." My eating habits are something I fight all of the time. It is even harder now that my mother lives with me because the only things that she really ever wants to eat are not the greatest of things. She does not have a taste for eating fresh food, and complains that she "likes to eat simple stuff, not the fancy stuff" that I make. I can't convince her that not coming from a can or a box doesn't qualify food as being "fancy." And buying good food is expensive. Even I had to cut back on the amount of organic food that I buy because I cannot afford to feed 4 adults and 1 toddler on just organic. I have to pick the foods I'm most leary of.

However, my overweight mother had three never overweight children (until one of them decided to have kids - *um*). See, we were also too poor to have cable. We spent the majority of our time *outside*. We played. We couldn't afford gas to have our mother haul us everywhere. We rode our bikes anytime we needed to get anywhere. We also walked to school. And played sports. My mother could let us roam outside, even at night, without worrying that anything would happen to us. I drive by Deerfield Elementary when I go to work, typically at the start of the school day. It is amazing at the number of minivans going in and out of there, dropping their kids off at school compared to the number of kids I see walking to school. Even all the kids that live in my neighborhood, there is only one house where I see them outside playing on a regular basis.

Schools are attempting to change things a bit. Sodas and sugary snacks are being taken out of the machines in schools. They are banning sugary snacks as treats in school parties (which, btw, they banned homemade treats a while back, so it had to be prepackaged crap). They are also starting to send home nutrition info with kids. Although, they are also sending home BMI reports, which for a kid it is hard enough in schools, now they get fat report cards. I don't completely agree with that.

It still doesn't solve the fact that regardless of the nutrition info being sent home, lots and lots more kids don't get to even see their parent(s) because of work. Who is home to make it? It cost too much money to buy food that good for you. And too many kids are sitting on their ass in front of tv, but who is home to guide them otherwise? If you have to work, you have to work.

I realize this is a very unorganized comment, but it is a subject that I feel strongly about as well, and this is more of a core dump than anything. I really don't even know what the solution is except to say that I will try my best to raise my children otherwise.

Some of our local schools still offer them. The teenager took a cooking class in junior high, but it was pretty simplistic. She's learning more about both cooking and sewing at home than she did in school. I'm just pleased that she sees them both as useful skills to have.

That's awesome that you didn't get sucked into the cycle. I think your experience maybe was the norm a generation ago, and definitely was the norm 50 years ago.

However, these days, as you mention, kids today don't play outside. They don't walk to school. The factors as to why they don't are numerous and different for everyone.

I think your solution is the only one that will ever work. One family at a time, with good habits taught at home.

There is finally going to be a grocery store downtown! Sun Fresh is going to build one. I'll enjoy it for when I don't have time to bring my lunch (or I just walk out the door without it because my brain rarely functions at full capacity in the morning) because otherwise it is eating out or in the crapeteria at work.

Yeah, I was thrilled to hear that was going to finally go through (but boy was it a fight).

It means that all the people who are now living downtown in condos won't have to go out to Westport or north of the river to buy actual groceries.

D.

Probably a bad time to insert a "Get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!" joke..

But I'm fearless like that.

Dude, sounds like you're still listening to those uninformed right-wing wackadoo talking heads. When they spout stuff like that, do they ever provide evidence or point at the people who are responsible? Or do they just use those little sound bytes? If they're talking about Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, um, she's kind of the antithesis of liberal feminist, isn't she? Whom do you mean? The head of the NEA is a man. The number-two man on the United States House Committee on Education and Labor is Howard Philip "Buck" McKeon, a Republican man. Whey they use the phrase "old-school radical feminist," that's just code for "someone who disagrees with my point of view."

My school had Home Economics classes, and I took three of them: typing (which has served me REALLY well), family something-or-other (which taught the basics of being in a relationship and raising kids), and a class where we learned the basics of nutrition and making clothes (I was the only male in this class - which was great! *g*). The first two didn't have dedicated classrooms; only the kitchen was built for this purpose, so I bet your school could have had Home Ec. Anyhow, it's unlikely that Eudora, Kansas, was a bastion of radical feminism when the school was built *g*

Anyhow, it just seems weird to hear this comment. I suspect this is just another side-effect of Hillary hate *g*

um yeah....run!!!!

she would not be the definition of old style feminism that is very true.
so im bad with names...it doesnt make me wrong. and yeah bad with names i dont know the names of 1/2 of the people that show up to game day everytime we have it.

now how did they get a kitchen in the one room school house for you chris? ;) lol

no man... no hate. there be to much of that in the world. i might disagree but hate is not something i do.

so im bad with names...it doesnt make me wrong

But you don't have facts or examples to back up your opinions and theories. You're basing everything on what selective news agencies feed you. And that, while perhaps not wrong, does fall under the category of Very Bad Idea.

You say (in a nutshell) feminists killed home-ec, but you can't come up with proof, or examples. Have your opinion, but don't profess it as truth if you can't back it up.

i am bad with names and what not. i can back it up given time. but i am sure i have used the words i believe more than once and not the word fact.

i was not aware that this was a have proof or shut up conversation. i didnt ask for yours. but whatever.

No problem, baby, now get out to the liquor store and bag me some beer.

Wow, that explains a bit more of the reason why North Lawrence is having such an awful fight to get any sort of grocery store in the neighborhood. It's traditionally thought of a The Very Poor area, and city council who actually listen to the folks there are more interested in development of commercial zones, hence that makes sense of the Disinterest in providing services the neighborhood actually needs.

Anything you say sweetcheeks.

*ducks*

Hey, we had TWO rooms *g*

Jjigae loves to be vacuumed. LOVES it. . . and he's deaf as a doornail. It seems like there's a link to me.

lol man :)

My grandmother's cat loved to be vacuumed, but she could hear just fine.

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