Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@MCDuncanLab @hakona

I mean, if it's such a good gig being on SNAP... then go get on it. Quit your job and go live the good life. What is stopping you exactly?

@paulc @roytoo

This is why I think it's important to try to accept donations of physical items even though it's not as efficient. It's an important experience for the *donors*

But when being a donor one can be aware of that, and grow.

But it's like when you cook something and bring it to a person who lost a loved one. That's not really for them. It might be for you.

@hakona @MCDuncanLab

Sometimes I think "that could never be me. My family could help me" but with the way things are going?

Imagine your whole support network is tapped out. You know you can't ask for help because they are dealing with similar problems to your own. Or you are the one who needs to help them. The strain spreads like hairline cracks until the whole foundation falls out.

Then someone looks at you sideways for having a coffee. "That's your problem, that fancy coffee."

@hakona @MCDuncanLab

So he hasn't told it around me anymore, but I think what can really bother people is there isn't much separating them at all from being in the same boat.

So you make up a story about how you are making good sensible choices and THAT's why you don't need to worry about SNAP, or the hours of the food pantry.

It's not just a mix of luck and circumstances. That would be terrifying wouldn't it?

@hakona @MCDuncanLab

I have an uncle who tells the same story from the 80s where he saw a woman from a family who he "knew" was on food stamps buying a bunch of steaks and ribs at the butcher. This story is so old that there still was a butcher in the little Pennsylvania small town.

"And I was standing there with my chicken." he'd go on all indignant.

Dude is on social security and a US steel pension and owns his house. A few years back I got sick of that story and said something.

@hakona @MCDuncanLab

It's easy to imagine other people, especially people that are often not talked about with much respect as if they are just frozen in amber. As if they aren't trying to do anything with their lives, build anything, make a better future.

It's a kind of mental trap.

And with the way the US does so little about poverty it would be much less upsetting if one could imagine most poor people as foolish and nothing like ourselves.

That couldn't ever be you, right?

@michael_w_busch @roytoo @mattbc

Worth thinking about for regular donations.

@MCDuncanLab

This kind of thing pisses me off so much.

@ZahmbieND @MCDuncanLab

Gift cards are better than trying to buy food. But, they are also limiting. I might force someone to make an extra trip to an inconvenient location. And then there is the problem of there being like $2.42 cents on a card and nothing to buy that fits.

I promise you the worry that people are using money in a frivolous way is not worth worrying about. Free yourself from such thoughts.

Frivolous spending is its own punishment.

Money is freedom in this world.

@MCDuncanLab

Diapers are always needed and also cat food. Cat food isn't covered by snap but it always went FAST when we had it. People want to take better care of their pets.

Anyone who says poor people can't feed their cats can jump in the east river and I'd be happy to help them.

@roytoo

I went off on a tangent so I want to say the important part again:

Don't try to shop for people you don't know. Don't try to buy food for people. It's not helpful. You probably aren't even good at making good purchase decisions for yourself are you*?

Donate the money or give it to particular people who can use it directly.

*speaking from experience

@isocat

When people talk about all the churches that have closed I think about the radio shacks that are no longer with us.

Tis the time to build the hacker space. We all need a place to worship. To nourish the soul.

@roytoo

Totally. Don't try to shop for other people. They might have allergies. They might have 20 pounds of potatoes at home but nothing to put on them so they need some freeze dried parsley. You don't know.

I do think that now is a nice time to clean out the pantry and see what you can give away that you won't use. But this is more about morale.

The $20 donation will do more. But how would it feel to throw out food at a time like this.

It would feel very bad.

Give it all away.

@kastope

Is it possible to sign up without an address though? I thought it wasn't.

The Bronx will adapt. People will squeeze in even longer hours, adults will focus on buying food for the kids and forage themselves. Bagels at work? Better eat three and call it a day.

It's just another thing making it harder and no one deserves it.

These are the hardest working people I know on the damn planet. It's always one more THING.

Anyway I will take the cans down to the laundry room now.

Where I live in the Bronx about 40 percent of families use SNAP. But, people are very embarrassed about it.

Every person I know who uses SNAP works more hours than I do OR they are very old or sick.

We are setting up a pantry in the laundry room, but it's not the same. Nobody wants the strange canned food that I don't want. It's not the same as $40 you can spend on the food you really need.

If you are in the USA have you or anyone you know well (people you see every week or enough that they a part of your life) using SNAP benefits?

@mansr

It's also English.

This might be a case of pillaging so many words that we didn't notice we stole the same one twice?

What is the difference between a "gallery" and a "galleria" ?

Between "gallerias" and "galleries" ?

What is the English language up to with these words? I feel like we've caught the language in the act with this one. We must either make these distinct words or pick the one with the WORSE spelling and decide it's the only correct word.

@Peace

The evolution of the mealybugs has been shaped by the choices of ants in the same way that goat, sheep and cows have been shaped by the choices of humans.

This isn't just symbiosis. It's animal husbandry.

And it's absurdly effective too! These ants never need to leave their nests to forage.

This is what I mean about ants having achieved the same kind of complex solutions we celebrate in human history...just in their own way.

4/4