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Home gardening offers ways to trim grocery costs [Survival Today, an on going thread]
Dallas News.com ^ | March 14th, 2008 | DEAN FOSDICK

Posted on 03/23/2008 11:36:40 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick

Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies.

At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."

Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh-food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.

A year later, he says, the family still had "several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot-pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread."

[snipped]

She compares the current period of market uncertainty with that of the early- to mid-20th century when the concept of victory gardens became popular.

"A lot of companies during the world wars and the Great Depression era encouraged vegetable gardening as a way of addressing layoffs, reduced wages and such," she says. "Some companies, like U.S. Steel, made gardens available at the workplace. Railroads provided easements they'd rent to employees and others for gardening."

(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Gardening
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Comment #8,821 Removed by Moderator

To: TenthAmendmentChampion
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/08/succession-of-violent-events.html
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2008
A succession of violent events
These last few days, crime and violence was the main topic on the news.

Not that people didn’t get killed almost on daily basis here in Buenos Aires city before, but the amount and more noticeably, the needless violence involved in these robberies is something to worry about.

The mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Marci, publicly admitted that there’s no safe place in Bs. As. City.

Some of the incidents aren’t well covered by the media, and I don’t want to go into every single detail, don’t have the time right now for that, but some of the things we can learn from them:

1) Anyone is a potential victim. A noticeable higher economical level makes you even more desirable in the eyes of the bad guys, but don’t think for one second that you will be spared because you aren’t rich, or just because you are poor. Poor people are getting robbed and killed for whatever can be found in their pockets.

2) There’s no “safe” time of the day. You can get killed at 12 AM, 6 AM or 9PM just the same. Nights are a bit worse because some bad guys prefer to operate in the dark, but the worst kind, the most brutal ones don’t care at all.

3) Surrendering does not ensure that you wont get killed. One of the persons killed these last few days cooperated with the bad guys when they robbed his small library, and when they were leaving one of them turned and shot him three times in the chest and one in the head with a .32 S&W long.

4) Meanwhile, a man fought back when he saw his wife and son being attacked in front of his house. One of the bad guys had a gun to the teenage son’s head, while the other two hit the mother in the face with their guns and kicked her on the ground. The husband acted out of desperation and started shooting with a 22LR, fatally wounding one of the criminals in the chest with a single shot. The 3 bad guys managed to get into the car but the corpse of the one that got shot in the chest was dropped later in front of a hospital.

One guy armed with a 22LR vs. three armed criminals that already have the drop on you are not chances I’d like to take, but sometimes an aggressive reaction like this one sends vicious criminals running, tough you should never count on that happening, and even thought the 22LR killed the BG in question, you should really arm yourself with something better.

The woman’s face was disfigured because of the beating and she’s in the hospital, but the son and husband weren’t harmed.

5) Many of the persons killed these last few days got killed inside their cars.
Cars offer NO protection of any kind against any caliber. You’d do well to remember that. If you ever end up using your car as a weapon, better go as low as you can in your seat, trying to use the engine a protection, since car doors and windows offer none, even against 22LR.

6)22LR, 32 S&W Long aren’t much to brag about but they can still kill you very much dead. Still, you should go for something more respectable for self defense in case they shoot back instead of running.

6) Most of these cases occurred when the person was either entering or exiting the house. This is, by far, the most dangerous moment, when you are more vulnerable.

7) Personal note here.

Guns are what you end up using when you [messed] up and failed in your awareness. I’ve been coming back home late at night again everyday at the same time. Yesterday some guys tried to cut me off but when they saw that I was a) armed and b) not slowing down, but rather accelerating, they moved away fast enough. Today I took a different route, and I’ll be using different ways back home so as to avoid being ambushed like that. These things happen often, and being armed and not stopping or the combination of both always got me trough. But when they target you they may use other resources like setting traps like stones on the street or throwing bricks at your windshield to force you to stop.

Better to avoid these things and make sure they can’t figure out your route and schedule.

It may seem that for a blog intended on urban survival, I concentrate a lot on self defense. Believe me, there’s a reason for it. If things in USA keep on going down hill, expect crime to get worse even in small town America, and be ready to change your everyday habits

FerFAL

8,822 posted on 12/16/2008 12:59:51 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (Join us on the best FR thread, 8000+ posts: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

My mother used to do it. It was beautiful in the dead of winter. She was amazing in the garden...sure wish I’d paid more attention!


8,823 posted on 12/16/2008 2:22:47 PM PST by AuntB (The right to vote in America: Blacks 1870; Women 1920; Native Americans 1925)
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To: All; Calpernia; metmom; TenthAmendmentChampion

UNDIAGNOSED INFANT DEATHS - ISRAEL: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
***********************************************************
A ProMED-mail post
http://www.promedmail.org
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
http://www.isid.org

Date: Tue 16 Dec 2008
Source: Haaretz.com [edited]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046900.html

Spate of mysterious infant deaths prompts health ministry investigation


The Health Ministry has launched an investigation into the sudden
deaths in the past month of 4 babies and the severe illness of 2
others. The cases, some of which were reported to the ministry in
recent weeks by hospitals, including Schneider Children’s Medical
Center and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, involved serious
neurological and cardiac damage to the babies, but in most of the
cases, no reason has been determined as yet for the illnesses or the
deaths. The initial ministry probe has turned up no connection among
all 6 cases, although the ministry is still seeking one.

The Health Ministry released a statement to the press Monday [15 Dec
2008] that Schneider Children’s had reported 3 recent cases of
unusual illness among young children in the past 3 weeks. Of these, a
14-month-old girl of Even Yehuda died of unknown causes. The child
arrived at the hospital with extreme brain damage that led to her
death. Her parents donated her organs.

Doctors believe the girl had contracted the common intestinal virus
coxsackie B virus, which doctors say can cause severe damage in rare
cases. However, physicians at Schneider are not sure [this or a]
virus was the cause of the child’s death.

Two other children are currently hospitalized at Schneider: an
18-month old girl from Ramat Gan and a boy from Bnei Brak 2 years and
9 months old. Both are suffering from various neurological
conditions, and one suffered cardiac arrest.

The hospital said there had been another case of a 14-month-old boy
who died suddenly, but in an autopsy he was found to have been
suffering from an infection of the heart muscle, said Dr Tommy
Scheinfeld, head of intensive care at Schneider, who explained that
this is “not common, but known cause of death in babies.”

According to the Health Ministry statement, following the report from
Schneider, it began an investigation in all of its districts, and
turned up 2 more suspicious cases, one of a 15-month-old girl with an
infectious disease who had died in the Dana Children’s Hospital at
Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, and an 18-month-old girl from the
community of Rekhasim in the north, who died suddenly at home. No
other similar cases have been located in any other hospital in the country.

According to ministry statistics, approximately 170 children die each
year in Israel from illness or accidents. Of these cases, 10 children
between ages 1 and 4 die of infectious diseases.

Dr Itamar Grotto, national director of public health in the Health
Ministry, told Haaretz Monday [15 Dec 2008] that the epidemiological
probe had been looking into possible causes for the 6 cases, such as
the presence of the babies in the same places, possible proximity to
animals, or even trips abroad to the same destinations. No such
connections, however, had come up. “We are now focusing on lab tests
of body fluids, and on autopsy. One of the main possibilities under
investigation is the presence of the common intestinal virus
coxsackie B virus.”

Scheinfeld said coxsackie B virus [of which there are 6 distinct
types) causes diarrhea and rash, but in rare cases might also lead to
infection of the pericardium or meningitis. He said viruses in this
group [that is enteroviruses in general] are common and in 98 percent
of cases cause only slight illness among the thousands of babies that
contract it. Schneider Children’s Medical Center said it currently
has 2 other babies hospitalized with severe convulsions, in whose
spinal fluid coxsackie B virus has been clearly identified, but that
they had recovered. The hospital said the virus is commonly found in
kindergartens and day-care centers.

Scheinfeld told Haaretz Monday [15 Dec 2008] that, “it is very
possible that this is a coincidental accumulation of cases that
usually extend over a whole year, and that this time occurred over a
3-week period. Sometimes there are cases of death and illness among
babies caused by unknown reasons, but that does not mean there is an
epidemic or that the cases are connected. It is highly likely that
there is no common source for the illness among the children, such as
the food they ate, although this must be investigated by the Health Ministry.”

Scheinfeld added, however, that, “it is possible that the reasons
will never be known, even after the investigation has been carried
out. No special steps should be taken other than the usual steps.

[Byline: Ran Reznick]


Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org

[It has not been established that these sporadic deaths are more than
coincidental. However the isolation of a coxsackie B virus from the
spinal fluid of 2 babies suggests a viral etiology in these 2 cases
at least. The coxsackie B viruses, although rarely responsible for
disease, have been associated more than other enteroviruses with
aseptic meningitis, fatal neonatal disease, pleurodynia, and myo- or
pericarditis.

Further information concerning the results of the investigations is
awaited. - Mod.CP

The HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map of Israel is available at
http://healthmap.org/promed/en?v=31.9,34.9,7 CopyEd.MJ]

[see also:
Onychomadesis, coxsackievirus - USA: (MI), RFI 20080729.2317
Onychomadesis - Spain: (Valencia), coxsackievirus (02) 20080711.2120
Onychomadesis - Spain: (Valencia), coxsackievirus 20080709.2099
Coxsackievirus B1, neonatal disease, 2007 - USA: (AK, CA, IL) 20080522.1691
2007
——1
Conjunctivitis, coxsackievirus A24 - Taiwan (02) 20071025.3470
Conjunctivitis, coxsackievirus A24 - Taiwan 20071017.3393
2005


Encephalitis, coxsackievirus - India (UP) (02) 20051127.3434
Encephalitis, coxsackievirus - India (Uttar Pradesh) 20051025.3115
Undiagnosed disease, fatal - Greece: coxsackievirus susp. 20050521.1403
2003

Coxsackievirus & heart disease 20000331.0482]
...................................cp/mj/dk


A few years ago, babies in Israel were dying and it was the formula they were drinking.

The manufacturer was a German company, who changed a part of the formula and did not adjust the balance of food value in it.

ProMed covered it in detail.
granny


8,824 posted on 12/16/2008 2:51:21 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: All

CPSC Releases “Do’s and Don’ts” of Holiday Decorating

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The holiday season is here and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is urging consumers to keep safety in mind as they decorate for the holidays. Flickering candles, blinking holiday lights and fragrant evergreens are beautiful staples of the holiday season, but when used improperly, these holiday decorating “must haves” can pose deadly dangers.

Each year, during the 60 days surrounding the winter holiday season, about 11,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms due to decoration-related injuries with falls, cuts, shocks and burns topping the list. The National Fire Protection Association estimates that each year an average of 240 fires involving dried-out Christmas trees result in 16 deaths and $13 million in property damage. An average of 13,000 candle-related fires are estimated by CPSC staff to occur annually, resulting in 170 deaths and $390 million in property damage.

“Deaths, injuries and the millions of dollars in property damage related to holiday-decorating hazards are preventable”, said CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord. “Keep the holidays festive, by keeping your family and friends safe from harm.”

Use the following safety tips when decorating this year:

Trees and Decorations:

* When purchasing an artificial tree, DO look for the label “Fire Resistant.” Although this label does not mean the tree won’t catch fire, it does indicate the tree is more resistant to burning.

* When purchasing a live tree, DO check for freshness. A fresh tree is green, needles are hard to pull from branches and do not break when bent between your fingers. The bottom of a fresh tree is sticky with resin, and when tapped on the ground, the tree should not lose many needles.

* When setting up a tree at home, DO place it away from fireplaces, vents, and radiators. Because heated rooms dry out live trees rapidly, be sure to keep the stand filled with water. Place the tree out of the way of traffic, and do not block doorways.

* When trimming a tree, DO use only non-combustible or flame-resistant materials.

* In homes with small children, DO take special care to avoid sharp or breakable decorations, keep trimmings with small removable parts out of the reach of children who could swallow or inhale small pieces, and avoid trimmings that resemble candy or food that may tempt a child to eat them.

* To avoid lung irritation, follow container directions carefully while decorating with artificial snow sprays.

Lights:

* Indoors or outside, DO use only lights that have been tested for safety by a nationally-recognized testing laboratory, such as UL or ETL/ITSNA. Use only newer lights that have thicker wiring and safety fuses to prevent the wires from overheating.

* Check each set of lights, new or old, for broken or cracked sockets, frayed or bare wires, or loose connections. Throw out damaged sets.

* If using an extension cord, DO make sure it is rated for the intended use.

* DON’T use electric lights on a metallic tree. The tree can become charged with electricity from faulty lights, and a person touching a branch could be electrocuted.

* When using lights outdoors, DO check labels to be sure they have been certified for outdoor use and only plug them into a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) protected receptacle or a portable GFCI.

* DO turn off all holiday lights when you go to bed or leave the house. The lights could short out and start a fire.

Candles:

* Keep burning candles within sight.

* Keep lighted candles away from items that can catch fire and burn easily, such as trees, other evergreens, decorations, curtains and furniture.

* Always use non-flammable holders and keep away from children and pets.

* Extinguish all candles before you go to bed, leave the room or leave the house.

Fireplaces:

* Use care with “fire salts,” which produce colored flames when thrown on wood fires. They contain heavy metals that, if eaten, can cause intense gastrointestinal irritation and vomiting. Keep them away from children.

* DON’T burn wrapping paper or plastic items in the fireplace. These materials can ignite suddenly and burn intensely, resulting in a flash fire.

* Place a screen around your fireplace to prevent sparks from igniting nearby flammable materials.

Get a free brochure with holiday decorating and toy safety tips at CPSC’s web site www.cpsc.gov (http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/611.pdf)

To see this release on CPSC’s web site, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09064.html


8,825 posted on 12/16/2008 6:08:42 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: ExSoldier

If you are not growing vegetables, now is a good time to start.

I knew you were in Florida and could help get the word out if it is not on your news already.

Stay safe and be happy.

Merry Christmas ....


8,826 posted on 12/16/2008 6:25:46 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

Minding my own business as usual when suddenly the car in front of mine starts slowing down (little red flag in the brain went up), and from the front passenger’s window a guy pulls most of his torso out of the window and points towards me with something in his hand, at first I thought it was a weapon, but instantly recognized the deodorant kind of bottle shape that protruded from below. He started spraying my windshield with foam! The instinctive thing to do would be to hit the brakes, but given the speed and cars near by, it would have been a big mistake.<<<

Versions of this is already happening here, heard a call on a drink thrown on a window a few days ago.

Check your Freeper mail.

Do you know what the message that was pulled is?/was?


8,827 posted on 12/16/2008 6:27:48 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

There’s a pasta called corte fidelo that’s already cut the right size. We use it in Armenian pilaf. Mmmmm that is some good pilaf.<<<

Is there a recipe?


8,828 posted on 12/16/2008 6:28:43 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

I hope you are warmer today!<<<

About 2 degrees, expect the temp to be about 24 tonight, per the news.


8,829 posted on 12/16/2008 6:30:11 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

It may seem that for a blog intended on urban survival, I concentrate a lot on self defense. Believe me, there’s a reason for it. If things in USA keep on going down hill, expect crime to get worse even in small town America, and be ready to change your everyday habits<<<

It is amazing the number of hijacking of cars there are in America and other hostage situations, but we hear of them only seldom, when they prove useful to the news media, to keep from reporting something we want to hear.

Keep listening to the scanner, sometimes more than one per night in any city.


8,830 posted on 12/16/2008 6:33:19 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: All

US-CERT Current Activity

Microsoft Releases Advance Notification

Original release date: December 16, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Last revised: December 16, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Microsoft has released a Security Bulletin Advance Notification
indicating that an out-of-band Security Bulletin will be released.
This bulletin will address a remote code execution vulnerability in
Microsoft Internet Explorer. Release of this Bulletin is scheduled for
Wednesday, December 17.

US-CERT encourages users to review the Security Bulletin Advance
Notification and apply any necessary updates when they become
available. Additional information about this vulnerability can be
found in the Vulnerability Notes Database.

US-CERT will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Relevant Url(s):
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/493881

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-dec.mspx


This entry is available at
http://www.us-cert.gov/current/index.html#microsoft_releases_advance_notification


8,831 posted on 12/16/2008 6:45:17 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: nw_arizona_granny
Yes, don't worry. I posted directly from Ferfal's blog and then noticed a swear word in it. I reposted the blog entry and flagged the post for the Admin to remove. LOL trying to keep the thread family friendly.

One time my nephew was driving his car down a street when a kid threw a bottle into the car window. Brian panicked and drove the car into a light pole. The kids disappeared, of course, and watched us from the yard nearby. Their mother defended them and said they were in the house the whole time. We called the police but they didn't do anything. They said they couldn't prove anything so there was nothing that could be done. Frustrating.

Nice lesson for the mother to teach her kids, huh?

8,832 posted on 12/16/2008 9:48:25 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (Join us on the best FR thread, 8000+ posts: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts)
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To: nw_arizona_granny
Yes. I have to ask my sister in law if I can post it. She got it from Mrs. Balian who swore her to secrecy (course I know it and so does my husband, so you know what they say about secrets). Let me see if I can find a copy of it on my computer -- I know the basic ingredients but not the measurements.
8,833 posted on 12/16/2008 9:50:46 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (Join us on the best FR thread, 8000+ posts: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts)
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To: nw_arizona_granny
In Argentina I believe the cops never report a great number of the crimes they are called to investigate. Instead, they like to stop the average citizen trying to get a bribe. I hope we don't ever get to that stage, but things got so desperate in his country that people were driven to do things they never dreamed they would do. I'll post an article next to illustrate how terrible things were.
8,834 posted on 12/16/2008 9:57:37 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (Join us on the best FR thread, 8000+ posts: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts)
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To: nw_arizona_granny
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/11/despair-in-once-proud-argentina.html

Despair in Once-Proud Argentina
After Economic Collapse, Deep Poverty Makes Dignity a Casualty
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01

ROSARIO, Argentina — Word spread fast through the vast urban slums ringing Rosario. There was food on the freeway — and it was still alive.
A cattle truck had overturned near this rusting industrial city, spilling 22 head of prime Angus beef across the wind-swept highway. Some were dead. Most were injured. A few were fine.

A mob moved out from Las Flores, a shantytown of trash heaps and metal shacks boiling over with refugees from the financial collapse of what was once Latin America's wealthiest nation. Within minutes, 600 hungry residents arrived on the scene, wielding machetes and carving knives. Suddenly, according to accounts from some of those present on that March day, a cry went up.

“Kill the cows!” someone yelled. “Take what you can!”

Cattle company workers attempting a salvage operation backed off. And the slaughter began. The scent of blood, death and fresh meat filled the highway. Cows bellowed as they were sloppily diced by groups of men, women and children. Fights broke out for pieces of flesh in bloody tugs of war.

“I looked around at people dragging off cow legs, heads and organs, and I couldn't believe my eyes,” said Alberto Banrel, 43, who worked on construction jobs until last January, when the bottom fell out of the economy after Argentina suffered the world's largest debt default ever and a massive currency devaluation.

“And yet there I was, with my own bloody knife and piece of meat,” Banrel said. “I felt like we had become a pack of wild animals... like piranhas on the Discovery Channel. Our situation has turned us into this.”

The desolation of that day, neighbor vs. neighbor over hunks of meat, suggested how profoundly the collapse has altered Argentina. Traditionally proud, Argentines have begun to despair. Talk today is of vanished dignity, of a nation diminished in ways not previously imaginable.
Argentines have a legacy of chaos and division. In search of their “workers’ paradise,” Juan and Eva Peron declared war on the rich. During the “dirty war” of the 1970s, military rulers arrested tens of thousands of people, 15,000 of whom never resurfaced. And when then-President Carlos Menem touted New Capitalism in the 1990s, the rich got richer — many illegally — while the poor got poorer.

Yet some things here never really changed. Until last year, Argentines were part of the richest, best-educated and most cultured nation in Latin America. Luciano Pavarotti still performed at the Teatro Colon. Buenos Aires cafe society thrived, with intellectuals debating passages from Jorge Luis Borges over croissants and espresso. The poor here lived with more dignity than their equals anywhere else in the region. Argentina was, as the Argentines liked to say, very civilized.
Not anymore.

Beatriz Orresta, 20, holds her malnourished son, in Rio Chico. She had been feeding her children soup made with the dried bones of a dead cow her husband had found. (Silvina Frydlewsky for The Post)

Argentines have watched, horrified, as the meltdown dissolved more than their pocketbooks. Even the rich have been affected in their own way. The tragedy has struck hardest, however, among the middle class, the urban poor and the dirt farmers. Their parts of this once-proud society appear to have collapsed — a cave-in so complete as to leave Argentines inhabiting a barely recognizable landscape.

With government statistics showing 11,200 people a day falling into poverty — earning less than $3 daily — Buenos Aires, a city once compared to Paris, has become the dominion of scavengers and thieves at night. Newly impoverished homeless people emerge from abandoned buildings and rail cars, rummaging through trash in declining middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. People from the disappearing middle class, such as Vicente Pitasi, 60 and jobless, have turned to pawn shops to sell their wedding rings.

“I have seen a lot happen in Argentina in my day, but I never lost hope until now,” Pitasi said. “There is nothing left here, not even our pride.”

Wages Fall, Prices Rise

Late last month, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Eva Peron’s death, thieves swiped the head of a new statue of her. Nothing, really, is sacred here anymore. Ads by concerned citizens appear on television, asking Argentines to look inward at a culture of tax evasion, incivility and corruption. But nobody seems to be listening.

Food manufacturers and grocery stores are raising prices even as earning power has taken a historic tumble. A large factor in both the price rises and the slump in real wages is a 70 percent devaluation of the peso over the last six months. But the price of flour has soared 166 percent, canned tomatoes 118 percent — even though both are local products that have had little real increases in production costs.

Severe hunger and malnutrition have emerged in the rural interior — something almost never seen in a country famous for great slabs of beef and undulating fields of wheat. In search of someone to blame, Argentines have attacked the homes of local politicians and foreign banks. Many of the banks have installed steel walls and armed guards around branch offices, and replaced glass windows decorated with ads portraying happy clients from another era.

Economists and politicians differ on the causes of the brutal crisis. Some experts blame globalization and faulty policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund. But just as many blame the Argentine government for runaway spending and systematic corruption. The one thing everyone agrees on, however, is that there is no easy fix.

Statistically, it is easy to see why. Before 1999, when this country of 36 million inhabitants slipped into recession, Argentina's per capita income was $8,909 — double Mexico's and three times that of Poland. Today, per capita income has sunk to $2,500, roughly on a par with Jamaica and Belarus.

The economy is projected to shrink by 15 percent this year, putting the decline at 21 percent since 1999. In the Great Depression years of 1930-33, the Argentine economy shrank by 14 percent.
What had been a snowball of poverty and unemployment has turned into an avalanche since January's default and devaluation. A record number of Argentines, more than half, live below the official poverty line. More than one in five no longer have jobs.

“We've had our highs and lows, but in statistical and human terms, this nation has never faced anything like this,” said Artemio Lopez, an economist with Equis Research. “Our economic problems of the past pale to what we're going through now. It's like the nation is dissolving.”

The Suffering Middle Class

Every Argentine, no matter the social class, has a crisis story. Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, 80, one of the country's richest women, was forced to offer up paintings by Gauguin, Degas, Miro and Matisse at a Sotheby’s auction in May. For many of Argentina's well-to-do, the sale was the ultimate humbler, a symbol of decline in international stature.

Those suffering most, however, are the ones who had less to begin with.

On the morning of her 59th birthday, Norma Gonzalez woke up in her middle-class Buenos Aires home, kissed her husband on the cheek and caught a bus to the bank. There, before a stunned teller, the portly redhead, known by her family and friends mostly for her fiery temper and homemade meat pies, doused herself with rubbing alcohol, lit a match and set herself ablaze.
That was in April. Today, Rodolfo Gonzalez, 61, her husband, keeps a daily vigil at the burn center where his wife is still receiving skin grafts on the 40 percent of her body that sustained third-degree burns. She had no previous record of mental illness, according to her family and doctors, and has spoken only once about that morning.

“She just looked up at me from her hospital bed and said, ‘I felt so helpless, I just couldn't take it anymore,’ “ Gonzalez said. “I can't understand what she did. It just wasn't Norma. But I suppose I can understand what drove her to it. It's this country. We're all going crazy.”

Argentina long had the largest middle class, proportionally, in Latin America, and one of the continent's most equitable distributions of wealth. Much of that changed over the last decade as millions of middle managers, salaried factory workers and state employees lost their jobs during the sell-off of state-run industries and the collapse of local companies flooded by cheap imports.

Initially, Rodolfo Gonzalez was one of the lucky ones. An engineer for the state power company, he survived the early rounds of layoffs in the early 1990s when the company was sold to a Spanish utility giant. His luck changed when the company forced him out in a round of early retirements in 2000.

He was 59 and had worked for the same company for 38 years. Yet he landed a part-time job, and with his severance pay safely in the bank, he and his wife thought they could bridge the gap until Gonzalez became eligible for social security in 2004.

Then came “El Corralito.”

Literally translated, that means “the little corral.” But there is nothing little about it. On Dec. 1, Domingo Cavallo, then the economy minister, froze bank accounts in an attempt to stem a flood of panicked depositors pulling out cash.

Most banks here are subsidiaries of major U.S. and European financial giants that arrived with promises of providing stability and safety to the local banking system. But many Argentines who did not get their money out in time — more than 7 million, mostly middle-class depositors, did not — faced a bitter reality: Their life savings in those institutions, despite names such as Citibank and BankBoston, were practically wiped out.

Virtually all had kept their savings in U.S. dollar-denominated accounts. But when the government devalued the peso, it gave troubled banks the right to convert those dollar deposits into pesos. So the Gonzalez family's $42,000 nest egg, now converted into pesos, is worth less than $11,600.
As the family had trouble covering basic costs, Norma Gonzalez would go to the bank almost every week to argue with tellers and demand to see a manager, who would never appear. As prices rose and the couple could not draw on their savings, their lifestyle suffered. First went shows in the Buenos Aires theater district and dinners on Saturday night with friends. Then, in March, they cut cable TV.

Around the same time, the Gonzalezes’ daughter, Paula, 30, lost her convenience store. Separated and with two children, she turned to her parents for support.

The Gonzalezes had been planning for 18 months to take Norma's dream vacation, to Chicago to visit a childhood friend. After the trip was shelved as too expensive, she seemed to break.

“I can't explain it, and maybe I never will be able to,” Rodolfo Gonzalez said. He added: “But maybe you can start to figure out why. You have to wonder: Is all this really happening? Are our politicians so corrupt? Are we now really so poor? Have the banks really stolen our money? And the answers are yes, yes, yes and yes.”

Scavenging Urban Trash

“There is not enough trash to go around for everyone,” said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre. Rail-thin, he normally passes his days combing the garbage-strewn roads around the Las Flores slums in Rosario, a city of 1.3 million residents 200 miles northwest of Buenos Aires and long known as “the Chicago of Argentina.”

If Banrel finds enough discarded plastic bottles and aluminum cans — about 300 — he can make about $3 a day. But the pickings are slim because competition is fierce. The misery villages, as shantytowns such as Las Flores are called, are becoming overcrowded with the arrival of people fleeing desperate rural areas where starvation has set in. About 150 new families arrive each month, according to Roman Catholic Church authorities.

With more people in the slums, there are fewer plastic bottles to go around. Banrel said he was getting desperate that day when he joined the mob on the highway.

His family of three — his wife is pregnant with their second child — had been surviving on a bowl of watery soup and a piece of bread each day. He earned at least $40 to $60 a week last year working construction. With that gone, and with food getting more expensive, he said, “You can't miss an opportunity, not around here.”

“Am I proud of what we did?” he added. “No, of course not. Would I do it again? Yes, of course. You start to live by different rules.”

Reality of Rural Hunger

For some rural families, the crisis has gone further. It has generated something rarely seen in Argentina: hunger. In the province of Tucuman, an agricultural zone of 1.3 million people, health workers say cases of malnutrition have risen 20 percent to 30 percent over the previous year.

“I wish they would cry,” whispered Beatriz Orresta, 20, looking at her two young sons in a depressed Tucuman sugar cane town in the shadow of the Andes. “I would feel much better if they cried.”

Jonatan, 2, resting on the dirt floor behind the family's wooden shack, and Santiago, the 7-month-old she cradled in her arms, lay listlessly.

“They don't act it, but they're hungry. I know they are,” she said.

Orresta can tell. Jonatan is lethargic. His lustrous brown hair has turned a sickly carrot color. Clumps of it sometimes fall out at night as Orresta strokes him to sleep. Santiago hardly seems to mind that Orresta, weak and malnourished herself, stopped lactating months ago. The infant, sucking on a bottle of boiled herbal tea, stares blankly with sunken eyes.

Six months ago, the boys were the loudest complainers when their regular meals stopped. Orresta’s husband, Hector Ariel, 21, had his $100 monthly salary as a sugar cane cutter slashed almost in half when candy companies and other sugar manufacturers in the rural enclave of Rio Chico, 700 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, were stung by dried-up credit and a massive drop in national consumption.

Ariel now earns just over $1.50 a day, not enough for the family to survive. The peso's plunge has generated inflation of more than 33 percent during the first seven months of the year, more than double the government's projection for the entire year.

Goods not in high demand, such as new clothing, have not gone up significantly in price, but staples that families need for daily subsistence have doubled or tripled. The last time inflation hit Argentina — in the late 1980s, when it rose to a high of 5,000 percent — the unemployment rate was half the current 21.5 percent and most salaries were indexed to inflation. Today, there are no such safety nets.

“I could buy rice for 30 cents a kilo last year,” Orresta said. “It's more than one peso 50 now. At least we will eat tonight, that's the important thing,” she said, stirring an improvised soup.
The concoction, water mixed with the dried bones of a long-dead cow her husband found in an abandoned field, had been simmering for two days. The couple had not eaten in that time. It had been 24 hours since the children ate.

Orresta, like most mothers in her village, started trimming costs by returning to cloth diapers for her two young boys when the price of disposable ones doubled with inflation. But then she could no longer afford the soap to wash them, and resorted to reusing the same detergent four or five times. The children began to get leg rashes.

By late January, the family could no longer afford daily meals. A month later, Jonatan’s hair began turning reddish and, later, falling out. Although he has just turned 2, Jonatan still cannot walk and has trouble focusing his eyes.

Orresta stopped lactating in April. But the price of powdered milk had almost tripled by then, from three pesos for an 800-gram box to more than eight pesos. At those prices, the family can afford 11 days of milk a month. The rest of the time, Santiago drinks boiled maté, a tea that also serves as an appetite suppressant.

“You know, we're not used to this, not having enough food,” said Orresta, with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

She paused, and began to weep.

“You can't know what it's like to see your children hungry and feel helpless to stop it,” she said. “The food is there, in the grocery store, but you just can't afford to buy it anymore. My husband keeps working, but he keeps bringing home less and less. We never had much, but we always had food, no matter how bad things got. But these are not normal times.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47822-2002Aug5.html

8,835 posted on 12/16/2008 10:13:15 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (Join us on the best FR thread, 8000+ posts: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts)
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To: All

Date palm seed from Masada is the oldest to germinate

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-methuselah13-2008jun13,0,352032.story

The seed is found to be 2,000 years old. Planted three years ago, it has
produced a healthy tree.
By Wendy Hansen
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 13, 2008

Scientists using radiocarbon dating have confirmed that an ancient
Judean date palm seed among those found in the ruins of Masada in
present-day Israel and planted three years ago is 2,000 years old — the
oldest seed ever to germinate.

The seed has grown into a healthy, 4-foot-tall seedling, surpassing the
previous record for oldest germinated seed — a 1,300-year-old Chinese
lotus, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.

continued.


8,836 posted on 12/17/2008 12:35:17 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

“Am I proud of what we did?” he added. “No, of course not. Would I do it again? Yes, of course. You start to live by different rules.”<<<

That is so true.

I fear that we will experience the same as Argentina has.

As far as I can tell, we are already, I hear so much about the homeless people on the scanners and they are not all has bens.

It is easy to be homeless, run out of money and at today’s prices, that would not take long.

Did you consider making thread of these Argentina reports on the main Free Republic page? More people should be reading them. The posts for the last couple days you have here would make a powerful statement.

Farfal, first came to my attention a few days ago, from an intel group that I read....at least those that are important now know that he exists and the truth on what is going on there.

When you read this and remember, my childhood was not that much better as a fruit tramp, it makes the step over the line so much easier.

On my social security, I could not rent an apt, buy food and the medicine and oxygen machine to keep alive, there isn’t enough coming in.

The street would be real close, or it would be a short life.

In San Diego, they are now attempting to help the homeless, who want help, to get back on their feet, you will hear the police officers ask for a person from that department to meet them.

It breaks my heart, when I hear an officer, go on a call for a man or woman in the street, who is passed out, of course often it is drugs and booze, but there are the others, who simply have no other place to sleep.

There are shelters for them in most towns, but they fill up and never have enough beds for all that need them.

A depression is not pretty and is even uglier with ugly politicians.


8,837 posted on 12/17/2008 1:08:21 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: TenthAmendmentChampion

Instead, they like to stop the average citizen trying to get a bribe. I hope we don’t ever get to that stage, but things got so desperate in his country that people were driven to do things they never dreamed they would do. I’ll post an article next to illustrate how terrible things were. <<<

That is the way it goes, when times get hard.

I forget which state it was, but they were laying off police to cut the budget, California as I recall, heard it on the radio news.


8,838 posted on 12/17/2008 1:10:54 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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To: nw_arizona_granny

Thank you for all that you do for FR on the Home Gardening thread. God Bless you and you hang in there!


8,839 posted on 12/17/2008 1:20:54 AM PST by BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")
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To: All

Free Copy of the HSUS Guide to Vegetarian Eating
US/Canada
http://www.hsus.org/forms/guide_to_vegetarian_eating_booklet_order_form.html


8,840 posted on 12/17/2008 2:57:53 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1990507/posts?page=7451 [Survival,food,garden,crafts,and more)
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