| NATIONAL VIEW: Subsidies' harvest of misery
Congress can still act decisively this year to right a wrong that is hurting both small American farmers and the poorest people on the planet. A long-overdue debate is taking place on reform of the 1933 farm bill, passed during the Great Depression to alleviate the suffering of America's family farmers. I was a farm boy then, and the primary cash crops on my father's farm were peanuts and cotton. My first paying job was working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, measuring farmers' fields to ensure that they limited their acreage and total production in order to qualify for the life-sustaining farm subsidy prices. Tragically, in its current form this legislation does not fulfill its original purposes but instead encourages excess production while channeling enormous government payments to the biggest producers.
Founder of Rice Potato Chip Co. dead at 92
Myrtle Rice, who founded a local potato chip company from the back porch of her rental home during the Great Depression, died Sunday at her Hattiesburg home. She was 92. Services are scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at Temple Baptist Church East Chapel with burial in Highland Cemetery. Rice made the chips for her family and founded the privately held Rice Potato Company in 1939. By 1941, Rice and her husband, Kenneth, who left the oil industry to run the family business, had expanded the business to include its own building and five delivery trucks. Rice's daughter, Pat Braswell, said her mother grew up learning how to make potato chips and pies from Braswell's grandmother. Braswell says her mother knew early on that she wanted to start her own business.
Photo gallery: Famous Five monument
More than 50 years later, that would become the foundation for the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions extending new rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms The case was celebrated yesterday with annual "Persons Day" breakfasts across the country. This year's event coincided with a new book about the case by Justice Robert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal and Toronto lawyer Patricia McMahon. Entitled The Persons Case, The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood, it recreates the courtroom drama and delves into the personalities of the ideological compatriots dubbed "The Famous Five." Its recognition that eluded them at the time. Ten days after the decision, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, and their momentous victory was quickly forgotten.
Allen: We had each other (comment)
A few years ago I went back to my old home place. The house was not easy to find. The man who bought it had made a Christmas tree farm out of the land. As I made my way through the evergreens that had been left to grow into trees, I finally found where the house had been. The only way I found it was by locating the hand dug well which had been filled in by bulldozing the house and barn into the well. I did find the rusted iron pump lying on its side near the well. We had 105 acres of land with a log house and barn on it. We got $5 an acre when we sold it in 1934. Most of the money went to my Aunt Lizzie to pay off the loan Dad got from her to buy the place Please remember this was during the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he got elected president, started among other things the Workers Progress Administration (WPA).
Phils believe they can still play with Mets
New York Mets fans suffered through a depression last year after their beloved team became the first in baseball history to blow a seven-game lead with 17 games to play. The Mets choked. The Phillies took advantage. But would that historic collapse have happened had the Mets had two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana in their rotation? Nobody can be certain, but everybody can be certain Santana will be in the Mets' rotation this year - assuming the Mets and Santana work out a historically lucrative contract extension by tomorrow. And that certainly should make life much more difficult for the Phillies. Santana is arguably the most dominant pitcher in the game, and the dreaded Mets now have him. But the Phillies, who are the defending NL East champions, aren't about to concede anything. "He's definitely a great pitcher, but this is still a team game," Phillies righthander Brett Myers said yesterday.
Risk of depression greatest during mid-40s: Study
People in their mid-40s are most vulnerable to depression, a new study by researchers at the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College has found. The researchers said the finding was consistent for both genders across the world and identified 44 as the age when most people slipped into depression. The study of almost 2 million people in 80 countries said the risk of depression was minimal in younger and older people. Earlier studies have indicated that the risk of depression may remain constant throughout the life of an individual. This is the first study to estimate that individuals face the greatest risk during their mid-40s. The researchers used several specialized surveys as the basis of this study. Some of the noted surveys include Eurobarometer Surveys, the US General Social Surveys and the World Values Survey.
For Media
Close on the heels of last week's reduction in the Fed Funds interest rate, yesterday's half-point cut only heightens the impression that the Bernanke Fed is in a state of panic. Unless we are on the cusp of a Great Depression, nothing could explain these policy actions. Certainly there are no economic data that justified either the hastened, out-of-cycle reduction last week, nor an additional, rapid-fire rate reduction this week. We now have negative real (inflation-adjusted) rates of interest at the short end of the market, and rising rates at the long end. The market is anticipating higher inflation, not a weaker economy.. .
The drug habits of the creative underclass
Adderall, great for cleaning the house, bad for writing papers at the doctorate level (completely fine for undergrade papers, though). When I finally kicked my 60mg a day habit, er, prescription, the withdrawal was just like what you'd expect from an amphetamine salt... I gained 20 lbs so fast I thought I was pregnant. To reflect: Studies have been done linking stimulant ADD meds to increased cortisol levels and sleep deprivation to increased cortisol levels. Studies have been done linking increased cortisol levels with dementia, weight gain, diabetes, depression, and deteriorating hippocampus (the brain's center for memory and learning) among other diseases. Yet, no studies have been published to my knowledge using YE OLDE FASHIONED HYPOTHETICAL SYLLOGISM rule of inference, IF Adderall and sleep dep imply increased cortisol levels AND increased cortisol levels imply the risk of becoming stupid, psycho and fat...
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