With schools closed for a week due to heavy snowfall Ohio teachers volunteer to bring food to underprivileged students who will go hungry without it.

Courtesy of Cincinnati.com:  

On Thursday night, when it became clear that Newport Independent Schools would be closed for a fifth day, Principal Kyle Niederman went into a bit of a panic. 

In a school district where 90 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, he knew the snow days meant many of his Newport Intermediate students would have gone all week without having had a nutritious meal, or maybe even any meal at all. A fifth day off would mean that some might also go hungry all weekend. 

Niederman fired off an email to his teachers and staff, and on Friday morning nearly two dozen of them showed up at the school to trek across the city in the snow and biting cold, volunteering their time to knock on doors and deliver food to make sure their students were fed. 

They delivered 66 Power Packs, bags of nutritious, nonperishable items provided by the Freestore Foodbank and normally distributed to a school's neediest students on Friday afternoons. 

"We were concerned about our students and wanted to make sure we helped them the best we could," Niederman said. "They'll have food this weekend, and hopefully they'll have a good weekend."

Remember THESE are the people that Governor Scott Walker, and the Republican party, puts at the top of their enemies list.

I have known, and worked with, a lot of teachers in my time and I would say that the vast majority of them would not hesitate to do this as well.

They constantly come in to school when they are supposed to be off, buy supplies with their own money, tutor children after school for no compensation just to help them be successful, and fill in for busy parents when children are in crisis.

I am not a religious person but if I had it in my power to grant sainthood, I know dozens of teachers who would be at the top of my list.

Pope compares abortion to throwing away uneaten food. Yeah, because THAT makes sense.

Courtesy of ABC News:

Pope Francis on Monday criticized abortion as evidence of a "throwaway culture" that wastes people as well as food, saying such a mentality is a threat to world peace. 

Saying hunger is a threat to world peace, he noted that not only food but human beings themselves are often discarded as unnecessary. 

"We cannot be indifferent to those suffering from hunger, especially children, when we think of how much food is wasted every day in many parts of the world immersed in what I have often termed 'the throwaway culture,'" Francis said. 

That culture, he said, also affects the unborn child. 

"For example, it is frightful even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day," he said. Francis has generally limited his exhortations about abortion, saying church teaching is well known and that he prefers to speak less about the church's moralizing rules and more about its positive, welcoming message.

The idea that a woman deciding to terminate a pregnancy, especially in its early stages, is tantamount to throwing away a child is ludicrous enough, but comparing it to uneaten food that somebody else would take, which I take to mean they could be adopted, is intellectually dishonest.

The fact is that there are over a half million American children in this country waiting to be adopted, and millions more around the world, most who will most likely never find a home to take them in.

The idea that there is a home for every child born on this planet is a fantasy, and one that is constantly pushed by the anti-abortion zealots to guilt young women into carrying their pregnancy to term.

The statistics claim that there are 125,000 fetuses aborted each day, or 44,500,000 each year.

And according to the Pope each and every one of those children deserve to be born. That is 44,5000,000 new human beings each year, born onto a planet already bursting at the seams with 7 billion people.

7 billion people eating the available food, using the limited resources, and adding to the pollution which threatens to turn our planet into charcoal briquette in the not too distant future.

Of course the population could also be controlled through family planning methods, that used birth control to give women the choice of how many children they want to bear, and at what time they feel prepared to bear them.

But as we know the Catholic church, and the Pope, are adamantly against that as well.

Which is why the Pope's words ring so hollow.

Simply put he cannot express frustration over the number of people starving to death in the world while also demanding that every sexual act should have the option of resulting in a fertilized egg, and that each fertilized egg should result in a new life on this planet.

If the Pope really believes that the food wasted by the wealthy is enough to meet the needs of forty four and half million new lives each year, it is time for him to put down the Bible and pick up a science book.

Republicans repay their constituents for electing them by trying to starve them to death.

Courtesy of The Root:

The Republican Party is engaged in class warfare against poor and middle-class white Americans. It is a little-discussed fact but an ironic one worth noting, since those are the very same people who elect them. 

This week, House Republicans passed a nutrition bill that eliminates $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Nearly 47 million Americans currently rely on SNAP -- roughly 15 percent of the population -- and 17.6 million U.S. households are considered food insecure, which means they aren't sure where their next meal will come from. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (pdf), nearly 17 million of these people are children, 5 million are seniors and 300,000 are elderly veterans. 

And despite prevailing racial stereotypes, which first became mainstream during President Ronald Reagan's tenure and his propagation of the myth of a "welfare queen" from the South Side of Chicago, the overwhelming majority of food stamp recipients are white. And curiously, many of them are Republicans. USDA data show that in 2011, 37 percent of food stamp users (pdf) were from white, non-Hispanic households. 

And of the 254 counties where the number of food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican candidate Mitt Romney won 213 in last year's presidential election. Bloomberg's John McCormick and Greg Giroux compiled research revealing that Kentucky's Owsley County -- which backed Romney with 81 percent of its vote -- had the largest proportion of food stamp recipients of all the communities where Romney won. 

What is most curious is that this isn't surprising. The poorest states in the union tend to be the most reliably red, with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas among the top 10.

You know I have heard about cognitive dissonance before, but THIS takes the cake.

The GOP has NEVER been about supporting its constituents, and ALWAYS been about pleasing their biggest political donors, who are certainly NOT the people that will be affected by this bill.

If these same red states reelect their Representatives after this then they are simply to ignorant to survive anyhow.

I guess Darwin was right.

A final thought for today.

A truth spoken so many years ago, yet one which is still ignored by those who could take it to heart and change the world for the better by clothing the naked, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry.

How much do we spend to improve our ability to take a life in relation to how much we spend in order to save one? And recognizing that incredible disparity do we still dare to call ourselves humane? Or evolved? Or Christians?

All of us in this country should look to our past in shame and resolve to move forward in peace and brotherhood.  If not now, when? And if not us, then who?

The true meaning of Thanksgiving can be found here.

Winter has come again to Alaska, and just like we feared, villages in the rural areas are not faring well at all.

This comes to us from our good friend Ann Strongheart in Ugashik.

Well Thanksgiving is here and I spent last night not only preparing food for Thanksgiving dinner but also calling every household in Nunam Iqua. I called to not only wish them all a Happy Thanksgiving but also to check on everyone and see how they were faring so far this winter.

Unfortunately I did NOT receive good news. I was able to reach 23 out of the 36 household and out of those 23 families that I did talk to 22 were already struggling and requested help again with food to make it through the winter.

The complicating factors are a fall flood which destroyed fishing nets and boats, increased Fish & Game restrictions which cut their subsistence fishing season in half (These idiots have NO idea what the term "subsistence" means!), and a disappointing commercial fishing season which wiped out the yearly income for many of these families.

Now I know that it is the holiday season, and that you will find charities asking for donations just about everywhere you go, but I ask that you give this request special consideration. Because it comes from Ann Strongheart.

You see just this last August Ann lost the love of her life, her husband Segundo Strongheart, leaving her alone with a young daughter and another on the way.

And just a few weeks ago that baby, Glenna Gabriella Kegginacengaq Strongheart, was born.

Yet even with the passing of her beloved husband, and a newborn to care for, Ann has reached out to those in need.

I have again complied a list of the needy families in Nunam Iqua and I am hoping that y’all will be able to help me get food to them. Since I am wintering in Ugashik this year I will not be able to accept food and distribute it like I did last winter. So this is why I will only be doing the adopt a family for the winter food drive this winter.

If you would like to help and can adopt a family for the winter please email me at nunamiquayouth@yahoo.com I will then match you with a family in need at Nunam Iqua and provide you with their name, address, family size and needs.

If Ann, with so many reasons to focus on her needs above the needs of others, can do so much for the people in her community, can we really refuse to help? As I sit here digesting my Thanksgiving dinner and contemplating braving the crowds of "Black Friday", I am all at once painfully aware that there are so many with empty bellies, and families with NO gifts to give their loved ones.

So if you are able, just take a minute to send Ann an e-mail and ask what you can do to relieve her burden. Ann is somebody from whom much has been taken, perhaps we can demonstrate to her that there are others whose hearts are as "strong" as hers.

I am not a religious man, but I swear if there is a heaven, Ann Strongheart should have a special place dedicated just to her. And I have no doubt, that if such place exists that Segundo is standing there patiently awaiting their reunion.

(You can click the title to read all of Ann's heartbreaking post.)