Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Programs Strain to Feed Newly Hungry Texas Kids

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Last week, USA Today reported on the skyrocketing number of children who have become eligible for free school lunches as a result of the recession.
While these children are on summer break, advocates wonder whether Summer Meals, a federally-funded program available in Texas, will be able to take up the slack.
The program, which can be offered to hungry children by school districts, municipalities, or nonprofits, is reimbursed by USDA and may be offered in a variety of formats. Food banks in Houston, Tyler, Dallas, Ft. Worth and Odessa have all launched innovative efforts designed to address hunger when school is out.
Summer Meal's biggest booster may be Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who traveled the state last week to drum up attention for the program (1, 2, 3, 4) while personally issuing a challenge to all Texas mayors on his blog.
"The mayors of Texas are in a position to improve the lives of children in their cities by generating awareness and working with organizations to help feed hungry children," said Staples. "I hope today spurs a change."
San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro agreed.
"In the richest nation in the world, no child should go hungry," he said. "We need to make sure the kids are not victims of a bad economy."

Blogger's Home Vandalized for Expressing Pro-Life Views

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This is just sad. In the United States, he has the same right to free speech and to express his political views and opinions as anyone else, whether others agree with his views or not. All too often pro-choice individuals are defenders and advocates of "tolerance" and "free speech," that is until a differing view from their own is expressed. As the old saying goes, "Free speech for me, but not for thee!"

Update 6/25/10: Apparently this has made the news: Telegraph Harold: Man believes vandalism tied to his opposition to abortion

Millionaire Doctors and Poor Patients

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A Report By Eddie G. Griffin, International Child Rightsadvocate



I find it interesting that thefederal government thinks Medicaid expansion is the answer when the number ofdoctors who accept Medicaid has decreased as the following numbers show.


2000 – 67%
2010 – 42%
2012 – 31%


Source: Dr. Mark Shelton,Facebook Post


Dr. Michael Burgess, U.S. House District 26 of Texas, explains why doctors are abandoningtheir practices, or refusing Medicaid patients. (See C-SPAN). In essence, theMedicaid reimbursement rates are too small. And with the anticipated expansionof Medicaid rolls under the Affordable Healthcare Act, they fear the medicalcare market would be flooded with poor patients, and fewer doctors willing tosee them.


In 2009, in a one-on-one overcoffee, Michael Burgess and EddieGriffin debated the healthcare bill which was being drafted and reviewed atthat time. Eddie Griffin was the first to point out typos and other flaws inthe original 1400-page bill, before it was rushed through the Congress andenacted as a 2700-page tome, known as “Obamacare” (socialized medicine, as some would say)

In the exchange, Griffinpleaded the case of The Unborn atrisk of being born with a “pre-existing condition” like the Blue Baby. In his C-SPANinterview on yesterday, Michael Burgess discusses his ideas about babies beingborn with pre-existing conditions. And still he has no solution for the Blue Baby,except a high-risk insurance pool, regulated by the state.


But there is irony in what Burgesssays about healthcare access. Justbecause people have a healthcare plan, it does not mean that they have accessto healthcare coverage. Having Medicaid did not guarantee that patientswould receive medical attention, as there will be fewer and fewer doctorswilling to take new patients, as more and more patients come into thehealthcare system under the Affordable Health Care Act.


Millionaire doctors are inrevolt, some threatening to shut down their offices, some threatening to leavethe country and practice elsewhere.


Dr. Burgess asked: “Why vilify the doctors? These are the verypeople that you need.” Good doctors? Yes. Bad, greedy doctors? No.


With over 650,000 doctors nowin the Top 1% of the income bracket, and 20% of doctors now in the Top 2%, howcan anybody ask why healthcare cost has gone through the roof?


Millionaire Doctors aregetting rich off their practices in a number of exploitative ways, from pushingpills for the pharmaceutical companies, to worthless treatments and unnecessarysurgeries, to plugging the plug on terminal patients when coverage runs out, limitingtheir own medical tort liability, while forcing some patients to mortgage theirhomes to pay their medical bills, these doctors maximize profit over care.


They vilify themselves whenthe take the Hypocrisy Oath instead of the Hippocratic Oath.


We have all had family membersbled by the system for premiums and later dropped, for some technical excuse ofother, written in a policy nobody could read and understand in the first place.


Simplification and streamliningthe system is necessary. Maybe that might mean that some of these millionaire doctorsneed to shut down their operations for the betterment of the overall healthcaresystem, if they refuse care to the “poorest of the poor” just because it doesnot pay enough.


We have often disputedwhether healthcare was a right or a privilege, whereby Burgess believes thelatter. And, since introducing him to the plight of the helpless unborn and uncovered,he has worked diligently to provide a fix, without having to rewrite another2700-page Republican alternative.


And just when he puts thefinal touches on his alternative to introduce to the Republican-dominated Houseof Representative, and in anticipation of, at least, a partial victory from theSupreme Court, the Roberts’ ruling was “not exactly” as he wished. Translated,Justice Roberts threw a monkey wrench into his alternatives.


The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act is the law of theland. That meant Burgess’ Republican alternative plan has to be altered.


Therefore, at a nexus intime, when the Republican proposed to outright kill “Obamacare”, there is noalternative on the table, only a promise from Burgess that one will be readybefore the month is out.


TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE


The law is in effect. And, itwill be defended. And, not until the Blue Baby is provided affordable healthcare coverage, pregnant mothers, elderly, and terminally ill, without caps ofcoverage, and patients without denial due to poverty, will we rest in thedefense of this Act.


Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)

Election Results: The Called and Chosen Protégés

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Many are called, but few are chosen-


In the July 31 runoffelection, we elected Marc Veasey forDemocrat U.S. Congress District 33, and NicoleCollier, Democrat, for Veasey’s vacated Texas House District 95 seat. Inthe wings await incumbent Texas Senator WendyDavis, District 10.


These are our chosen, fromthe ranks of the Democratic Party, trained and mentored, to go out and dobattle against the Republican opposition. The stars are aligned, from here(DFW) to Congress and to the White House.




While people are complainingabout things which have no immediate solution, and vie for debate, we, on ourend, are training up the next generation of leadership who has the courage and smartsto tackle the problems.


Marc Veasey, Wendy Davis, andNicole Collier have each been thoroughly mentored by Eddie Griffin, internationalhuman rights advocate.


These are not isolatedindividuals. They are part of a team on a mission. And, it will take akick-butt attitude to get it done. Eddie Griffin, once a leader in the 1960srevolution, is now a human rights advocate, with a dialectic perspective ongovernment.


I believe that we have thepower to solve our own problems with new and bold leadership. It is better tochange government from within, rather than keep banging on the outside door. Apower alignment intensifies the power of a few against the many.


God gives leaders wisdom andguidance by His Word. We, the people, give them power.


Congratulation again- MarcVeasey and Nicole Collier
 
Eddie Griffin (BASG)

Response to the 'Ideology of Nutritionism'

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I found the recent class topic on nutritionism especially telling about how humans respond to and deal with complex issues involving multiple factors. These issues may include things like health and hygiene, environmental sustainability, macroeconomic analysis, etc. Sometimes the path towards a viable solution to issues in these areas may be hindered by a habit to condense or even polarize the issues. When thinking about maintaining a healthy body, it’s hard to weigh and balance factors like diet, genetic predisposition, sleeping patterns, psychological responses to stress and pleasure, etc. And yet these are all macro-level products of even more complex interactions at the biochemical level. So it’s easy to understand how, given these complex issues, there would be a certain inclination to resort to simple answers and explanations.

One of the problems Gyorgy Scrinis highlighted in his article, “On the Ideology of Nutritionism”, that perfectly exemplifies this phenomenon was that of ‘second-order nutritional reductionism’ (p.41). Second-order nutritional reductionism is the focus on individual nutrients, and how they individually benefit the health of the human body. Of course this is complete nonsense, because all nutrients benefit the health of the human body by interacting with several other nutrients in complex biochemical reactions. Resorting to second-order nutritional reductionism would be like taking apart the human body, molecule by molecule, and then from scratch, deciding which parts are necessary for your survival.

The problems of nutritional health in today’s society aren’t new 21^st century problems; in fact, the problems are caused by a larger systemic inadequacy of society that the public health community has been trying to confront for some time- a scientifically illiterate populace. I am not saying that science is the absolutely most important pillar of a society. I’m saying that science education is the necessary solution for the way our society responds to the problems it’s facing at present. The way food and weight-loss industries are taking advantage of the lure of second-order nutritional reductionism is reminiscent of the era of ‘snake oil medicine’ in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, in which noxious concoctions were being sold to the public with absolutely no ingredient labeling. Examples of these patent medicines include names like ‘Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root’ or ‘Dr. Moore’s Indian Root Pills’, which mostly contained substances like alcohol, laxatives, and in one occasion, organophosphates to rig chemical tests.

Of course it’s different for today’s nutritional health issues, in which the most of the ingredients in manufactured foods are far from poisonous. But it shows an exaggerated consumer confidence in the industries to know what’s right for them, to know that single nutrient or health myth that would serve as a panacea for all of their problems. What is necessary is to get consumers to make choices based on scientifically rational terms, to be familiar with the scientific and, especially, clinical terms relevant to their health, and to get them to understand how to rationalize issues on a scale involving multiple factors.