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Double Cheapburger
No, SurfPup, but I do most of my shopping there. There are no supermarkets or shopping centers in my community. :(— May 3, 2010 4:05 p.m.
Gentler Cock Fighting
Interesting article, thanks T.B.— May 3, 2010 2:48 p.m.
Getting The Check
Congressman Bob Filner's testimony on SS claims, five minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BTdWiU1-GE— May 3, 2010 2:46 p.m.
Double Cheapburger
The store that is closing in National City is Ralph's, a store I shopped at, located in a community with a number of senior citizen housing complexes. That means that the only place to get groceries now are either the independents (see above), or Wal-Mart. Great choices, huh? Like I said, the situation is much more complex than most people realize. We struggle to get and keep a chain store, how in the world anyone expects us to get organic produce and meat here is beyond me. In spite of that, I do think things will change. Corporations can't ignore customer trends if they want to survive. Those of you with the means and money to vote with your wallet will change things for all of us.— May 3, 2010 1:15 p.m.
Double Cheapburger
No apologies necessary. I took it in exactly that spirit, that you feel strongly about this subject. I was trying to find the parameters of your involvement, what it is you want to happen, and how you intend to reach that goal. And I hope I outlined where the matter stands in our community.— May 3, 2010 9:21 a.m.
Double Cheapburger
Oh, and while we are talking about schools, most of the children in this community qualify for the free meals program, which provides breakfast and lunch paid for by our tax dollars. The food served is okay in taste, meets minimum standards in terms of healthy eating: ketchup is a vegetable, hash browns are vegetables. Doubt if any of that food is organic, including the cartons of milk. And let me tell you, if it ain't pizza or cookies, the kids hardly touch it, anyway. Orange halves, apple slices, carrots, corn, a lot of it gets dumped into the trash cans. People can scold all they want, but the reality isn't easy to change. IMHO, sophisticated, well-educated, higher income adults can choose to eat differently. The reality here is complex, which people on the outside looking in don't always grasp.— May 3, 2010 5:03 a.m.
Double Cheapburger
I remember reading in an article about Los Angeles when they did the fast-food ban some time back that in one nine mile area there were over thirty fast food chain restaurants. In the communities I have listed above, there are less than ten, and that's if you count Starbucks: hardly a glut. 1. Jack In The Box, 23rd and Market 2. Starbucks, 35th and National 3. Starbucks, Panda King, Little Ceasar's, 28th and National 4. McDonalds, Burger King, Del Taco, Pollo Loco, 28th and Main I've talked to many of my neighbors and residents of the community over the years and I know that most recent immigrants don't eat out a lot. The Hispanic diet is based mainly on beans and corn tortillas, something you can't get at most fast food places. Once families are assimilated, second and third generation, their diets become more Americanized and they do tend to eat fast food at a higher rate. I will say that there are a lot of programs in the schools that educate and encourage parents to eat healthy. That means eating more fruits and vegetables, less meat. They don't talk about organics here. It isn't practical or realistic.— May 3, 2010 4:43 a.m.
Double Cheapburger
Many of the people here produce some of their own food. Many grow chilies, tomatoes, nopal, melons. There are bearing trees in a lot of yards, fig, avocado, lemon, peach. Most immigrants come from agricultural backgrounds, they know what it is to grow crops, to raise small livestock. Virtually everyone I know has raised pigs or goats or chickens to be slaughtered. Our family in Texas grow food and raise animals on our lands, my friends in Texas run livestock on their ranches. Many of the people hired to work in slaughterhouses and poultry plants are Hispanic, or were, until the immigration raids began a few years back, now they have returned to hiring blacks and poor whites to do the work. Many Hispanics work in the fields and packing houses. We are not detached from the process, we are involved in it to different extents. Most of us are not ignorant about what it takes to provide food. We know how the glittering cans and sterile packages of meat got to the Vons. And we know what we are eating at McDonalds.— May 3, 2010 2:32 a.m.
Double Cheapburger
This community, and I am speaking of Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Memorial, Sherman, Stockton, has not had a major grocery store chain supermarket in something like forty years; there was a Safeway on the corner of 25th and Imperial about that long ago. Many of the women pull their carts to one of the IGA-affiliated independent markets around here, which is no bargain. Second-rate produce in the bins, off-brand goods on the shelves, brand name food at more than top rate prices. Where these places get their meat, God only knows. A few places provide fresh made tortillas, where they get the corn they grind, God only knows. Many of the people here qualify to get free food from the local government-supported food banks; they give basically the same food as you would get in a supermarket, canned meat, processed cheese, dried noodles, white beans. No fresh organic meat or produce there. There was a co-op for a short time on Imperial, how good it was, I don't know, but it closed down. A farmer's market was started in Sherman recently, the times I went, there were few booths and fewer customers, no organic produce for sale that I saw. The only large open land left is the Mercado property by the Coronado bridge, and that is some kind of Never-Never land; every so often, rumors float about a shopping center there, the last one I heard involved a Target as the anchor. When I was on planning, there was some talk of building a Ralphs on Market around 18th, as I recall. For this community, that's big. Frankly, I doubt we could ever get even a Henry's down here, much less a full-blown food co-op, and even if one were to open here, there would be no end of challenges to overcome.— May 3, 2010 2:05 a.m.
Trip to the Final Frontier with Willie!!
I've watched Pretty in Pink several times, really the only actor in that movie who stood out was Spader. The spooky sexy persona, perfect!— May 3, 2010 1:02 a.m.