- The author’s blond, miniskirted, dog-walking friend: Allegra. Perfect.
- “Allegra doesn’t believe in taking anything unless you really need it.” As if “needing it” is an objectively defined concept. Personally I love self-serving logic; it’s simple, elegant, and functional and requires no principled positions.
While we were shopping, we ran into a friend of Allegra’s, a beautiful young woman with loosely pinned black hair, holding a baby. Allegra gave her a hug and cooed at the pudgy 6-month-old. “Are you on food stamps?” she asked her friend, explaining that I was researching an article for this newspaper. Her friend looked momentarily horrified at the exposure, but conceded that, yes, her family was on food stamps. She had recently completed acupuncture school and her husband had just finished a graduate program in art history.
“I spend nearly all my food-stamp money at the market,” said Allegra’s friend. “If you avoid packaged foods, the money goes a long way. And it’s a better way to eat.”
--
I love how the women get all atwitter discussing their food stamp expenditures. I expect that the following dialogue has been cut from the article:
“It’s, like, our friend Hanna, she spends most of her Food Stamps at Albertson’s. And I’m, like, honey don’t you know how bad processed foods are for you? I’m a holistic acupuncture-ist. I know what I’m talking about. And you should totally support local farmers.”
“I know! She totes feeds her dog, like Alpo. I wouldn’t feed that to my ex-life-spirit-partner. Ah-hahahaha.”
“Ah-hahaha! Oooohhhh, look! Artisanal Chevre samples!”
*[squeeling]*
“Oh, I’m gonna have to go straight to the Bikram studio after this!”
Sub Lycra pants for polyester-vintage, and “Bon-Bons” for everything else and it’s a Peg Bundy conversation.
Anyway, despite the nagging feeling that I should shower after I read about poor Allegra’s upcoming (free) surgery, I started thinking about what it says about a place where people on the Dole can still be confident lifestylers.
It took me a while to figure out how I felt about this article (about the overall implication, it clearly took me no-time to dismiss the women). On the one hand, I’m definitely in favor of reducing the amount of shitty food people consume, especially poor people. I like the idea of taxing soda, except that it would clearly be a regressive tax – the burden being placed on those whom can least afford it, because rich people don’t drink a lot of soda or eat a lot of candy. That is unless you count boutique cupcakes and the highballs they down at the club.
Mostly I felt like it was an insult that the article focused on two individuals who are probably a-typical in comparison to those who receive government assistance. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be getting assistance either, but their experience of what its like to survive on food stamps is not going to be a useful anecdote. There are plenty of people in Portland who are the real deal when it comes to knowing hard times, and it speaks of a journalistic laziness on the authors part that the article reaches no further than “I talked to my friend…”(ask me about Maureen Dowd sometime).
Not a polyester, flower print miniskirt in sight!
Even a casual survey conducted outside an assistance office might have revealed some interesting stratification among Food Stamp recipients – “How often do you go to the Farmers’ Market/ Did you know that you can use your SNAP card at the Market?” I suspect that a lot of poor people may not feel particularly welcome at Portland’s Markets, and that regardless of stigma, if you’re a beautiful, fashionable woman you’re only going to feel odd for the two seconds it takes to swipe that SNAP card and get your tokens. After that you’re just like everyone else there – enjoying the fruits of migrant labor and listening to an adolescent bluegrass revival band singing songs about being down and out.
"Anyone here work construction? Anyone?"
Ole times is here again!
Also, what the fuck is up with all these people: being on the Dole “Pretty much bites.” WHAT? It doesn’t sound like you’ve hit rock bottom, exactly, now does it? And obviously there are a lot of unemployed people in Portland. And there is not a whole lot of industry here to put them back to work. That’s a big problem facing the City and the State. But the real problem seems to be that the people who have the time, the educational background or ability, and the resources to develop industry or entrepreneurial success aren’t doing it. Acupuncturist – employ thyself! Wait, maybe Acupuncture School could have come after you got that degree in Supply and Logistics (and the job you’re 99% likely to get with that degree). I know it doesn’t satisfy your desire to self-actualize, but you might find yourself able to ascend that pyramid in a decade or so. Delayed satisfaction is so much sweeter – it’s, like, a Tao-ism or something.
The comparison with New Mexico’s Market was particularly enlightening, though in a way not mentioned in the text. You see, there’s something unsaid in the success of a Farmers’ Market: People have to have the time to go there. The comfortable retiree, the affluent housewife, the afternoons-off chef and the trustifari hippie are the lifeblood of the venture. The 9-5er, or the night-shift foreman is not at the Farmers’ Market. To have a thriving Farmers’ Market a community needs to be able to support the former in sufficient numbers. In Portland, I see the numerous Farmers’ Markets as a bizarro form of Urban Blight: It promotes the lifestyle of the leisure class for all, without addressing the fact that the situation is unsustainable for most. I’d gladly trade some Farmers’ Markets for an industry, because without one there won’t be either for long.
"What the fuck is a Farmer's Market? Are they hiring?"
It’s cool that you can use Food Stamps to buy organic produce, but it’d be cooler if you didn’t need them.
