author: MsLiz

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
[email] wrote:

Is it possible for the babysitter to take your daughter to programs
that offer social settings for children.  I've lived in two different
states and the park and recreation program has tons of classes for
young children to enjoy.  There are sports, the arts, tumbling, etc.
If you're daughter has bonded with her sitter, I'd definitely seek out
programs (the library has reading time for instance) and keep her home
for as long as possible.  She'll be gone before you know it.

I'm more of a "if you don't have to use day care, then don't."


author: [redacted]

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Stephanie wrote:

I'm very compliant with the 24-hour rule, and I've also gone out of my
way to warn the teachers at my center about unusual sickness situations
so that they'd know what to look for.  OTOH, I tend to agree that
usually by the time the symptoms have been observed, if it's a virus,
the damage is done.  The main reasons to bring a sick child home
quickly in my opinion are that a sick child requires more care than a
well child and it's not fair to make the caregiver lavish all of his or
her attention on one child, and it's also not fair to the child to be
forced to stay in school when feeling crummy.  I don't sweat sending my
son to school with a runny nose.

My only peeve with my center in the contagion department is that in the
winter, they tend to herd all of the older kids (from different rooms)
into one room at the end of the day to play while they wait for the
parents, which ensures that if something's going around one room, it's
going around all the rooms.  I understand why they do it, but it seems
as though it exacerbates the winter cold and flu season a little.

Beth


author: Stephanie

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"MsLiz" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Why's that?


author: toypup

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"MsLiz" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Babysitter is better than daycare?  Why the blanket rule?  Wouldn't it just
depend on the sitter and the daycare?


author: toto

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On 18 Aug 2005 14:01:23 -0700, "[email]"
<[email]> wrote:

Unless you want much higher daycare fees, this is inevitable since
there are less children at the end of the day (and usually at the
beginning of the day too - kids in the daycares I worked at came
into a single room and were picked up by their teachers from that
room about an hour after early shift began).   There is no need to
pay every teacher to be there at 6 am or until 6 PM since many kids
come later or leave earlier and the ratio of staff to child can be
maintained with fewer teachers.


author: Sidheag McCormack

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Ruth Baltopoulos writes:

["this" being: child mentions having been dosed before coming to daycare;
provider quizzes parent; parent admits it]

I'm shocked - no, horrified. (Incidentally the reason why I asked about
2005 was that I wanted to ask about a specific timeframe that was recent
enough that you'd have a reasonable chance of remembering, rather than
having to rely on your general impression of how often it happens. I hadn't
expected it to be anything like so often though!)

I didn't mean that exactly. I had in mind that if it simply isn't plausible
that someone didn't know something, you can fix them with a basilisk stare
and say "You didn't know? Really? This *is* your signature, isn't it? Don't
you remember signing *here* to say that you did know?" Of course one would
not in practice expect to go through that - but the point is that *the
provider can set it up* so that a claim not to know can be refuted, and so
that such a claim could be made very embarrassing for the client, and so
that the client knows that.

Indeed! Thanks for your contributions, which have been an eye-opener.

Interesting that we still lack any admissions at all from parents here that
they've ever done this, unless I've missed any!

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Ruth Baltopoulos writes:

I wasn't attempting to be funny, exactly, but I did spell it out precisely
because it seemed so implausible, yet it seemed that something like that
had to have happened for providers to be able to claim that they really
knew this was going on. I was trying to hoping more detailed descriptions
of what actually does happen, which you gave (thanks):

OK, that would be conclusive. (How many times has this happened to you in
2005, would you say?)

If I were a provider and this happened to me (more than once, perhaps), I'd
take it as a sign that my policy needed to be made (even) clearer, perhaps
by having a parent sign to having read and understood this particular
clause, separate from signing any other agreement. Then I'd frame a copy in
big red letters and hang it on the wall near the door. My point is that I
think it's the provider's job to make sure policies are clearly understood.
My provider is not perfect in this respect. They have a large file of
policies on everything under the sun, one of which is the illness policy.
They don't provide a copy to parents; rather, a copy is available in the
office. You browse it when you look round the nursery, and in principle you
can consult it at any time (but the office is in a different building from
my son's room, so it's not trivial to do so!). I did read it carefully,
because I'm that kind of person, and I remember that my provider has a
no-fever policy, but I certainly couldn't fault a client of my provider who
forgot. Now, maybe I just happen to be with the only provider in the world
that has a failing like this - or maybe not.

OK. (How many times has this happened to you in 2005, would you say?)

Or maybe, which is what has been worrying me, providers systematically
suspect parents of dishonesty more often than it actually occurs. That
wouldn't be very surprising to me; it's a nuisance when a child comes down
with an illness and it's human nature to consider whether someone else is
to blame when unpleasant things happen! We've heard from several people,
but most of what we've heard has been suspicion, or "everybody knows" type
statements.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Ruth Baltopoulos writes:

Several people have said this. But how do you know? Has there been a
published anonymous survey of parents asking how often if at all they've
done this, or something like that? If not, I have to wonder whether it's
just suspicion on the part of the providers, unfounded in fact. I don't
remember anyone here saying they've ever done it, even though the providers
probably aren't reading and there's always anonymity...

FWIW, I use full time daycare and I've never done this. (I *have* given DS
a painkiller in the morning before nursery, on a couple of occasions, for
teething pain. My experience was that he'd be fine once life got *really*
entertaining for him, which it always was at nursery, though at home with
fewer distractions he was miserable. In this case, I felt sending him to
nursery was obviously the right thing to do. We did tell his keyworker,
since in principle - hasn't happened yet in practice - they can give
painkillers there without asking us first, and in the unlikely event that
they'd want to do that that day, we wouldn't have wanted him to get
accidentally double dosed.)

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sue  writes:

Oh, I've heard of it lots of times, that's the whole point! What I'm
doubting is how often it actually happens, as opposed to a provider
suspecting it's happened. You say (and someone else said something similar
"some even admitted to doing it". OK, in the cases (the majority, to go by
your wording) where they *didn't* admit to doing it (and the child is
pre-verbal), why should we believe it's more than suspicion? IME feeling
OKish in the morning, then feeling worse and starting a fever middayish, is
a very common pattern at the beginning of a febrile illness. I really hate
the idea that every time that happens a provider will assume it's because
of dishonesty on the part of the parents, and I'm not seeing the
justification for it.

Another issue is what kind of "admission" we're talking about. If it hasn't
been clearly communicated that the provider has a no-fever policy, then
telling the provider about the medication is information, not admission.
Similarly, if the medication was given because the child was feeling
unwell, but didn't have symptoms that violated the agreed policy, then it's
a matter for the parents' judgement and informing the provider is again
information, not admission. I just don't believe that there are many cases
where the parents know there's a no-fever policy, say nothing when they
drop the child off, then later when they are called to collect the child
later say "oh yes, he had a fever this morning and we gave him medication
before we brought him in".

Sidheag, always suspicious of "definite well known facts" with murky
evidence bases.

DS Colin Oct 27 2003


author: Rosalie B.

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sidheag McCormack <[email]> wrote:

I think I did say that I sent mine to the last day of vacation bible
school with the beginning of chicken pox.  I figured that everyone
there had been exposed by that time anyway.

And I also said that my mom sent me to school with measles when I was
a senior in HS.

I didn't have my kids in daycare much because I was a SAHM, although
they went to pre-school in some cases.  They were a pretty healthy
lot.  Plus it was a long time ago as the youngest is 34.  But I don't
remember taking them to the base nursery or school if they were sick
except for that once..

Several times I did find that one of them would run a fever for no
apparent reason and the other one would prove to have strep.

grandma Rosalie


author: Ruth Baltopoulos

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sidheag McCormack" wrote:

: Ruth Baltopoulos writes:

: > The situation that you describe at the end of your paragraph above
is
: > not at all how the scenario generally plays out, by the way,
unless you
: > were attempting to be funny.

: I wasn't attempting to be funny, exactly, but I did spell it out
precisely
: because it seemed so implausible, yet it seemed that something like
that
: had to have happened for providers to be able to claim that they
really
: knew this was going on. I was trying to hoping more detailed
descriptions
: of what actually does happen, which you gave (thanks):

: > It is more often along the lines of the provider asking the
: > parent because a verbal child mentioned it,

: OK, that would be conclusive. (How many times has this happened to
you in
: 2005, would you say?)

Let me say that I am a family child care provider, who is licensed for
10 children, but generally works with a group of about 6 by choice.
You want to know how many times I have experienced this within my
client base in the last 8 months?  Perhaps half a dozen times.  Just
so that you are aware, I am very selective with the families that I
choose based mostly on what I perceive to be the ability to hold forth
a sincere and honestly communicative business relationship.
:
: > or perhaps a nonchalant comment whilst claiming ignorance of the
policy,
:
: If I were a provider and this happened to me (more than once,
perhaps), I'd
: take it as a sign that my policy needed to be made (even) clearer,
perhaps
: by having a parent sign to having read and understood this
particular
: clause, separate from signing any other agreement. Then I'd frame a
copy in
: big red letters and hang it on the wall near the door. My point is
that I
: think it's the provider's job to make sure policies are clearly
understood.

I would prefer not to put the onus totally on the provider,  here.  I
hand out policy books for everyone to take home every September for
the upcoming year.  It lists everything anyone need to know very
clearly, and yet many people barely skim them.  I email reminders, and
post them on the child care entrance at eye level.  I still have
parents that forget and/or simply don't pay attention.  I understand;
people's lives are frenetic.  It is extremely challenging to get
yourself and your child ready and off to your respective areas in a
timely manner (and that is a whole 'nother kettle o' fish, boy!).

: My provider is not perfect in this respect. They have a large file
of
: policies on everything under the sun, one of which is the illness
policy.
: They don't provide a copy to parents; rather, a copy is available in
the
: office. You browse it when you look round the nursery, and in
principle you
: can consult it at any time (but the office is in a different
building from
: my son's room, so it's not trivial to do so!). I did read it
carefully,
: because I'm that kind of person, and I remember that my provider has
a
: no-fever policy, but I certainly couldn't fault a client of my
provider who
: forgot. Now, maybe I just happen to be with the only provider in the
world
: that has a failing like this - or maybe not.

Interesting.  As I mentioned, all my clients have a policy book at
home.  I forgot to mention that I do a calendar at the beginning of
each month for everyone to stick on the fridge so that they know what
is happening at a glance (I know this doesn't pertain to illness
issues :)
:
: > or conversations at a later date where someone admits to dosing a
child
: > and feeling regretful about their actions and/or irritated at
their
: > workplace for being so inflexible that they felt pushed to do
something
: > that they ordinarily would not have done.
:
: OK. (How many times has this happened to you in 2005, would you
say?)

Again, you would like to stick to an 8 month window, rather than
something a little broader, but OK.  This has happened perhaps twice,
although possibly not within my own client base.  I am very active in
my community, and may have heard it from another parent on a committee
or a friend...

: > Yes, murky evidence bases, but you have heard from several that
have
: > firsthand experience in the business for many years. Perhaps we
all see
: > ghosts in the bushes, or perhaps we just many know what we are
talking
: > about :)
:
: Or maybe, which is what has been worrying me, providers
systematically
: suspect parents of dishonesty more often than it actually occurs.
That
: wouldn't be very surprising to me; it's a nuisance when a child
comes down
: with an illness and it's human nature to consider whether someone
else is
: to blame when unpleasant things happen! We've heard from several
people,
: but most of what we've heard has been suspicion, or "everybody
knows" type
: statements.

Of course, there are good, not so good, fair and crappy in everything.
Perhaps there are providers that 'systematically suspect parents of
dishonesty', but I would say that was not the norm.  This is not a
business that anyone is in unless they love children and enjoy
interaction with families (or they shouldn't be, anyway).  You may
have heard that 'everybody knows' because it is somewhat commonplace
and most of us have either experienced it, spoken with someone that
has done it, or perhaps resorted to it themselves out of workplace
desperation.  Whatever.  Good to question this things, though; makes
for interesting discussion :)


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sidheag McCormack" wrote:

: Ruth Baltopoulos writes:

: > Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a parent to dose a child
with
: > medication before bringing them in to care (without informing the
: > Provider), knowing it is not acceptable but feeling compelled to
go to
: > work.

: Several people have said this. But how do you know? Has there been a
: published anonymous survey of parents asking how often if at all
they've
: done this, or something like that? If not, I have to wonder whether
it's
: just suspicion on the part of the providers, unfounded in fact. I
don't
: remember anyone here saying they've ever done it, even though the
providers
: probably aren't reading and there's always anonymity...

I know this because I have been a Provider for almost 20 years, and
have had it happen countless times.  I am also the facilitator of a
local support and training group for FCC Providers, and sit on the
board of a few committees pertaining to child care.  I have spoken to
other Providers with similar experiences and I have had conversations
with parents that have done it.  Children have told me that their
parents gave them medicine before coming to child care, and I have had
lethargic infants dropped off that cropped up with a fever
suspiciously close to four hours later.  Many people would *never* do
this, and there are parents that I would have *never* expected admit
to it after the fact, and talk of feeling pressured to go to work and
dosing their child with Tylenol (or whatever).  I am in contact with
most of my clients from over the years (we even have 'alum' gatherings
periodically) and this has been a topic of discussion.  So, in answer
to your question, it is not unfounded, but I don't know of any survey
or study that has been done :)

: FWIW, I use full time daycare and I've never done this. (I *have*
given DS
: a painkiller in the morning before nursery, on a couple of
occasions, for
: teething pain. My experience was that he'd be fine once life got
*really*
: entertaining for him, which it always was at nursery, though at home
with
: fewer distractions he was miserable. In this case, I felt sending
him to
: nursery was obviously the right thing to do. We did tell his
keyworker,
: since in principle - hasn't happened yet in practice - they can give
: painkillers there without asking us first, and in the unlikely event
that
: they'd want to do that that day, we wouldn't have wanted him to get
: accidentally double dosed.)

Yes, I believe you should tell the caregiver if you have medicated a
child that is coming into care.  It is beyond suspicious when a child
develops a fever three to four hours into the day, and tells you that
Mom or Dad gave them Tylenol in the morning because they woke up hot
during the night (or whatever) and the parent hadn't mentioned any of
that.  I do have a policy that I should be advised if a child comes
into care on meds of any sort.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 22:22:29 +0100, Sidheag McCormack
<[email]> wrote:

Having worked in several infant rooms, I can tell you that parents
*will* admit it to staff when questioned.   They just don't think it
is wrong.  And dcp staff can often tell when parents lie to them
too.


author: Nikki

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sidheag McCormack wrote:

I was shocked when hearing about that being such a rampant problem too.
I've never done it.  I'm more then happy to stay home from work though :-)
Even though I would never dream of doing that I have had to go pick up my
kids from care on more then one occasion so I bet people thought I was doing
it!  Goopy eye syndrome, feeling ill, diarrhea, crabby pants syndrome.  When
Luke was a baby he was just inconsolable at daycare if he was teething or
had the tiniest cold or something.  I had no way of knowing that because he
was just fine (perhaps a little quiet) when I had him in the morning and
then the second I took him from the daycare provider's arms he was fine too.
He just needed mom when he was under the weather.  It took about 4 times of
that before I was able to guess when I could send him and when I couldn't if
he was teething or had a slight sniffle.  I was sure glad Hunter had a
provider that didn't mind goopy eye because he spent his first 15mos with at
least one goopy eye because of a blocked tear duct.  I wonder if a daycare
would have even accepted him?


author: Sue

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sidheag McCormack" <[email]> wrote in message

My mom had a daycare in her home for around 20 years. The parents would
definitely medicate in the morning and bring the kids to her. Some even
admitted to doing it. It's a definite well known fact that there are some
parents that try to be decievious, even if you have never heard of it. My
friend also has a daycare in her home and parents are doing the same thing
to her. So if daycares have that rule about kids being ill, then you know
that there are some parents that do medicate their kids in the morning to
enable them going to work

Having a child that is immunosuppressed causes me to become very irritable
at parents who bring their kids to school sick. Even if I wasn't in the
situation I am in, it still irritates me because I don't want my kids sick.
I know some jobs are more important, but so are the kids.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sidheag McCormack" wrote:

: Oh, I've heard of it lots of times, that's the whole point! What I'm
: doubting is how often it actually happens, as opposed to a provider
: suspecting it's happened. You say (and someone else said something
similar
: "some even admitted to doing it". OK, in the cases (the majority, to
go by
: your wording) where they *didn't* admit to doing it (and the child
is
: pre-verbal), why should we believe it's more than suspicion? IME
feeling
: OKish in the morning, then feeling worse and starting a fever
middayish, is
: a very common pattern at the beginning of a febrile illness. I
really hate
: the idea that every time that happens a provider will assume it's
because
: of dishonesty on the part of the parents, and I'm not seeing the
: justification for it.

Well, a provider does not assume *every time* that it is because of
dishonesty on the part of the parent.  Most tend to be quite flexible
and understanding.  I agree that some of the policies regarding
illness and behavior are very restrictive and narrow, and many of them
are in place due to parental pressure rather than provider
inflexibility.  People don't want their children being exposed to
sickness and/or behaviorally challenged children and can make it very
difficult for program directors to keep a fair balance.  There is very
compelling justification for suspicion at times, although it is much
more of a gray area with pre-verbal children.  Many, if not most,
providers have a fairly close relationship with their client families,
and do get a sense of the urgency and stress that might be apparent
with a parent that feels compelled to go to work, as well as body
language and verbal cues during drop-off.  This may not be scientific
enough for you, but it is what it is.

: Another issue is what kind of "admission" we're talking about. If it
hasn't
: been clearly communicated that the provider has a no-fever policy,
then
: telling the provider about the medication is information, not
admission.
: Similarly, if the medication was given because the child was feeling
: unwell, but didn't have symptoms that violated the agreed policy,
then it's
: a matter for the parents' judgement and informing the provider is
again
: information, not admission. I just don't believe that there are many
cases
: where the parents know there's a no-fever policy, say nothing when
they
: drop the child off, then later when they are called to collect the
child
: later say "oh yes, he had a fever this morning and we gave him
medication
: before we brought him in".

Most professional settings, either center or family based, have clear
guidelines on illness and behavior.  Of course if you have no policy
on fever, it is not an admission.  From most of what I have read in
this conversation, we are referring to settings with policies.  I have
a 'no-fever' policy and a 'let me know if you medicate your child in
any way before child care' policy.  It is important information to
know if a child in your care has any type of drug in their system.
The situation that you describe at the end of your paragraph above is
not at all how the scenario generally plays out, by the way, unless
you were attempting to be funny.  It is more often along the lines of
the provider asking the parent because a verbal child mentioned it, or
perhaps a nonchalant comment whilst claiming ignorance of the policy,
or conversations at a later date where someone admits to dosing a
child and feeling regretful about their actions and/or irritated at
their workplace for being so inflexible that they felt pushed to do
something that they ordinarily would not have done.
:
: Sidheag, always suspicious of "definite well known facts" with murky
: evidence bases.

Yes, murky evidence bases, but you have heard from several that have
firsthand experience in the business for many years.  Perhaps we all
see ghosts in the bushes, or perhaps we just many know what we are
talking about :)


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sidheag McCormack wrote:

IME feeling OKish in the morning, then feeling worse

Three times I went to pick Hunter up because they said he had a fever but he
didn't have one when I got there, didn't have one when we got home, and then
he had to stay home the next day because of their 24 hour policy :-P.

They used the forehead strips and I suspect they took his temp after playing
outside ;-)  When he plays outside he sometimes gets really red and flushed.
He's very pale.  He was about 3.5yo then and didn't nap when he should have
so sometimes had dark circles under his eyes.  He hardly talked.  If he was
upset or had gotten his feelings hurt he might have moped around.  I don't
think they were being dishonest they were just using the info they had.
Which was fine but I hope they cut me some slack on the couple of occasions
I brought him in the morning and then had to come and pick him up when he
really *was* sick.  It was a PITA for me to come and get him so I'd have
never sent him had I known he was going to get sick at daycare.  It was a
lot easier for me to leave him on the couch watching TV on his sick days
because I worked from home :-)


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 15:19:09 +0100, Sidheag McCormack
<[email]> wrote:

Most providers have a handbook that clearly states their
no sick child policy and I don't know of any in my area
that didn't have a no fever rule in it.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:52:12 -0400, "Ruth Baltopoulos"
<[email]> wrote:

Every place I worked in the Chicago area had a parent book with
policies in it including illness and discipline policies.  The last
preschool I worked in had a form at the end for parents to sign
that they had read the book in full.

Also, individual teachers sent home class newsletters monthly
and often we mentioned the illness policy in the first winter
newsletter just to remind parents during the flu season.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:07:33 -0500, "Nikki" <[email]> wrote:

As long as they knew what it was, I am sure that they would
have accepted him.  Blocked tear ducts are not contagious.
If they thought he had conjunctivitis, then that would be a
problem.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sue  writes:

I can't believe that a child in that situation could possibly be in day
care with other children anyway. Knowing that exposure has happened is the
exception, not the rule - even assuming that all parents shared all their
knowledge, it still wouldn't be anywhere close to safe to assume that you
could avoid your child being exposed to chickenpox this way.

So I can't agree that she definitely needed to tell the care providers,
though I do agree that it was a reasonable thing to do - as I said, I
probably would have done so myself.

I can't see how any WOH parent could possibly agree to use a care provider
who would expect to be told *and* whose reaction would be that you have to
withdraw the child until the three-week incubation period is over, though,
as was the case in the original story. Care that holey would just not be
worth having. Seems to me that any provider who tried that could expect to
be out of business as soon as word got round that that was their attitude.
(And/or, of course, they could expect parents simply not to tell them.)

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
FUMOP: I hadn't remembered, Sue, that your own daughter had a transplant.
I'm sorry if anything I said was insensitive. Let me clarify a little more
carefully what I meant when I said "I can't believe that a child in that
situation could possibly be in day care with other children anyway." You
wrote:

I think this is a very diverse group, for a start - e.g., mild asthma or
well-controlled diabetes is a world apart from a recent bone marrow
transplant, say, and the former two would not be reason for any special
measures, AIUI.

Well, OK, but if the child will be removed for the whole incubation period
every time any child in the day care is exposed to any infectious illness
that the child needs not to catch, I question how often the child is going
to be at day care. (For example, given that in winter I take DS home from
nursery on the bus, where there is approximately always someone with a
cold, DS is exposed to a cold virus every day in the winter.) Maybe this
makes sense for an occasional play group, but not for something that's
being relied on to provide care while a parent is at work.

But that's within 72 hours of *the transplant child's* exposure, isn't it?
The transplant child's exposure happens when the other child at day care
becomes infectious (if they catch the disease as the result of their own
exposure). And that will be before they show symptoms, and cannot be
predicted to within 72 hours, because the incubation period of chicken pox
is more variable than that. So the information would be useless for that
purpose.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
toypup  writes:

At ours this is something we explicitly agree to (or can choose not to). In
the event that my child has a fever and they can't reach either parent
immediately, they can give him paracetamol (Tylenol) without waiting for my
permission. They did say that it hardly ever happens, and it's hard to
imagine why they'd ever be unable to reach either me or DH unless we'd just
been in a car crash or something, but in theory, it can happen.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
bizby  writes:

Well, except that they're *still* contagious once the rash has developed,
so there may be some benefit to getting them out of day care at the very
first sign of the rash, particularly if, say, there are children who are in
day care part time who might thus escape being exposed. Also, chickenpox
has non-specific symptoms a few days before the spots come. I take your
point, but I might have done the same - mentioned it, so that the day care
provider could be particularly alert for any sign of illness. If avoiding
exposing other children was important (here in the UK it's more commonly
the reverse - because the chickenpox vaccine isn't offered, and the illness
is milder in young children than older ones, people tend to *want* their
kids to get chickenpox young), I could then take him home at the first sign
of any illness. My provider might then ring me if he started to have a
runny nose, say, whereas under normal circumstances, she certainly
wouldn't. I'd be flabbergasted if asked to keep him away because of the
exposure though!

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sue" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

A buddy of mine has an arrangement with her provider that the children CAN
come in sick IF it will not be an undo burden on the caregiver or the other
children. We were comparing notes on the rule in centers that you cannot
bring in a child until 24 hours fever free without tylenol. I think I am the
*only* parent in the whole center that abides by that rule.

I always thought that by the time symptoms are observed, the contagion has
already been spread. I don't go TOO overboard trying to avoid contagion.
Maybe it is laziness and selfservingness, but it's going to happen now or
its going to happen later. Kids are going to get sick. Of course, my
children are not immunosuppressed, so that would certainly be abother story
for me.


author: Robyn Kozierok

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
Ruth Baltopoulos <[email]> wrote:

We almost ran into a parental-pressure situation like this around chicken
pox.  I informed my provider that my 11 month old son had been exposed to
chicken pox.  She asked me to keep him home during the entire window of
time during which he might be contagious (which would be before any spots
broke out) which was a long time since the incubation can be anywhere from
7 to 21 days, and they are contagious a day or two before they break out,
so she basically wanted me to keep a well child home from day 5 through
day 21 just to see if he got it, plus of course until all the lesions
crusted over once he did get it, if he did.  Well, needless to say,  I
balked at this.  The issue turned out to be the parents of another child
in care who had a newborn at home whom they did not want exposed.  The
problem was solved when they decided to get their older child vaccinated
instead of expecting us to keep our child away from her for weeks :)

As to the "tylenol trick", I never knowingly dosed a sick child to send
them to daycare for the morning, but I occasionally dosed a child who I
believed to be uncontagious, but who had some ache or pain in the
morning.  I always informed the caregiver (lest they accidentally
double dose the child) but in some of those cases the child did come
down with a fever or otherwise fall ill later in the day and had to be
picked up.  Most of the time though, it really was just a temporary
ache and the child was fine.

It can be a tough call as a parent if you have limited time off
available.  I would never knowingly send a sick child, but if a child
just seemed a bit iffy and "might be coming down with something" I
usually did send them.  I often mentioned my suspicion to the
caregiver, being careful to indicate that the child had not had any
symptom in the past 24 hours (or whatever the current policy was) that
would exclude them from care.  Frankly, I felt less badly about this if
what they might be coming down with was something they clearly picked
up in care in the first place.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:49:17 -0500, "Nikki" <[email]> wrote:

The forehead strips are not accurate and I would not trust them to say
a child has a fever.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
Nikki <[email]> wrote:

We did have an issue once with a provider who used a not very accurate
thermometer and called us about fevers-that-weren't.  I think we bought
them a new thermometer. ;-)

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Nikki" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

This happened to me also, though not three times.

Same. She was not cranky. She was playing happy as could be. ... But she was
warm, after playing hard in the sun. Hmmmm.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
toto wrote:

It turned into conjunctivitis really easily and quite frequently.  He was
much older before I had to move to a daycare so I never had to question it!


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sidheag McCormack" wrote in message

Was I supposed to keep the child indoors at all times? Anyway, my kids have
never been in daycare and I was speaking of preschool and regular school. I
know we were discussing daycare, but the same rules apply to preschool. They
certainly wouldn't kick a child out for the things that private providers
(like toypup's arrangement) could do, but still letting teachers, care
providers, anyone that cares for one's child know of any kind of
communicable disease is only curteous, at least it is in my book.

Even I think that is over the top, but removing any children that it could
possibly be harmed probably would be better.


author: Barbara Bomberger

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:35:34 +0100, Sidheag McCormack
<[email]> wrote:

My child had sever asthma and was in a normal day care.  diabetic kids
are often in normal day care.

in my case I would have expected the provider to tell me about the
situation, so that i can be prepared, and that the parent remove the
child when and if symptoms occured.

Barb


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
Sidheag McCormack  <[email]> wrote:

It's still useful in the sense that the caregiver could be watching the
exposed child more carefully for signs of illness.  If the first
exposed child's illness is noticed right away, that would be within the
72-hour window of the transplant child's exposure window.  And it's useful
because the transplant child's family can make a judgement about whether
or not they want to remove their child from care during the potential
exposure window.

I do think that it's unreasonable for even the family of a child for
whom chicken pox would be dangerous to ask that children known to have
been exposed to chicken pox be removed from care during the entire
incubation period, in case they become contagious.  I could see
expecting that in a case where a child was exposed to something serious
to the general population (say, avian flu or smallpox or something like
that, heaven forbid) but for a child with a special vulnerability like
imunosuppression, I think that unfortunately for them, the onus falls
on them to avoid the situation rather than the other way around.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sidheag McCormack <[email]> wrote:

When my kids were little, my dh was in the Navy, so he frequently
wasn't in the area at all.  Later, when the kids were older, we both
worked as teachers, and I don't know what the rules would have been
about calling us out of class.

The distances here are longer than in the UK, and not everyone has
instant accessibility by cell phone.

After that, I was often on the road, and while I did have a cell
phone, it wasn't on and I was often out of cell tower range.  Ditto
for the beeper  [I once averaged 125 miles/day for a month, and that
was just getting to job sites and getting home/]

My office should have known where I was, but it would have been a crap
shoot whether the person who knew would answer the phone.

But I wouldn't have been able to swing a job like that if I had had
children in daycare unless I had someone else available to drop off
and pick up, because I worked ungodly hours.

grandma Rosalie


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
Sidheag McCormack <[email]> wrote:

Isn't keeping quiet kind of the same as taking them to day care with a
fever which has temporarily been controlled with Tylenol?  You know
that your child may be contagious, but you don't say so.

grandma Rosalie


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Stephanie" <[email]> wrote in message
story

Yes, your whole life changes when you don't have a properly working immune
system. I never sheltered my daughter to keep her away from germs, on the
contrary, I did just let her live her life as normal as possible. We have
done very well considering, but I definitely had to rely on the truthfulness
of other parents when Allison was very young and her transplant was new. I
sent out letters explaining that I needed to know about any illness,
especially communicable diseases and gave my phone number to have other
parents call me if there was anything going around. A normal strep throat
for some could send my daughter into the hospital. Most parents were very
curtious in the early days and called me with every little thing. But, I was
glad, at least I knew what to expect.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Robyn Kozierok" <[email]> wrote;

: We almost ran into a parental-pressure situation like this around
chicken
: pox.  I informed my provider that my 11 month old son had been
exposed to
: chicken pox.  She asked me to keep him home during the entire window
of
: time during which he might be contagious (which would be before any
spots
: broke out) which was a long time since the incubation can be
anywhere from
: 7 to 21 days, and they are contagious a day or two before they break
out,
: so she basically wanted me to keep a well child home from day 5
through
: day 21 just to see if he got it, plus of course until all the
lesions
: crusted over once he did get it, if he did.  Well, needless to say,
I
: balked at this.

Well, that is pretty outrageous.  I understand that generally once the
symptoms show with many childhood illnesses, the damage is already
done, but it is what it is.   IMO it is a bit over the top to ask
children to stay home from care during a possible incubation period
from exposure.  Different if we were in the midst of an outbreak of a
rampant communicable disease which requires quarantining :)

: The issue turned out to be the parents of another child
: in care who had a newborn at home whom they did not want exposed.
The
: problem was solved when they decided to get their older child
vaccinated
: instead of expecting us to keep our child away from her for weeks :)

This can be a big issue.  I have seen normal precocious children
ejected from child care/preschool situations because a parent or
parents put so much pressure on the Director/Provider based on either
health or behavior issues.

: As to the "tylenol trick", I never knowingly dosed a sick child to
send
: them to daycare for the morning, but I occasionally dosed a child
who I
: believed to be uncontagious, but who had some ache or pain in the
: morning.  I always informed the caregiver (lest they accidentally
: double dose the child) but in some of those cases the child did come
: down with a fever or otherwise fall ill later in the day and had to
be
: picked up.  Most of the time though, it really was just a temporary
: ache and the child was fine.

That is fine, from my view.

: It can be a tough call as a parent if you have limited time off
: available.  I would never knowingly send a sick child, but if a
child
: just seemed a bit iffy and "might be coming down with something" I
: usually did send them.  I often mentioned my suspicion to the
: caregiver, being careful to indicate that the child had not had any
: symptom in the past 24 hours (or whatever the current policy was)
that
: would exclude them from care.  Frankly, I felt less badly about this
if
: what they might be coming down with was something they clearly
picked
: up in care in the first place.

Again, understandable and all handled properly from where I sit :)


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Robyn Kozierok" <[email]> wrote in message
news:d58e$4304b057$cff47c68$[email]...
\e morning, but I occasionally dosed a child who I

I don't know of any daycare that would give medication without the parent's
expressed permission anyway, so I can't see anyone double dosing by
accident.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Robyn Kozierok" <[email]> wrote in message
news:d58e$4304b057$cff47c68$[email]...

I'm just curious as to why you informed her of this?  If you go
to a person and tell them that your child has been exposed
to a communicable illness and might be contagious or become
contagious at any time, it seems reasonable for them to ask
you not to expose other children.  Chicken pox is contagious
before the rash develops, so waiting to withdraw him then
would be too late.

So, it seems to me that if you wanted to keep him in day
care, it would have been best to keep quite about the
exposure.

Bizby


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <d58e$4304b057$cff47c68$[email]>,
Robyn Kozierok <[email]> wrote:

btw, he didn't get chicken pox, and we had him vaccinated at a year, so
that particular issue never came up for us again.

Our provider had said when we first enrolled that she sometimes allowed
children with chicken pox who were feeling well to attend, depending on
whether the other parents at the time wanted to expose their children.
But we had never discussed keeping them home during the incubation period
if they didn't!

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
toto wrote:

I know.  I only had two beefs with that daycare.  That was one of them.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Rosalie B." <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Perhaps, but I don't see that telling them about the exposure and then
insisting on taking your child in anyway is any better.

Bizby


author: dragonlady

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Ruth Baltopoulos" <[email]> wrote:

Two of my kids came down with chicken pox the first morning of a week
long retreat.  They insisted I send the third child home, as well.  It
annoyed me, but I understood why.  She was a pretty great risk of having
been exposed at the same time, especially since I have no idea WHEN they
were exposed.

It annoyed her MORE -- she didn't get sick that week, but did get sick 3
weeks later, just in time to miss yet another Great Event (a company
picnic that she looked forward to every summer) -- and, since the other
two had already recovered, THEY got to go.

I'm not sure she's forgiven the universe for that particular bit of
unfairness yet -- and that was 12 years ago.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <d%4Ne.3067$[email]>,
toypup <[email]> wrote:

I always supplied baby tylenol and signed a permission slip saying the
provider could administer it.  She would normally call first, but she
wouldn't call down my "emergency contact" list over it, so if she didn't
reach me, she might administer it without asking/telling me first.  This
was something I agreed upon with my provider, and it worked for us.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote in message

She definitely needed to tell the care providers because information such as
an exposure to chicken pox might be life or death if you have an
immunocompromised child in the daycare. Transplant kids, diabetic kids, kids
with asthma, etc would need to know this kind of information because there
are things one can do to help the child not get it (and some cannot receive
the vaccination). If a child that had a transplant was in the daycare, they
would need to know about the exposure and possibly remove their child until
the incubation period is over, or there is a shot that can be given, but it
has to be given within 72 hours of exposure.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
bizby40 <[email]> wrote:

I did it as a courtesy to the other families, one of which used
the information to decide to vaccinate their daughter at that time,
so that their newborn (at home, not in care) would not be at risk
of being exposed.

I also did it so that the caregiver would be on the lookout
for symptoms.

I told them because I had open and honest communication with them
about things like that.

Well, yes, that is why they asked me to withdraw him for 3 weeks,
but really, it's unreasonable to ask a child who is only maybe contagious
to withdraw from care.  Every child in the place was exposed to all
sorts of things on a daily basis, some of which they knew about, and
some of which they did not.  If they had to be withdrawn every time
they *might* be contagious, no one would be in care at all.  Almost all
illnesses are contagious before symptoms appear, but all you can
reasonably do is require that the children be withdrawn once symptoms
appear.  A child might be exposed to chicken pox several times before
coming down for it -- it would be unreasonable to withdraw them from
care for 2-3 weeks every time this happened.

And it is also counter-productive to have to hide relevant information
from your daycare provider to keep your child in care.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote;

: "Rosalie B." <[email]> wrote:

: > Sidheag McCormack <[email]> wrote:

: >>bizby  writes:

: >> > I'm just curious as to why you informed her of this? If you go
to a
: >> > person and tell them that your child has been exposed to a
communicable
: >> > illness and might be contagious or become contagious at any
time, it
: >> > seems reasonable for them to ask you not to expose other
children.
: >> > Chicken pox is contagious before the rash develops, so waiting
to
: >> > withdraw him then would be too late.

: >> > So, it seems to me that if you wanted to keep him in day care,
it would
: >> > have been best to keep quite about the exposure.

: > Isn't keeping quiet kind of the same as taking them to day care
with a
: > fever which has temporarily been controlled with Tylenol?  You
know
: > that your child may be contagious, but you don't say so.

: Perhaps, but I don't see that telling them about the exposure and
then
: insisting on taking your child in anyway is any better.

No, in that sense it does not seem better, but that reaction was over
the top and unusual, IME.  In my policy book, I do mention that I will
alert parents of communicable illnesses that children are exposed to
in my care, and that I would appreciate if parents would do same on
the flip side.  No way to enforce this; it is simply an 'honor system'
on both sides.  I don't get very perturbed if parents don't mention
things to me, but it is helpful to have the knowledge, as with
anything, should a situation arise where it would make a difference.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote in message

If other kids lives were at stake, then it is definitely reasonable to ask
to keep the child away. On the other hand, if there is only one child that
contracting chicken pox could be deadly, it might make more sense to ask the
other child to stay home.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
dragonlady  <[email]> wrote:

I don't blame her!  What rotten luck!  I hope the universe pays her
back with a nice stroke of *good* luck someday.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sue" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

I have to say Sue, that it's rather amazing to me that you
would put an immunocompromised child in daycare given
the danger.  It is quite possible that I wouldn't even know
my child had been exposed to chicken pox, and so while
the danger would be the same, there would be no way
for me to warn anyone.

My friend's daughter had Whooping Cough.  Now, the
doctors always say, "Oh, it's a distinctive cough --
you'll know!"  But friend's daughter had a mild, soft
cough that didn't sound at all like a whoop or a bark.
Her mom considered taking her to the doctor because
the cough didn't seem to be going away, but because
it was so mild, it wasn't really bothering her, it wasn't
keeping her up at night and so forth, she never did.
Nor did her teacher suggest that they should

Finally, a note came home saying that another child
had been diagnosed with Whooping Cough.  So my
friend decided to take her child in to get her tested.
That's the only way she ever realized what it really
was.  After she found out and got put on anti-biotics,
she had to stay home for 5 days (doctor's orders).
Her mom thought that was rather silly since she'd
apparently already been in and exposing everyone
for 3 weeks.

I'm all for trying to accommodate a child with a
disability of any kind.  I just think that with all of
the germs floating around a day care or school,
that if normal childhood illnesses were an actual
life threat to my child, I'd probably be afraid to
put them in that environment.

Bizby


author: Donna Metler

subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sue" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
as
kids
receive
they
until
it

But it would still be up to the parents of the immunosuppressed child to
keep their child out, not the parents of an exposed, but not yet sick child.
And, realistically, if a child has a major immune deficency, group care
probably isn't a good choice.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:30:21 -0400, [email] (Robyn
Kozierok) wrote:

This is what I would have done.  I informed my sons day care provider
that my daughter had the chicken pox, and that she shouldshare (of
course at that point...In my case my child never got the pox, even
though it was a family member who got it.

By the same token, when I was a daycare provider, I would let the
other parents know about such a situation.

There were also days when I was a tad "under the weather" that is,
capable of caring for kids but possibly germy. I always let the
parents know and make a decision as to whether to bring their child. I
also let them know if another member of my family had been ill.

Barb


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Robyn Kozierok" <[email]> wrote in message
news:33ac5$4305ecfd$cff47c68$[email]...

I agree that it's unreasonable.  But I can see why they did it.
You've given them a piece of information, so they expect
that they need to use it somehow.  You said you did it
partly as a courtesy to the other parents.  I'm trying to
imagine the day care center sending home a note saying
something like, "A child has been exposed to chicken pox.
As he has not developed symptoms, we have not required
him to stay home.  Therefore, he is in the classroom every
day and may very well be infecting your child this very
minute.  Of course, as soon as he develops symptoms,
we will send him home, but that will be too late for
your child."

Okay, yes, that was a joke.  But a joke to make a point.

Bizby


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote in message

I explained in my other post that I have never used daycare. However, my
kids have gone to preschool and public school. I definitely could not see
keeping said child indoors for the rest of her life. While you probably
wouldn't know a child was sick beforehand, it is useful information after
the fact so that parents and/or doctors could be alerted to what might
happen. In the fact of chicken pox, a shot can be given within 72 hours of
exposure to stop the virus or at least give the child a mild form of it.
When she first had her transplant and was still little, (she is 12 now) that
was when she was most susceptible to most things going around, just like any
other kid first starting out school. However, there were more things that
could cause problems to her, such as viruses more than anything. She now has
a good immune system, it takes a bit longer for her to get over stuff, but
she is not sick as often anymore.

As I said, you can't keep them indoors and shelter them from life. You have
to take chances, but there are certain precautions one can make and people
can be more curteous as to let others know (especially care givers or
teachers) when there is a problem.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
With the chicken pox,for example, a child is contagious many days
before any kind of symptoms show.  So there is truly no way to know
when the child is exposed ahead of time.

Barb


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
bizby40 <[email]> wrote:

Well, it was an in-home childcare provider with 6 children in her
care, probably from 4 families at that time, so communications
were a little less formal than that. ;-)

But, yes, that is essentially what I wanted her to express to
the other families -- there is a chance your kid will get exposed
to chicken pox in the next few weeks: be on the lookout and/or
take steps to reduce your child's risk, if that is an issue for
you.  It's a courtesy to share such information with other families.

I always found it useful to get the notice that something or other was
going around in another daycare family or what another child had stayed
home with this morning, but undoubtedly spread germs for yesterday, so
that if my child started acting "off" I would have a decent idea what
was up.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote in message
 I'm trying to

All I wrote in my letter to the preschool-second grade classes,  was our
situation; that I needed to know if it was a serious illness, chicken pox,
strep, any virus and I gave my number for them to call me and alert me. I
also thanked them. Even though there is nothing I can do about exposures, I
can certainly do other things to lessen it or seek medical assistance
quicker than I normally would since I know what is going on. I only had one
incident in the principal giving me a hard time about sending a letter home,
but I did manage to send the letters home and I did get positive responses.


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sue" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Daycare and preschool are similar with respect to germs.  I
do feel for you.  I can understand that it's a hard decision
-- you want your child to have a full life, and one that is
as normal as possible.  But that can be hard when even
mild illnesses can have a devastating effect.

If I knew a child in my school had a special issue like that,
I would certainly be a lot more careful about possible
exposure to germs.  Nonetheless, in many, or even most
cases, you might not even know that exposure has taken
place.  My kids have always been pretty healthy, but
when they have gotten sick, I usually have no idea where
it came from.  Maybe school, maybe the grocery cart,
maybe the playground, whatever.  Given that reality, I
don't feel like it's a high priority to tell the teachers or
day care providers about every possible contamination.

Bizby


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Robyn Kozierok" <[email]> wrote in message
news:5d892$43060805$cff47c68$[email]...

Maybe that's part of the problem.  Getting all these
notes home never ended up doing anything except
worrying me unnecessarily  Particularly the ones about
lice.  *shudder*  I have an unnatural aversion to the
thought of lice.  Scare after scare and we've never
turned up with it.

Bizby


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"Sue" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Oh, that wasn't directed at you Sue.  I'm sure you
realize that yours is an exceptional case.  I would
definitely want to know if there was a child in the
class with whom I would need to take special
precautions of any kind.  Another example would
be peanut allergies.  So many parents send peanut
products in with their child without even thinking
about it, that if there is an allergic child in the class,
the other parents really need to know about it.

But in the OP, well, not "O"P, but the original one
on this tangent, there were, as far as we know, no
children with compromised immune systems.

Bizby


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
In article <[email]>,
bizby40 <[email]> wrote:

Lucky you!  Actually, the time my youngest did get lice, we didn't have
any warning.  And believe me, it would have helped a lot if we had,
because by the time we noticed, he must have had them for days and it
was *really* hard to get rid of them (they were resistant to the
pesticides, so we had to get them by repeatedly suffocating the live
ones with mayo and carefully combing the nits...)  It would have been
great if we had gotten a warning before things got that far.

--Robyn


subject: Re: Pros & Cons of Daycare

text:
"bizby40" <[email]> wrote in message

Oh yes, of course. Luckily, there are not many kids walking around with
compromised immune systems. Although, my daughter is at transplant camp this
year and we have around 75 kids going throughout our state. That seems like
a lot, but I know not in the scheme of things.

No, I don't think that was an issue. The thread drifted and got onto
daycares and sick kids, lol.


author: Steven J. Sobol

subject: Asshole intentionally drives over flagger's foot

text:
Like all of SoCal, the High Desert has a high percentage of people who
get pissed off when they can't do exactly what they want, when they want.
Here's an example. Short version of the story: 58-year-old flaming jerk
drives over flagger's foot because he is not allowed to drive through
the construction on Highway 138 in Phelan.

http://vvdailypress.com/2006/115936106515238.html

These people infuritate me. I have had my immediate family put in danger
many times by people who think their right to get somewhere fast trumps
everyone else's right to safety, and I lost a beloved nephew (not even four
years old when he died) to someone who chose to zoom through a crosswalk
PULLING AROUND OTHER PEOPLE WHO HAD STOPPED! (As we found out later, he
was just rushing to buy dinner at the nearby Del Taco. Wonderful, huh?)

I'd love to see Mr. Finn get *his* foot run over by a large, three-ton
vehicle like the one he was driving. However, since that's not legal, I
guess I'll have to be happy with jail time. I hope he rots for a good long
time, too. He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
(Good call!)


author: Jason Pawloski

subject: Re: Asshole intentionally drives over flagger's foot

text:
Scott en Aztlán wrote:

I second this. I saw a construction worker doing median work near my
neighborhood and a very lightly-travelled road. An SUV was approaching
and he was in middle of the road, leaning against a shovel or
something. The SUV eventually had to stop. He leisurely got off of the
road (but not completely, still standing by the side of the road) to
let the SUV by.

Unfortunately, there are enough people in the world that get off on
being complete assholes that you can never be sure who it was. It could
have been the flagger; it could have been the driver.


author: brink

text:
"Steven J. Sobol" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Ain't just SoCal -- it's everywhere.

Like you, I hope this jerk gets everything coming to him, and more.

brink


author: John F. Carr

text:
In article <[email]>,
Steven J. Sobol <[email]> wrote:

Alternate version: flagger steps in front of a moving vehicle
because he thinks his foot outvotes two tons of van.  That's
equally consistent with the story.


text:
"John F. Carr" <[email]> wrote in message
news:451ad7dc$0$569$[email]...

Well that makes it okay then.

brink


text:
In article <451ad7dc$0$569$[email]>, John F. Carr wrote:

I'd be a lot more inclined to believe the paper's story, given the abject
selfishness and lack of regard for human life shown by this region's drivers.


author: Dave Penkala

subject: Re: FS: Brand new 1.6 GB Western Digital

text:
In article <01bc3c5d$6dfaa860$143b9489@2749462220>, [email]
says...

I will offer you $50 for this drive since Western Digital has stopped
manufacture of it due to 80% return rates, product instability and severe
unreliability.  Please see www.wdc.com for details.  You are aware of this
aren't you?

-=Dave=-


author: EAST COAST HIVE MIND

subject: Stop Me if you've heard this one

text:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/579910,CST-NWS-stop29.article
Village Oak Lawn mayor adds new supplementary signs to STOP signs.


author: Rich Piehl

subject: Re: Stop Me if you've heard this one

text:
EAST COAST HIVE MIND wrote:

Here's video from the story:
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=7A29827A6ED7E583EA9FFAC245AB5265?contentId=4494204&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

or

http://tinyurl.com/2nj4op

Take care,
Rich

God bless the USA


author: Arif Khokar

subject: Re: Stop Me if you've heard this one

text:
EAST COAST HIVE MIND wrote:

It'd probably be just as expensive as replacing those stop signs with
yield signs.  Spend a bit more money, and they can put in
mini-roundabouts instead.


author: Steve A.

subject: Re: Stop Me if you've heard this one

text:
On Sep 29, 9:46 pm, EAST COAST HIVE MIND <[email]>
wrote:

I like "Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Pleeeease", and I'm waiting for the
lawsuit over "Billion Dollar Fine."


author: Joseph Houk

subject: Re: Stop Me if you've heard this one

text:
On 09/29/2007 9:15 PM, in article LEDLi.375$[email], "Rich
Piehl" <[email]> wrote:

What I love from the story:

"...while the mayor was posing for a photo with one of the new signs, a
driver sped by without stopping."

-----
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
My Homepage: http://tinyurl.com/ytc34l - Admirals: http://tinyurl.com/2f54by
Images: http://tinyurl.com/28br6g - MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jwhouk


author: PJ

subject: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
I grocery shopped today and as I do every time I go to the market, I found
myself wondering how families can afford to eat. Because I live alone, my
grocery bill is pretty low, but when my grandbabies come for the weekend, of
course there's more to buy. Gammy doesn't buy junk food, mind, so it's not
that (although I do buy them a few special treats when they visit. But I was
keeping a running tab of what I spent, and by the time I had a dozen eggs, a
gallon of 2 percent milk, a pound of bacon, and a loaf of bread in the cart,
I'd already racked up $12. I got out of the store for just over $82 but I'm
one of the lucky ones because I don't have a family to feed. These days, how
do families do it? **And please, I am respectfully asking that no one turns
this into a food stamps/welfare argument. Please**

My question is legitimate; when I saw my bill for one person plus two little
ones who are only here for a weekend every few weeks, I couldn't help
wondering how families survive. I remember having young children and
sometimes we went through a gallon of milk a day ... today, that's $3 or $4
dollars a day just for milk (depending on where you live and where you shop,
of course.) Add to that ingredients for 7 dinners a week, breakfast and
lunch things, snack items and some treats, laundry soap and dish soap and
soap soap and shampoo and toothpaste and other non-food items, I can see how
a family with 3 kids could easily spend more than $1,000 a month on
groceries. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think so. I just feel
for people who are struggling to make it these days, while still trying to
enjoy life.

~ ~ ~
PJ


author: Twittering One

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
I try to eat well,
but forego all other activities,
outside of gym
and communications.


author: montewelk

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Mar 2, 9:56 am, gekko <[email]> wrote:

slimjims and menthol dorals--all the human body needs.and the
occasional slab of squirrel jerky.


author: [redacted]

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Mar 1, 6:25 am, "PJ" <[email]> wrote:

I get it. Let me preach to the choir a minute.

I wonder if Sal's vision doesn't reflect a community with the kind of
vibrant ethnic communities that also help make it possible to get good
fresh food cheap. Milwaukee has fewer of those, but if you can get to
one of the stores that serves Asian or Hispanic communities, you have
a better shot of doing what she suggests.

Or maybe we're just closer to the edge in the Rust Belt. Here in
Milwaukee, a town noted for preferring low-price and discount stores
over the posh, most of the old warehouse food stores have been turned
into higher-end "shopping experience" stores. Aldi takes the bottom of
the market, but their stores are small, few, and limited in what they
carry.

But the fastest growing segment of the food "industry" here is food
pantries. People don't go there because they are too lazy to cook, for
the most part. They go there because they don't have enough money to
buy enough food of any quality.

Here's an interesting article, The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get
Local Organic. http://sarasota.indymedia.org/other-media/poor-get-diabeted-rich-get-local-organic

Chris


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Alan Hope wrote:

Mr. Hope

The long lunch is not compatible with capitalism and
industrialization. It is a toss back to agrarian days when life was
simple and you just grew what you ate. Lunch time is not productive
for your employer, unless it his his lunch time and he's in sales. No
one really gives a flying "F" about their employees, they are just
another capital input. If they die, you can always get another, and
another, cheap.

So please refrain from mentioning those days when people were people
and not "Assets to the organization" (think about that phrase when you
hear it with assets in the accounting sense). It is not compatible
with the drone culture industrial globalization is trying to foster.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Feb 29, 6:23 pm, montewelk <[email]> wrote:

the history of mankind seems to discount enjoyment of life in favor of
rampant procreation.  build a person, then figure out how to feed it.
i'm not at all fond of guilt-spraying under-employed idiots squeezing
out kids for a sense of fulfillment.  the world is already full.  farm-
land gets covered with housing, food becomes scarce, and pampers
become mountains.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
serenebabe wrote:

There's this interesting book called the 100 mile diet.
http://100milediet.org/

Old order Mennonites seem to get by just fine, and their range is much
less than that.


author: Brother John

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ wrote:

What do you expect when you have a president who would rather spend money
on munitions to kill one million plus innocent civilians than on the
welfare of his own people?

Do you know how much each bomb, mortar round or missile costs? They ain't
cheap. Do you know how (Pentagon's own stats) many rounds are fired by US
troops for every enemy hit? I won't tell you, you'll think I'm making it
up. Do some Googling. (Hint: It's closer to a quarter of a million than to
a quarter of a century.)

The US is near bankrupt, it owes China more money that it can possibly
repay, its international credit rating is abysmal, it is well on the way to
following the Soviet Union into oblivion. It is never going to recover, not
even if Bush and his cohorts disappeared tomorrow. It is already too late.

The US has the highest crime rate in the western world, one of the lowest
literacy levels and one of the worst social/medical systems. The upcoming
aging Baby-Boomer demands on the welfare system is going to sink the US if
it hasn't already sunk by the time the huge mass of incredibly obese
Baby-Boomers take up every hospital bed and all medical staff. They'll also
destroy all social subsidized pharmaceutical programs with their diabetes
and other obesity related illnesses.

The US can't compete against China and other Asian countries in any form of
manufacture or export, it has insufficient oil reserves, and can't make
money out of agricultural exports. It has failed to gain any oil related
advantage from its immensely expensive invasion of Iraq, and basically has
nothing to look forward to that might provide relief. The dollar is slowly
falling against all other currencies and the internal credit bubble is
about to burst bigtime. Mortgagee sales are on the increase and jobs on the
decrease with more and more companies contracting off-shore. The other
countries who initially supported the US in its attack on Iraq are
gradually pulling out as the people in those countries vote the Bush
supporters out of office.

You think its bad now? Wait until you see what's coming. America is going
down the drain. Blame the idiots who voted Bush into power. At least
Clinton, sexual peccadilloes aside, actually benefited the country.

BJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Sylvia wrote:

I don't know about that. On a one section sized farm how hard would it
be to grow an acre of mixed veggies?  I'm not saying that they give
the stuff away but there would be some seasonal income from it. I know
that corn wheat and soy are the big crops because they are basically
industrial food crops. But what about the rest? Surely say for example
Rural Baptists ars not that different in their thinking than City
Baptists.  Can't they help each other?


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
[email] wrote:

Hammer on the head of the nail there for sure!  You can't revitalize
any inner city unless you have at least one grocery store down town.
WHy cant city hall just give a tax free, rent free space to whatever
chain would be willing to move into down town?


author: Boggles The Brain

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Feb 29, 2:31 pm, "PJ" <[email]> wrote:

For people like the late B-b Past-ri- , who subscribe to Darwinian
evolution, it is a product of survival of the fittest.  That is, only
the fittest will be able to....well, to survive.   And since you have
forbidden Welfare and Food stamps, the others will starve or
eventually be killed or incarcerated for law-breaking in order to get
food.  Past-ri- , by the way, did not survive the first cut.

I don't immediately hold to that *theory* because it is obviously
taking too long to cull the herd.   So, it's wait and see.  But I
don't think it'll happen because 20,000,000 chinamen died from
starvation under Mao, and there are still plenty of chinamen.  And
look at India where people live in cardboard boxes and still live to
reporduce multi times before they shrivel or immigrate to the United
States and work in motels.

People in America with families just have to nut up, eat cheaper cuts
of meat, drink powdered milk, eat cheap pasta from the Pacific Rim so
that they will have enough at the end of the month to buy Game Boy or
a big screen TV and such.  I mean, first things first, right?

More family members will have to get jobs instead of just the parents
and older siblings.  Cottage industries are a vague solution.

Selling blood is an option.  Unused body parts....but that's illegal,
isn't it?

--Boggles the Brain

.


author: Towse

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ wrote:

The average, iirc, for a family of five is more on the order of $1200/mo.

Doesn't need to be, though. Depends on whether you're buying snacks and
frozen fish sticks, Pop-tarts and sugared drinks, frozen french fries
and toaster waffles, Froot Loops and spaghetti-dinos, Gummy-bears and
chocolate-covered graham crackers.

Buy locally. Buy seasonally. Forget the blackberries in February.
Asparagus and tomatoes (yes, I know ...) only in season. Skip the frozen
hamburgers and make your own. Don't even =think= about hotdogs. Stews
are good. Chicken not steak. (Whack up the whole chicken rather than
buying chicken the store's cut up for you.) Homemade coffee rolls not
monster store-bought ones from Cinnabon. Forget the aerosol Batter
Blaster. Old-fashioned oatmeal rather than the pre-flavored microwave kind.

Better for you too.

Reminds me of years and years back when we went over to dinner at a
friend's house so she could pitch us a super-duper set of pans that
would be just the ticket to feed us healthier than we were already
feeding ourselves.

She started her pitch with, "You spend over $200/week on food. Shouldn't
you make sure that the pots and pans you use keep all the vitamins and
minerals and goodstuff in your food and don't waste it like your crummy
set of pans does?" or words to that effect.

We looked at each other. $200/wk? More like $50 for the two of us, if that.

We didn't buy the set of pans. ...


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ wrote:

Sad.

Food is a commodity and it is traded as such. Farmers say they are not
covering their costs with the prices they get. Families can't feed
their kids with the prices they are asked to pay. But the farmer never
sees the family witht he kids to sell directly. all the money is made
on each level of mark up.

I'm surprised the Churches have not got into this beyond the food
banks. I'm sure you could set up a cooperative marketing system
betweeen rural and urban churches for fair pricing for both groups.
Farmer's markets in Church parking lots? Why not?


author: Bill Penrose

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Feb 29, 1:31 pm, "PJ" <[email]> wrote:

There are no stray cats in our neighborhood.

Our food bill last month, for four adults, one adolescent, and a 6'3"
teenager with a 22 inch waist who eats more than the rest of us
together: $950. Not counting a couple of take out pizzas. I notice
that a great many staple items have gone up 5 to 15% in the past three
months or so.

There's a war on, y'know. We all have to dig deeper and do our parts.

DB


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Feb 29, 2:31 pm, "PJ" <[email]> wrote:

you haven't sampled 'purina proletariat chow' yet?  makes it's own
gravy when you pour on the hot human misery.  there are food banks,
subsidies--but mostly cheap crappy filler foods--mac'n'cheese and
legumes.  here, we see a lot of fat, mal-nourished kids.  low i.q.'s
and giant bellies.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On Feb 29, 5:08 pm, Towse <[email]> wrote:

Food has become our biggest expense, more than mortgage.

I went shopping tonight, here in Wisconsin. Turnips and parsnips are
over $2 a pound, about the same price as fresh strawberries, whereas
bananas are $.39. Apples average around $1.39, the same price as the
ground pork I use in meatloaf and chicken thighs. I bought black
grapes from god knows where for $.99, yellow squash for the same, and
a bag of yellow and orange peppers on the discard table (normally $4)
for $1.34. Been getting asparagus at $2.99, a treat; now it's $4.56 so
I don't. I indulged in frozen raspberries that I stretch in
smoothies.

Season has very little to do with it these days.

(snip)

Sal, I'm not sure where you're coming from but this takes my breath
away. Do you know those people you are talking about? I hear people
saying things like this all the time, but they aren't. . . you.
Educated. Thoughtful.

In Milwaukee in the inner cities, there are only convenience stores in
most of the poorest neighborhoods. People must drive miles if they
have a car to get to a real grocery store, and our public
transportation is virtually nonexistent. You can't by fresh fruit and
vegetables that you'd want to eat or slow cooking oats there. What you
can buy in those stores is often the kinds of food you are talking
about. In many neighborhoods--and I've seen the maps--the only food
you can get in a 5 mile radius is fast food.

I used to work in a perinatal intensive care program for teenage
girls. The staff bitched because the girls weren't cooking their WIC
foods. Nobody had bothered to visit their houses to find out that they
didn't have functional stoves. The docs wives bought them electric
frying pans and then the transformation began: you can cook almost
anything in them.

People need to be taught not just how to eat but how to shop and
cook.

And now let me ask, your daily food may be red beans and rice and
nutritious vegetables at modest cost. But would you care to share with
us what you spend in a month on restaurant food?

Christine


author: Jackson Pillock

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"PJ" <[email]> wrote in
news:[email]:

Make a list, stick to it, buy the cheapest they have. I can sometimes
stretch fifty pounds to last a week. Well, five days anyway.


author: hush, puppy

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"[email]" <[email]> wrote:

When I look at photos of some of what I call the "architectural
marvels" of Europe, cathedrals and the like, my first thought is
always that living costs would prohibit that type of undertaking now,
that something vital has been lost in a world where massive levels of
hand work is simply not economically feasible.

While recently engaged in some repair activities I heard it asked,
"why did they use a cheap bushing instead of a beefier one?" and the
depth of our souls' betrayal by the Industrial Revolution was made
clear to me because my thought had been "had they never heard of
sealed roller bearings?"

Modern this, Modern that, the bottom line for me is that when the
Industrial Revolution came along and masses of farm teens emigrated
from farms where the work was simple but hard to cities where the work
was easy and money was easy, a type of cultural suicide occurred and
we are now simply observing the body as it rots.

When Man reengineers his world into one that everyone wishes to
escape, when the universal goal of the working world is early
retirement, it's a thing that perhaps needs to be reengineered again
and again at any cost until it becomes a world we can live in without
the benefit of madness.

Suck it up Mr Meatslab and try to revel in whatever the day brings,
because brung it will be.


author: gekko

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"[email]" <[email]> let the
dogs out in
news:[email]
m:

If you play it right, you can eat while you work, thus drawing out
the actual eating over an hour and still make Mr. Man happy.

The correct term is "resources."  We are "resources."

I am not certain people were ever really concidered people when
talking about large corporations.  Dear old dad, retired now after
many long and productive years as management in a massive corporation
(now broken apart into smaller massive corporations), and his cronies
never really thought about the guys on the floor as people.  They
were simply workers, a necessary evil.

You 'n hush,puppy need to cozy up, innit.

I agree with your sentiment, by the way.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Brother John <
@
net.com> wrote:

Though most of what you said there is true in spirit if not in detail,
I will tell you a secret: after the coming depression and the brief
dark age, it will be better than ever before.


author: Ultraviolet

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Brother John <@net.com> left the cake out in the rain:

Well, fuck. I might as well go out to breakfast then and spend my
last ten bucks on overpriced out-of-season blueberry pancakes.


author: Alan Hope

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Brother John <
@
net.com> goes:

Still. Look on the bright side, eh?


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"Boggles The Brain" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Put your damned trolling aside for once. You've got enough troll threads
going already, you don't need to trash this one too. The working poor have
an ungodly tough time making it these days. A recent article in our local
newspaper focused on people who are working at 2, or even 3 jobs, and barely
make enough money to pay housing expenses and feed their families and buy
gas for their cars, let alone have any money left over to enjoy life. Some
with bachelor's degrees, others with master's degrees, many with no degrees,
but with specialized skills that aren't marketable anymore because there are
far more applicants than available jobs. To you, apparently that's just more
joke material. Well ha ha. To me, it's tragic. And it's not because they're
buying big screen TVs or fucking GameBoys. It's because they're doing
everything they possibly can but are fighting a losing battle every day of
their lives.

It's especially hard in Michigan right now because our economy has tanked
worse than most states. One woman who used to have a lucrative job and lost
it now works as a medical assistant; her husband is disabled and can't work,
so she's the sole supporter of the family. She cried when she had to visit a
food bank, which she had never done in her life, but she swallowed her pride
because her son's birthday was coming up and she wanted to bake him a cake
and cook a nice meal.

Make jokes if you think it's fun or funny, but for the life of me, I don't
understand how you could. No, not even on a newsgroup.

~ ~ ~
PJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Boggles The Brain <[email]> wrote in
news:[email]:

Whereas people who subscribe to....MAGIC! Don't have to worry about
anything.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup when Towse
<[email]> wrote:

<>

Thanx for poasting my list, dear Sal.
Oh, Pee Ess, you forgot the Mal
Lomars.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"Towse" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

I already commented on this but I have more to say in response to your post.
This never happens, Sal, but what you said infuriated me because it's so
narrow-minded. Your "buy seasonally" advice ... what exactly does it mean
for someone living in Michigan? Or other cold climates? To us, "seasonally"
is from late June through mid-September. So if families want to feed their
children fresh fruits and vegetables, from what you're saying, they
shouldn't do that nine months out of the year.

Did I misunderstand?

~ ~ ~
PJ


author: Sylvia

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
In article
<[email]>,
 "[email]" <[email]> wrote:

<...>

I would not be the least surprised if it's because they'd endanger their
relationship with their primary buyers. Prolly against contract rules.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"Bill Penrose" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

You're bringing back memories of Jeff. My God, one of many things I loved
about that boy was that he ate whatever I fixed, no matter what it was. No
fussiness there. The downside was, he ate all the time. All. The. Time. I
used to make these frosted applesauce spice bars that I'd pack in my kids'
lunches, and I had to freeze them to keep Jeff from eating a week's supply
right out of the oven. Well freezing didn't stop him. He would literally
stand there in front of the freezer, pull them out, unwrap them, and eat
them frozen solid.

I'd grouse at him but damn, I often miss those days.

~ ~ ~
PJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
<[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

< ... >

I knew that you would get it, Chris. As I mentioned, I spent just over $82
yesterday. For that, I can make my grandkids parmesan chicken and salad for
tonight's dinner, spaghetti and garlic bread for tomorrow's. For dessert,
Dutch chocolate brownies that I made yesterday from scratch. Grilled cheese
sandwiches, grapes and bananas (totally out of season) for lunches, french
toast and bacon for breakfast each day. I also bought a small ham and a bag
of potatoes that I'll make into a big pot of scalloped potatoes and ham,
which will likely last me all week. I don't eat very much so I probably
won't have to go to the store again until next weekend. If, on the other
hand, I had a hubby and my 3 kids back home, I would probably have to buy 6
gallons of milk each week instead of one, which means milk alone would cost
$23 instead of $3.80. Considering that is why I became aghast -- I figured,
even if families today were as frugal as they could possibly be (as I always
was and still am), their grocery bills could easily be triple that of
mine -- $246 per week instead of $82; $984 per month instead of $328. And
that's not buying fruity cereals, Pop Tarts, or Doritos (which cost more per
bag than a pound of chicken breast), or God forbid, steak.

< ... >

~ ~ ~
PJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Christine <[email]> wrote:

<...>
.

Miz PJ:  "I couldn't help wondering how families survive. [...]
               I just feel for people who are struggling to make it
               these days, while still trying to  enjoy life."

 towse:  "[...]  "Homemade coffee rolls not monster store-bought
               ones from Cinnabon.  [...]"

Coffee rolls. Sure. They could whip some up for their bridge club.

I was thinking more along the lines of Marie Antoinette.


author: B-- (dot

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Not sure of the time frames you're talking about but back in the
mid-seventies a starting clerk/typist salary where I live was $550 a
month (been there, done that). The equivalent starting salary in 2008
(not that anyone is called that anymore) is $2,500 (know for sure
because I do the office budget). These are both, taking into account
inflation, equally unlivable; emphasis on equally. I know folk
currently at the salary; they do the bulk of her grocery shopping only
on the first Tuesday of each month, which for some reason is discount
day at most of our local grocery chains. What they buy I figure to be
none of my business. Don't know if proportionally groceries prices are
higher now, but it was never easy.

Inflation, what makes the difference in what your great-aunt thinks a
gift of $5 for birthdays is worth vs what it will purchase (but still
priceless in the affection it contains).


author: Stan (the Man

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Jackson Pillock <[email]> wrote in
news:[email]:

Fifty pounds of what?


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
hush, puppy goes:

Yeahyeah, get back to me when you've switched yor computer over to
compost-power.

How very comfortable for you to sit there lamenting the Industrial
Revolution on your Intel-inside broadband connection to Usenet.
Bemoaning all of those developments you're simultaneously enjoying.
You're the very image of bourgeois self-flagellation and mauvaise foi.
Sure you long for the agrarian Arcadia, but let you get one toothache,
and we'd soon see how genuine was your renunciation of all things
modern, you fake faker.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Ultraviolet wrote:

Would you like that recipe again?

No, that'll be next week.

BJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
In article <[email]>,
 Alan Hope <[email]> wrote:

 .
      <snip more paragraphs of similar rant>
.

Absolutely! I could get them bombs, mortar rounds or missiles for him
wholesale... well, plus carrying charges... and state parrot fees.

Miz PJ asked:

   "I am respectfully asking that no one turns this into a
    food stamps/welfare argument. Please."

And whashisface did not. That's a GOOD thing.

Well, I don't think he did... my eyes kinda glazed after I got to the
missiles and I skipped down to your comment to clear 'em.

(I meant that I skipped down to your comment to clear my eyes of
glazing, not to clear the missiles--you got that, right?)

(Not that I'm sayin' that I wouldn't clear missiles.)

(Not that I'm sayin' that I don't have the POWER to do whatever I damn
well please, after all, I am...

      <signaling the (Official) Heralds>

      <flourish of horns>

 Sylvia  <--- The Supreme Ruler of MW *and*
               Sole Heir to the VAST FORTUNE
                    of great-aunt Catherine!
                             (NEENER!) )

(I'm just sayin'.)

Sylvia  <---- Supreme Ruler of MW  & A Respectable Person of Bidness

               Visit the MW Alphabet & Hat Emporium, Inc.
   Conveniently located in downtown MW, near the Bridge of <Sigh>s


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Alan Hope wrote:

I am looking on the bright side. I'm not an American.

BJ


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"PJ" <[email]> wrote:

"I'm sorry, but the company's shareholders demand that the company
show increasing profits quarter by quarter.  We've been forced to
oursource large portions of our work to overseas workers.  They don't
have landloArds who wish to retire on each month's rent, they don't
have hyperinflated real estate prices, they don't need a new Hummer or
BMW yearly, or thousand-dollar suits to avoid ridicule, and people
there can live quite well on what we can pay them while continuing to
increase our profits.  It isn't our fault, it's the shareholders, if
they weren't so greedy the CEO and President of the company would be
able to purchase luxury condominiums in the Caymans while keeping
prices down, but unfortunately we do have our priorities."

In about 1985 I was interviewing with a company that needed my skills
and had an absolutely awesome profit-sharing plan, but they had a
policy of not hiring smokers; the pretty people don't like smokers, so
if you're a smoker you're out of luck.

The pretty people also don't like having to pay for 30 years of actual
experience when they can hire a kid with a spanking new Master's
degree and no experience whatsoever who is convinced that using the
latest buzzwords to describe technical concepts that were in use
before he was out of diapers will see him through, so if you're over
50 you can still jobhop but you better have a place to land or you're
out of luck.

Then of course if you've grown so fed-up with watching the working
environment in Corporate America degrade as competition increases to
the point where there is a large sign over the door that says "Comply
Or Get Out" that you are only willing to negotiate with a
large-calibre handgun, you might as well just pack it in before you
reach the point where seeing a clock-tower gives you an erection.

It's greed, which breeds competition, which breeds stress, which
breeds short tempers, and road-rage, and children who take guns to
school and actually use them.  The sad thing is that the greed
expresses an overriding desire to get out of the rat race that ends up
exacerbating the negative characteristics of the rat race and
generates more greed that expresses an overriding desire to get out of
the rat race...

We basically just bailed.  We buy most of our groceries at WalMart
because their prices are lower, we buy most of our clothing at
Goodwill because you can often find a $50 pair of pants for $6, we
drive a 20-year-old pickup truck, we minimize the number of trips to
town because it costs $3 to drive to the nearest town, $9 to drive to
the next nearest, and $25 to drive to the nearest city.  We continue
to reduce our fixed costs as much as possible.

We struggle, we get by, generally speaking we refuse to Comply.

"No humans were harmed in the creation of this life."


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ wrote:

I was at the Goodwill yesterday. Turned out the Goodwill was having a
big sale with 50% off much of the merchandise. Kid's clothes $1/ea. PB
books 50c/ea. The sign in the window said that with the price of gas
going up, they'd decided the prices within the store should come down.

Food banks are wonderful. No one should go hungry because they are too
proud to ask for help. Food banks are there for people.

We were at a get-together last night at the San Francisco Food Bank.
Intros were followed by info: our local food bank is on target to
distribute 31 MILLION pounds of food in 2008 -- up five million pounds
from last year.

We were told that 150K (about 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 4 children) in San
Francisco go hungry or are "food insecure" as the government puts it.

SFFoodBank uses $$ donations to pick up produce from the Central Valley
that would go to waste otherwise. SFFB makes a real effort to distribute
fresh food and produce -- apples, onions, lettuce, spinach, potatoes --
as well as peanut butter, dried milk, rice and dried beans. Ten million
pounds or so of the food distributed is fresh produce.

SFFoodBank distributes food through member agencies as well as "food
pantries" with shelves of food arranged so clients choose from the foods
available rather than just be given a generic bag of foodstuffs that
they may or may not want to eat. (Okra? ewww! Menudo? ewww!)

They've opened Healthy Children pantries in the schools with the highest
poverty/hunger rates in the city and distribute a bag of food once a
week to parents who stop in.

Father John Hardin, OFM, Executive Director, St. Anthony Foundation, was
the guest agency rep and talked about how food from the SFFB helps Saint
Anthony's serve more than 2500 meals a day, an increase of more than 25%
over just five years ago.

Folks shouldn't go hungry. Folks shouldn't have to choose between paying
rent or eating, between buying medications and eating.

Something's broke inside and wants mending.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ goes:

Not to mention another wisecrack about Pastorio. Does it get any more
despicable than this?


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Miz "PJ" wrote:

.
<...>
<...>
.
<...>

Oh, yeah, you *do* have to pay a premium for healthy non-processed food,
there's no getting around that fact.

Painful decisions, I'd think. Even produce of dubious quality can be
generally more expensive than canned vegetables or bags of cheap brands
of frozen vegetables, especially when the bags and cans are marked down
to 10/$10.

A healthily raised whole chicken will be far more expensive than one
from a chicken mill already cut into parts. People with growing kids and
and a very tight money situation do what they have to do. Prolly not too
many of them thinking about coffee rolls, homemade or premium.  I doubt
they can afford blackberries at all.

You wrote that you did a lot to make ends meet while still feeding your
family nutritious food <snipped for brevity>. From that I gather that
what really got to you is the realization that the ways thing are today,
even with that level of caring, it would be impossible to reap the
rewards that you did back then on the same relative amount of money.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
Ultraviolet <[email]> wrote:

Safeway sells a line of cookies called "Tuxedoes".  They are what I
call Quite Potent in the sugar arena.  I can eat a dozen designer
cookies that are absolutely as healthy as possible and still want
more, or I can eat one "Tuxedo" and satisfy the craves.  Go figure,
eh?


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
PJ wrote:

Yes, you did and you went off like a bat out of hell.

Seasonal vegetables are just what they are ... the vegetables that are
being grown and harvested in that season. F'rex, fall/winter: carrots,
potatoes, parsnips, leeks, beets, pumpkins, winter squash, root
vegetables, turnips, i.e. NOT berries, bananas, fresh tomatoes, corn on
the cob even though you're thoroughly sick of snow and cold and think
you deserve a treat. Budget busters those treats be.

Supplement with canned/frozen -- *every* fruit and vegetable doesn't
need to be fresh. You don't need even to grow your own. (Most people
can't.) You do need to shop for vegetables knowing which ones are in
season, and, therefore, cheaper than others.

Get a grip, PJ. Just because you made nutritious stews and biscuit mix
and pies from scratch when the kids were growing up and you didn't have
the money for Batter Blaster doesn't mean that others do as you -- and
as I -- did.

There are =many= people who don't have all the money in the world who
make poor/expensive food choices and buy the quick and easy because they
can't be bothered to cut up a chicken. They buy corn chips and salsa
when their kids need veggies and those cute little all-in-one Lunchables
when a sandwich would be cheaper and better.

They decide they deserve steak when they have a hamburger budget.


author: serenebabe

subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
On 2008-02-29 17:46:29 -0500, "PJ" <[email]> said:

Read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle! You'd be
surprised what you can do and stay local, fresh, and seasonal.

We're in Maine and we do quite well. High proportion of local foods,
year-round. It requires a bit of effort, and a bunch of freezing in the
summertime, but, it's do-able if it's a priority.


subject: Re: Aghast in Chickpea

text:
"Stan (the Man)" <[email]> wrote in
news:Xns9A543F262B95newsNOSPAMrvckidsusN@130.81.64.196:

Lentils.