Make A Deposit That Counts - What Food Banks Need This Holiday Season

Times are indeed tough; for some more than others.

Unemployment and anxiety is up, wages and hope are down. Hunger and need know no party affiliation nor recognize any political philosophy, though. Thankfully in America, neither does charity or kindness.

House foreclosures, plant closings, bankruptcy, repossessions, massive consumer debt and catastrophic health costs have millions teetering on the edge of financial ruin, struggling day to day even as we're told the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is "technically over".

Meanwhile, millions have already succumbed to the crashing waves and roaring winds of the subsiding economic maelstrom. Their is nothing "technical" about their plight. For them, the dire possibilities of many have turned into grim reality.

If you are one of the increasing number of people that find themselves battered and beleaguered by these tumultuous and uncertain times, may you and yours be blessed and sustained by God's love and grace.

If, on the other hand, you're able to afford a dollar or two - maybe even five - to comfort and feed your less fortunate fellow countrymen this coming Thursday, may God bless you and warm your heart with the knowledge that because of you someone will know the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

While you may think the hour is late and times are tough, you and those around you can still make a difference in someone's Thanksgiving.

As the following piece notes, some food banks rate their return on a single dollar cash donation at anywhere from 5 to 15 pounds of food.

Five to fifteen pounds for one dollar.

If you and everyone in your office or class, book club or youth group, carpool or Twitter circle were to donate one dollar to your local food bank, you could provide many of our fellow countrymen with another reason to be thankful this coming Thursday. In addition to being blessed by living in the land of freedom and opportunity, those graced with your charity and goodwill will give thanks that the greatness of America is rooted in the hearts and generosity of her people.

Take a moment, take out a dollar, take up a collection, call your local food bank and help celebrate Thanksgiving with a little Thanks-Living.

Warmest Wishes to You and Yours for a Most Bountiful, Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving,
Dwight Alvis - The Bare Knuckled Pundit

10 Donations Food Banks Need Most

By MSN Money Staff

It's holiday food-drive season, and needs this year are growing. Let these suggestions guide your giving.

Cleaning out your cupboard for a food drive? Good. When the economy goes down, the number of people seeking help from the nation's food banks goes up.

In the past year, Feeding America, the nation's leading food bank network, has seen an average increase of 15% to 20% in the number of people seeking help at its 200-plus food banks. Atlanta food banks, for example, distributed 41% more food in October than they did in October 2007.

"This is a very critical time of year for us," says Amy Hudson of the Atlanta Community Food Bank in an e-mail. "Between now and Dec. 31, we need to raise $1.1 million just to keep pace with last year's donations."

Forget about contributing that can of water chestnuts you bought three years ago and never found a use for. Make your donations count.

"I always tell people, 'Think about what you like to eat,'" says Marguerite Nowak of the San Francisco Food Bank.

So what, specifically, do food banks need this year? Here's a list, although your local food banks might have specific needs, so check with them.

No. 1: Cash, plain and simple

"Consider this," Ross Fraser of Feeding America wrote in an e-mail. "If you buy a can of tuna fish and donate it to a food bank, it will cost you a dollar and some change." However, a $1 donation to Feeding America provides "about 20 pounds of food and grocery products to someone at risk of hunger."

Other food banks rate their return on your dollar at anywhere from 5 to 15 pounds of food. They do it by buying in bulk, using volunteer labor and working with food brokers who notify them of deep discounts.

If not cash, then what?

Though cash donations take care of bulk-food needs and necessities such as truck maintenance, food donations also play an important role. Food drives can provide more-healthful and higher-quality foods than bulk buys, and provide a greater diversity of foods.

"(Food drives) help us get different food, culturally appropriate food," Nowak says. Those donations -- such as pinto beans, corn flour, jalapenos as well as lentils and rice -- can be a big factor in serving the nation's increasingly diverse population, some of which isn't familiar with traditional American staples. In addition, some food banks, such as Feed the Poor in Salt Lake City, are trying to supply organic foods whenever possible.

Most importantly, food drives provide a direct connection between donors and people who are hungry. Here are the top foods needed by food banks this year:

Proteins. Canned meats such as tuna, chicken or fish are high in protein and low in saturated fat. Peanut butter is rich in protein and high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated oils, the "good fats." These are among the most expensive foods -- too expensive for food banks to buy large quantities.

Soups and stews. They are filling, particularly the "chunky" soups, and contain liquid for hydration. In addition, soups can be filled with protein and vegetables.

Rice and pasta. "They're really staples," Nowak says. In addition, grain-based foods, such as pasta, are a good source of fiber and complex carbohydrates.

Cereal, including oatmeal. Breakfast cereals can be an additional source of protein, and most cereals today include a variety of vitamins and minerals.

Canned vegetables, including tomatoes and tomato sauce. Studies indicate that canned vegetables have about the same nutritional value as fresh vegetables.

Canned or dried beans and peas. A staple of diets as early as 6700 B.C., beans are a low-fat source of protein and fiber.

Canned fruits. Only a small amount of vitamin C is lost in the canning process, making these a healthy choice.

Fruit juice (canned, plastic or boxed). Make sure it's 100% juice.

Prepared box mixes such as macaroni and cheese or Hamburger Helper.

Shelf-stable milk. This includes dehydrated milk, canned evaporated milk and instant breakfasts.

What food banks don't need

Food bank officials are loath to say no to any donations, but let common sense prevail.

"As far as least helpful donations, out-of-date and glass items are least desirable," says Maryann Brunner of the Oregon Food Bank.

Other problematic items:

Perishables. The items could go bad before they're given to a client.

Homemade foods. That plate of homemade cookies is a nice thought, but there's no way for the food bank folks to know the contents or the date they were made.

Rusty or unlabeled cans. Would you feed your family out of rusty or unidentifiable cans?

Noncommercial canned items. Again, the food bank has no way of determining quality.

Baby food. Some food banks will accept canned or dry baby food and formula, but small glass containers are not accepted. Check with your local food bank.

Alcoholic beverages or soda.

Open packages. Do we need to explain this one? Give them the good stuff.

Daily Cartoon - Stimulus, Stimulus Everywhere!

Realizing the political trap they laid for themselves, the White House quickly abandoned the whole "the stimulus will create X million jobs" in favor of the more ambiguously-friendly and far harder to measure "created and SAVED jobs" shortly after it passed. Ever since, emphasis has been dogmatically placed on the "saved" by the Administration and the President.

When asked for some tangible measure of the stimulus's success, the President's standard defensive response was something along the lines of, "If you think things are bad now, imagine what they'd be like without the stimulus!" After which, he would dutifully cut off any follow up question with a slight downward tilt of his head, his chin and jaws locked in steely fashion, accompanied by the requisite icy glare.

Were that not sufficient and some sign of life remained in his interlocutor, Obama would employ one his greatest hits and mournfully lament the fact that he "....inherited this mess. I didn't create it, you know. But I'm the one trying to clean it up...."

The message was clear - The stimulus is a success. Jobs have been SAVED......and created. The Great Ob has spoken. Time to move on.

The problem is, though, the metrics behind the message aren't nearly as clear as the messenger would have us believe.

Not only has unemployment crashed through the barrier of the Administration's initial projection of 8 percent, economists scoff at the "official" rate of 10.2 percent. Bear in mind that's with a near half a point rise in the month of October alone. This despite members of the Administration pushing the line that the recession is "technically over". The truth is when you include those whose unemployment benefits have expired in addition to those who have for all intents and purposes given up looking for jobs, the "real" rate is somewhere in the 17-18 percent range. For them, there is nothing "technical" about it - the recession "really" continues.

Transforming skepticism into disdainful incredulity, word now comes that untold numbers of the "jobs created" by the stimulus are to be found in congressional districts that don't even exist. While the White House reverts to what is becoming an all too familiar damage control mode, stories of schools and non-profits being credited with more creating or saving more jobs than they have total personnel on their payrolls undermine any shred of credibility the Administration might have once enjoyed.

No doubt Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will dutifully tow the line of "All the stimulus funds have yet to make their way into the economy. So measuring the full extent of their impact as this point is premature and incomplete at best."

Perhaps Gibbs and the rest of the Administration would be better served if they dropped any pretense of a credible measure of the stimulus's impact and say, "Ignore the statistics and unemployed behind the curtain."

Then again, perhaps they'd prefer the favorite admonishment of Jack McClanahan, my junior high school principal. "Move along now; there's nothing to see here."

Alas, that is precisely the point. There is nothing to see here - no jobs, no recovery. If nothing else is clear and easily understood, that most certainly is.

Daily Cartoon - Up, Up and Away

Daily Cartoon - A Matter of Perspective

Softballs For Sarah

One of the arguments that critics have repeatedly used against Sarah Palin since her ascension to the national political stage is that intellectually she has no more substance than the stereotypically vacuous beauty contestant among whose ranks she formerly hails. Building on that argument, many in the Liberal commentariat derided her interview with talk show maven Oprah Winfrey as little more than feel-good fluff.

Lambasting Oprah for asking softball questions, they mercilessly condemn Palin for failing to provide any substantive proposals for the litany of national ailments she regularly laments. They mock her for crassly hawking a book they dismiss as ideological pap and embittered political score-settling. They are at the same time, correct and cynically disingenuous.

Before they collapse from a rage-induced brain aneurysm, Palin's critics would be well advised to bear a few things in mind.

First, Oprah Winfrey is not Tim Russert.

This is the Oprah Winfrey Show, not "Meet The Nation". There is a distinct and readily acknowledged difference in the subject matter and level of intellectual discourse. This is nothing new or earth-shattering, mind you. Oprah's been on the air twenty six years now - she is what she is.

The focus of her show is the personal, not politics or public policy. Has she had politicians on before - yes. But the emphasis, again, is on their story and their lives. She is the reigning Queen of Touchy-Feely, after all. That being the case, a high percentage of her questions are going to be slow, high softballs.

Nonetheless, after a rambling, meandering non-answer from Palin, Winfrey did hold her feet to the fire, asking, "So, is Levi coming to Thanksgiving dinner or not?" Now who said Oprah doesn't do hard-hitting journalism again?

Eat your heart out, Matthews and Olbermann.

While clearly at the head of the ranks in terms of respectability and quality of content, Oprah's show is still just a talk show. Though it's not Jerry Springer, it also isn't "The Newshour with Jim Lerher". Oprah targets a specific demographic in the media marketplace and Palin's appearance fit neatly within her format. Yes, gasp, Oprah's booking Palin was as crassly commercially-motivated as Sarah's agreeing to it.

Sarah gets the exposure and subsequent book sales, while Oprah gets the ratings. Both of them gain access to segments of each others audiences that would have otherwise dismissed them out of hand. In the end, both of them win. Isn't the marketplace of ideas a truly wonderful thing?

Next, let's try something a little different for a change. I know it's going to be a challenge for many in the commentariat, but let's be honest - Palin never portrayed her book as anything more than a biography.

The title is "Going Rogue: An American Life", not "Going Rogue: The Right Way To Save America". Palin's "Rogue" is by no means Joe Scarborough's "The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise", nor does she or it aspire to be. Indeed, there was never any pretense that Palin was penning a polemic policy prescription for the nation.

To the contrary, "Rogue" is Palin and her co-author's attempt to weave her life story into the great and rich tapestry that is America. Admittedly, along the way, she seeks to set the record straight on the disastrous '08 presidential campaign. A woman scorned, you know. Yet, in the end, she connects in her own folksy style with an audience that identifies, often passionately, with her. It is that audience and the voice that Palin gives them which her critics view with a palpable mixture of disgust, condescension and yes, fear.

In the end, their venomous vitriol says more about them than it does the object of their scornful attacks. Indeed, they are little more than the ideologically-enraged harpies they would make Palin out to be.

Same as it ever was, faithful readers. Same as it ever was.

Stay tuned for further updates as events warrant and Palin's detractors secretly yearn for her to fulfill their trashy redneck fantasizes of her with a tantalizing appearance on Jerry Springer.

Daily Cartoon - Pop-Up Palin