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Monday, July 4, 2011

Michelle Obama's Food Desert Locator

It seems like every neighborhood used to have a Michelle Obama. Yeah, she was the woman who knew what was best for everyone. Not content to just muck up her own children's lives she had to boss all the neighborhood kids. Steal your ball if she thought you were playing too rough. My mother used to say " She means well. Just smile and be nice to her. You don't want the people to come and lock her up do you? Then her kids wouldn't have a mommy." So out of deference to my dear late mother I've tried to be nice to Michelle Obama and I really don't want the people to come and lock her up. After all she means well. Sometimes we don't appreciate the really great things she has done. Why with the cooperation of the USDA Michelle has created an exciting new web tool. It's a food desert locator. I'll bet in 1995 when you were learning to use Kermit and Gopher and playing Leisure Suit Larry in sixteen colors you never thought there would be a food desert locator in your life time. What hath God wrought!


The first lady was good enough to give Looper Report an interview


LR: So what exactly does this fabulous new tool that you and your friends have created do?
MO: It locates food deserts?
LR: What's a food desert?
MO: It's a census tract in which people have trouble finding food.
LR: What's so hard about finding food. I mean do you expect people to forage like ground squirrels?
MO: No but in some areas food is hard to get. There aren't grocery stores nearby.
LR: Why? Because Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters won't let Walmart in?
MO: That's a different matter. They mean well. Be nice to them. You wouldn't what the people to come and lock them up, would you?
LR: But why if people can't buy food do they chase the stores away. Then they are the ones who complain that food stamps don't do enough. If there are no grocery stores then the people don't need food stamps do they?
MO: Of course they need food stamps.
LR: For what? To trade for cigarettes?
MO: It's a logistical problem. Getting food to people. Simple logistics.
LR: What is "low food access"?
MO: Low food access means there is not a grocery store within a mile of where you live or in a rural area within 10 miles.
LR: Ok. I see, for instance in, Cherry county Nebraska 94.3% of the population has low food access.
MO: Correct.
LR: And that's a problem?
MO: It is if you live there.
LR: There are only 1.02 people per square mile how many more stores would they need?
MO: Several
LR: But there are only 6148 people in the whole county. How could they support several grocery stores?
MO: That's the problem.
LR: Will these people be better off with a food desert locator?
MO: Yes
LR: You mean "sort of" or infinitely? or what?
MO: Sort of
LR: Do you think these people think they have a problem? Or do they have freezers and gardens and some live stock and hunt?
MO: They probably have freezers.
LR: One last question. Why the difference between urban and rural? I mean does it take any longer to walk ten miles in a city than it does in the country.
MO: Because if we applied the one mile rule to everyone most of the map would be pink and aside from never being able to solve the problem we would be a laughing stock to the Republicans.

2 comments:

  1. Ahaha! I kept reading this thinking you were misspelling it and you were talking about Mooch's DESSERT fixation when, in actuality, she really did refer to a DESERT locator.

    Hey, take a look at that caboose and I think the DESSERT locator is more like what she really looks for.

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  2. Of course most of the people with "low food access" live in cities and somehow they'll try to find a way to smear more money to them so they can trade their food stamps for cigarettes.

    ReplyDelete