[CLUE-Talk] Bowling for Columbine

[Dennis J Perkins]

Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> On 11-30 20:16, Jeffery Cann wrote:
> 
>>Anyone seen this documentary?  If so, what did you think of it?  
>>
>>Just curious, but I thought it was an excellent documentary which has a 
>>reasonable explanation of the number of handgun homicides in the US vs other 
>>countries.
>>
>>If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend it -- I think it will challenge 
>>our American viewpoint, especially with regard to fear of living.
> 
> 
> I do plan on seeing it (and reading his book) despite the fact that it will
> probably offend me...but I have thick skin. :) Since I'm so poor, I'll
> probably wait until it comes to a library near me. 
> 
> BTW: If you go to his web site, www.michaelmoore.com, you can see this
> statement under the "Alert Action": 
> 
> "There are 30 million Americans living without enough food."
> 
> Huh? How many Americans are there? 350 million? So, according to this
> statement (without a cite, I noticed), there are just under 1 out of 12
> people without enough food? I don't mean to whitewash the issue, but that
> sounds just a *tad* inflated. And I thought conservatives were resorting to
> hyperbole when they said that the media always seems to "discover" the
> homeless and hungry in this country whenever there is a sitting Republican
> president...
> 

How do they determine who doesn't have enough food?  Looking at only 
income doesn't yield valid numbers since it ignores the fact that some 
parts of the country are more expensive.  It also ignores rural 
communities where farmers raise their own food.  My family was rated 
poor for my first eight years but we always had enough to eat and had 
what we needed.  My parents were surprised to learn that they had once 
been poor by govt standards.