Obviously, we have no heroes, except for a fictional character who originally appeared in the pages of the ten-issue comic book series. No masks of President Obama or the various Republican hopefuls. Scary thought, seeing more than one Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann at any given time. Maybe they haven’t yet been commercialized, but in these weeks leading up to Halloween, surely some small child must be asking to go trick or treating as one of the figures who are as plastic as their masks would be.

When my children were young, I dressed the eldest as Caesar Chavez. I think he was about four. He wore a sandwich board with a message in support of the farm workers union, a straw hat, and a big grin. In our suburban, middle-class neighborhood no one got it. Until we came to the “hippie” house. My son got lots of treats, and I was offered one too. I declined, of course.

I had seen “V” the film but was told that it strayed from the original plot. Last week I ordered it from Netflix, and when the red envelope arrived, I popped it in and watched again. It had less impact this time, so I decided to go all the way and went online to borrow the graphic novel through the regional library system. Then I thought, what if “they” are checking my checkouts. Will I be suspected of plotting some criminal behavior?  After all, we are fast approaching November 5. “Remember, remember the fifth of November” references the date upon which anarchist Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellar of Parliament with barrels of gunpowder and subsequently hung, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot. Nasty way to go.

The protests have, for the most part, been peaceful. As I watch them on television, the old spark reignites and I consider joining a local group. Perhaps I’ll Meet Up with other 60s leftovers standing with the young, demonstrating because of the timeless issues that somehow seem never to be resolved. Justice, truth, and freedom. The goal of all superheroes. Masks and disguises have long been part of revolutionary movements. But where are the new superheroes?

I checked Amazon to see if they sell the “V” masks, and sure enough, they do. Under six bucks with free Super Saver Shipping. What a deal. I added one to my Wish List. You just never know.

The protesters are not against big business. In fact, they would love it if corporations stuck around and offered them decent-paying jobs. They are not against capitalism. They just want a fair share of it. They want to be able to pay their student loans, have decent jobs, marry, buy a home and raise a family. Radical, that American Dream.

Most media pundits and politicians have no clue as to what those forced into this underclass are experiencing. I recently worked on a tag sale held at a senior housing complex. It was to raise funds to buy extravagances like coffee, napkins, maybe some cheap Christmas decorations from WalMart. We sold all sorts of items at very low prices. I had bagged up clothing outgrown by my own young grandchildren according to gender, size and season. A young father with two-year-old twin girls came in looking for warm winter clothing. I was able to offer him enough to outfit both of them for under ten dollars. He nearly wept. Me too.

Seniors aren’t doing so hot either. Most pay about a third of their Social Security income to supplement Medicare, and still they are not covered for dental work, including dentures, hearing aids, or eyeglasses. What does it mean to someone who nets $400 a month and needs a hearing aid or dentures, each of which can easily exceed $2,000, or eyeglasses, the biggest rip-off of them all. Maybe the reason that elderly driver in front of you is going so slowly is that he can’t afford to see. Like hearing and seeing aren’t health issues nearly as important as erectile dysfunction or sagging chins.

Health care, the environment, peace, civil rights/liberties and economic security are the top issues of the Gray Panthers, an organization of activists that was founded by Maggie Kuhn in 1970. Kuhn (died 1995) and five friends who mounted their opposition to the Vietnam War, were first dubbed the Gray Panthers because of their ages, but the group developed into an intergenerational, international multi-issue organization working “to create a society that puts the needs of people over profit, responsibility over power and democracy over institutions.”

In keeping with these issues, the Gray Panthers National Board is going to be at Occupy Washington, DC (Freedom Plaza, Pennsylvania and 13th Street) on Saturday, October 15, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. “to show our solidarity with the action.” The new generation of Gray Panthers now uses Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get their word out.

I have to wonder how the mainstream media will react to increasing numbers of elders among the protesters. Up until now they have carefully omitted them from the coverage, instead concentrating on the youngest, expecting them to be the least knowledgeable. But our young and often pierced, green and blue-haired brothers and sisters are informed and well-spoken.

Maggie famously said, “We are the risk-takers; we are the innovators; we are the developers of new models. We are trying the future on for size. That is our role.” As for the young protesters, we were once them, we gray heads, and it is time that we rejoined the fight, because there has never been more at stake. For all of us.

McLean, VA – Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) today announced it has ordered all evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family and 2-4 unit properties that had Freddie Mac mortgages to be suspended from December 20, 2010 to January 3, 2011.

‘If the property is occupied, our foreclosure attorneys will suspend the eviction to provide a greater measure of certainty to families during the holidays,’ said Anthony Renzi, Executive Vice President of Single Family Portfolio Management at Freddie Mac.

Because of the generosity of Freddie Mac, after these families have collected dozens of empty cardboard boxes from the local liquor store and stuffed their belongings into them, they will still have a little time to enjoy the holiday, even though the utilities may be disconnected, the cupboard bare, and, oh yeah, all the pots and pans sealed up with packing tape.

Maybe the kids can draw pictures on the Seagram’s box of a tree and the feast and presents they might have had if Mom hadn’t been laid off from Waffle House and Dad lost his job as a guard at the mall.

I was once fired on Christmas Eve. I worked for a big-city wholesaler that employed both highly paid union workers (men) in the warehouse and customer service people (women) in the office. The latter received slightly more than minimum. The president, who was off skiing for the holiday, left orders that everyone was to show up the weekend before Christmas to help with the inventory.

The warehouse guys were ecstatic. They would get double time and a half for Sunday. And they didn’t have to shop or cook. The customer service reps, who were stunned to lose the days they had planned to use for holiday preparations for their families, asked what they would get. “Nothing,” was the reply. “You are salaried.”

As assistant to the boss, I was exempt from counting stock, but as a single mom myself, I was furious, and I spoke out on behalf of the women, causing quite a ruckus. They did, indeed, come in–as a guarantee that they would continue to be employed–but on Christmas Eve I was called into HR, handed two weeks pay, and told that my talents were no longer needed. I went home and said to my sons, “Guess What?”

Times were better then, and I soon had a job where I got to work with actual human beings, but times have changed.

I live a fairly secluded life now, in a village that not only resembles the Bedford Falls of It’s a Wonderful Life, but is itself a “Falls,” and when I traveled to DC for the Thanksgiving holiday, I observed instances of a lack of good will that I had not experienced for some time.

At the airport a woman with whom I would have avoided sharing a conversation had I known what was coming, said something to the effect that to guarantee our safety, Muslims should have their own airline. My response was, “You are probably correct. I’m sure they would prefer to not travel with you.” End of conversation.

While I was in DC, I learned that the Giant grocery store chain had changed its policy regarding Salvation Army bell-ringers. Giant decreed that they can solicit contributions for only 12 days over November and December combined. On these days they are limited to four hours. The Salvation Army and other charities had previously been allowed 10 hours a day, six days a week. A spokesperson for Giant said the rule had been applied “in order to best serve our customers, and not hinder their shopping experience.”

In 2009, the DC Salvation Army raised half of their donations at Giant stores. While I disapprove of the Salvation Army’s anti-LGBT policies, they do provide help to many (Just don’t mention that you are gay.) Giant also supports food banks and other charities, but I believe they made a mistake in cutting the hours of the Salvation Army, whose kettle is one of the few constancies in our contemporary holiday nouveaux and whose help is sorely needed in the downward-spiraling economy.

On a personal note, I found myself very close to finding religion again while visiting the National Cathedral. Maybe it was the marble statues to which stone workers have dedicated their entire adult lives, or the sun streaming through the stained glass, but standing in the glow of its beauty made me long for something far in my past, when my working-class parents created our Christmases from little and then gave thanks for what they had. If only the poor and about-to-be-poor could be guaranteed merely that. Is that asking so much?

“While such policies will not solve the obesity epidemic in its entirety and may face considerable opposition from food manufacturers and sellers, they could prove an important strategy to address overconsumption, help reduce energy intake and potentially aid in weight loss and reduced rates of diabetes among U.S. adults,” commented the group led by Kiyah Duffey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Our findings suggest that national, state or local policies to alter the price of less healthful foods and beverages may be one possible mechanism for steering U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet,” wrote Duffey and his team.

Duffey’s group studied the diets and health of more than 5,000 young adults age 18 to 30 from 1985 to 2006. I have a feeling that the findings were heavily weighted by college students and low-income young people who ate on the cheap and on the fly. There is no proof that as they grew older, and had children of their own, they didn’t make better food choices.

The problem for them, as it is for most, is that the better choices cost more and can’t compete with the artificially low prices of processed foods that contain highly subsidized high-fructose corn syrup.

A Reuters article about these recommendations noted that Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden supports taxes on soft drinks, as does the American Heart Association.

As I was coming to the end of the article, I began to despair. Why are all these supposed intelligent people addressing cost, but not food value? You’d think they were being subsidized by Archer Daniels Midland or something. Of course, the CDC is the government, and we all know how well that works.

And where does it end. Why pizza and soda? Why not ice cream, butter, and sugar-coated cereals. Maybe that’s what they have in mind. Maybe we’ll end up with a fat tax tied to what we weigh and eat, and how we care for ourselves. Mr. Orwell, are you listening?

But there at the bottom were the words that gave me hope. They came by way of San Francisco, where Drs. Mitchell Katz and Rajiv Bhatia of that city’s Department of Public Health argued that the federal government should evaluate the food subsidies that contribute to obesity.

“Sadly, we are currently subsidizing the wrong things including the production of corn, which makes the corn syrup in sweetened beverages so inexpensive,” they wrote.

They noted that agricultural subsidies should be used to make healthful foods such as locally grown produce and grains less costly. Thank you Drs. Katz and Bhatia.

The news is filled with warnings about increasing childhood obesity. I can’t believe that TPTB don’t know why this is happening. Or maybe their pockets are lined with husks donated by the corn producers. This new initiative might be just a show, but if enough of us speak out, at least the government will know that we know and maybe stop subsidizing corn in favor of healthy fruits and vegetables. We can only hope.

If you would like to send a comment to the Task Force on Childhood Obesity.

The fourth field requires a choice. I selected No. 1 – Access to healthy affordable food.

The government has a strange way of taking care of the people. It uses money to reward us for bad behavior (financial and mortgage bailouts) and to punish us for bad behavior (taxes on cigarettes and unhealthy food). Money, not logic, seems to be the answer to everything.

It would be a happy day if our elected and appointed officials rejected influence by lobbyists, money, favors, and the rest of the SWAG (Stuff We All Get, but which lately only they get) and come up with solutions that actually benefit us.

More and more consumers are finding it difficult to purchase the healthy food they desire for their families. In many cases they buy what is more affordable rather than what is healthier, fresher and more sustainably grown. That’s because the small local farmer receives no subsidies from the government, while big ag is heavily subsidized, with the most money by far going to large corn producers.

Subsidies make it less expensive to produce HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) than either cane or beet sugar, and the cheaper alternative is now used in an increasing number of foods available in the supermarket, from yogurt to cereal to chocolate syrup, and especially in soda. The use of HFCS cuts costs for the manufacturer who incorporates it into its product, giving it an advantage over the producer of greens, carrots, and apples.

HFCS is suspected of being a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, which has led to the deaths of approximately one third of the honeybees in the United States. In the United States, high-fructose corn syrup has become a sucrose replacement in many honey operations. In 2009, a study found that at temperatures above 113 degrees Fahrenheit, HFCS rapidly begins to form HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural), which is toxic to the honeybees.

An October 14, 2009, American Chemical Society press release cites the study published in their Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The release says in part: “The scientists measured levels of HMF in HFCS products [beverages and processed foods] from different manufacturers over a period of 35 days at different temperatures. As temperatures rose, levels of HMF increased steadily. Levels jumped dramatically at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. ‘The data are important for commercial beekeepers, for manufacturers of HFCS, and for purposes of food storage. Because HFCS is incorporated as a sweetener in many processed foods, the data from this study are important for human health as well,’ the report states. It adds that studies have linked HMF to DNA damage in humans. In addition, HMF breaks down in the body to other substances potentially more harmful than HMF.”

Most commercial corn is now genetically modified. For this reason, if a food is labeled organic, it should not contain HFCS, since organic foods cannot include genetically modified ingredients. HFCS is just one concern, however. The losses in the honey bee population have also been attributed to the use of chemicals and antibiotics. Sound familiar? We need to pay attention to the bees.

I’m afraid that nothing will change until the crisis in food quality and availability becomes so critical that there is no ignoring it. The question then will be: Is it too late? Crops have cycles. They take time and care. There are no quick fixes for a broken food supply chain. In the meantime, what do we do? We do what we can, and we help where we can.

As individuals we can read labels and avoid fast food and highly processed food. We can learn how to prepare meals from vegetables we have never before tried, and others from our childhood that were served by our parents and grandparents, who were also on tight budgets. Some of our most nutritious foods cost little. By preparing home-cooked meals from wholesome ingredients, we are teaching our children about healthy lifestyles, and also about our individual food culture. We can support local growers by visiting farm markets, and we can break ground for a small garden. In inner cities, people are digging up their yards and tending plots in community gardens. In fact, this may be the only way many low-income families can enjoy fresh food. We can also support programs that help those least able to afford healthy local fruits and vegetables.

An example is the Farmers’ Market Coupon Program, which was first established in Massachusetts and has since been adopted by other states. It provides women and children in the Federal Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and low-income elders with coupons redeemable at farmers’ markets for fresh fruits and vegetables. Some communities have established farm-to-school programs, so that children can benefit from locally grown. Farmers and gardeners “plant a row for the hungry” and contribute to food pantries and homeless shelters. The trend is growing. We really do care for each other. If only our regulators and policy makers did.

A friend told me of his desire to open a soup kitchen. Al said: “The real joy would be helping others. Down in the Red Fort district in Delhi, India, you see the rich Indians getting a first-hand experience serving the poor homeless, the street kids, the handicapped. The rich buy the food and then cook it (in huge pots supplied by the temple). There is the dahl, the broken rice, the beans etc., and the dried tree leaves that are somehow pressed together to serve as plates. They call this act of service Puja. Take note–hardship can bring the community together. And get this–the rich thank the poor for the opportunity to be the hand of Love, the chance to practice giving and sharing. Acts like this are a chance for all of us to experience our humanity. More of us should try it, wouldn’t you agree.”

I do agree. I also feel that consumers should have an abundance of affordable choices, but that can only happen when love and benevolence replace greed and self-interest. This should extend to the struggling small farmer, as well, so that he can continue his stewardship of the land that feeds us all and adequately care for the family that he loves.

“When the sun rises, I go to work. When the sun goes down, I take my rest. I dig the well from which I drink, I farm the soil that yields my food. I share creation, Kings can do no more.” — Ancient Chinese Proverb, 2500 B.C.

Dear President Obama,

We urge you to withdraw the nomination of Islam Siddiqui as Chief Agriculture Negotiator and to reconsider your support of Roger Beachy as director of the new National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Siddiqui is CropLife’s current vice president of science and regulatory affairs, and until last month, Beachy was the head of Monsanto’s de facto nonprofit research arm. As two textbook cases of the “revolving door” between industry and the agencies meant to keep watch, Siddiqui and Beachy’s industry ties demonstrate that both men are too beholden to corporate agriculture to serve the public interest.

Appointing Siddiqui to this critical post within the U.S. Trade Representative’s office sends a clear signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. plans to continue down the worn and failed path of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture by pushing pesticides, inappropriate biotechnologies and unfair trade arrangements on nations that do not want and can least afford them. Siddiqui’s professional record is revealing on several points:

• Siddiqui was a paid lobbyist for 3 years for Croplife America, which represents the chemical pesticide and ag biotechnology interests. Members include Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta.
• CropLife America’s regional partner had notoriously “shuddered” at Michelle Obama’s organic White House garden for failing to use chemical pesticides and launched a letter petition drive, urging the First Lady to consider using insecticides and herbicides in her garden.
• CropLife America has consistently lobbied the U.S government to weaken and thwart international treaties governing the use and export of toxic chemicals such as PCBs, DDT and dioxins.
• Siddiqui’s past service at the USDA included overseeing the initial development of national organic food standards that would have allowed GMOs and toxic sludge to be labeled “organic”— until over 230,000 consumers forced their revision.

As the global food crisis deepens and we head into the Doha round of trade talks at the WTO, the U.S. needs a lead negotiator who understands that the current configuration of trade agreements works neither for farmers nor for the world’s hungry. All eyes are on the U.S. to demonstrate international leadership in this arena by withdrawing support for an industrial model of agriculture that imperils both people and the planet, by undermining food security and worsening climate change.

In his capacity as director of NIFA, Roger Beachy will be in charge of the nation’s agricultural research agenda and purse strings for the next six years. Given Beachy’s previous career running the Danforth Plant Science Center, a nonprofit closely linked to and funded by Monsanto, we believe that billions more in government funding will be funneled into genetic engineering and chemical pesticide research. Meanwhile the real solutions to our growing agricultural problems, provided by sustainable and organic agriculture research, will suffer from a lack of federal funding and attention.

Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, agricultural biotechnology—of the kind aggressively promoted and marketed by CropLife— has failed to deliver on any of its promises of higher yields for U.S. farmers, “enhanced nutrition” or drought-resistance for developing country farmers. What Monsanto’s research agenda has yielded is skyrocketing herbicide use, resistant “super-weeds”, rising debt for farmers, polluted waterways, threats to the health of farmworkers and rural communities, and unparalleled corporate consolidation in the agrochemical and seed industries. The top 10 agribusinesses control 89% of the agrochemicals market, 66% of the modern biotech market and 67% of the global seed market.

With farmers here and abroad struggling to respond to water scarcity and increasingly volatile growing conditions, we need a resilient and restorative model of agriculture that adapts to and mitigates these effects of climate change. In the most comprehensive analysis of global agriculture to date, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), states unequivocally that “business as usual is not an option.” We need a model of agriculture that regenerates soil health, sequesters carbon, feeds communities, and puts profits back in the hands of farmers and rural communities. Industrial agriculture—and Roger Beachy, Islam Siddiqui and CropLife in particular—favor none of these solutions.

While we appreciate your Administration’s recent gestures in support of local food systems, we fear these initiatives will not fulfill their potential unless the monopolistic power and political influence of the agricultural input industry is directly confronted. We therefore respectfully ask you to withdraw your appointments of Siddiqui and Beachy, and replace them with candidates who have a sustainable vision for U.S. agriculture and trade.

As parents, farmers, advocates, scientists and people who eat food, we remember your promise on the campaign trail: “We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” We, the undersigned, are writing to hold you to that promise.

Organic farmers don’t use fungicides. Copper dust is acceptable, but it doesn’t do much against this form of blight that can wipe out a crop in a matter of days. Most organic farmers buy clean seed or save their own, but blight can travel for miles. I have to worry about the family down the street who bought a six pack of Big Boys at Home Depot. And if blight found my tomatoes, I would watch them rot in the field. So far, so good, but it’s been a tough year for tomatoes all around.

A word about the term “organic.” In order to use it, a farmer whose gross is more than $5,000 a year must be certified by the federal government. This is a process that many small farmers cannot afford, nor do they want to be involved with the paperwork and oversight. There are penalties for calling yourself an organic farmer, or your produce organically grown, if you are not certified, and they can be considerable.

As an alternative, many small farmers say they grow their crops “sustainably.” This generally means they use methods that would enable them to be certified organic if they so chose. If I were a consumer, I would rather buy from them than from commercial organic growers who get blanket certification for their crops. Remember that the small grower feeds his or her children and grandchildren from their gardens. Or you could rely on the collaboration of the federal government and a handful of huge corporations to keep our food safe and sound. Given recent history, this is a no-brainer.

The loss of our tomato crop would be devastating, especially because of the investment of time in producing eight varieties, including heirlooms. And then there are the potatoes. I walk between the hills each morning, filled with dread that I might find a telltale spot, but so far I’ve seen only a few Colorado potato beetles coupling in the sun. Squish. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Many of the big California farms that supply so much of our produce are hurting, really hurting. Hard to grow vegetables without water. Fruit trees are dying, fields turning to dust. And the drought is being felt in Mexico, to which many growers, including large organic growers, are transferring a substantial percentage of their operations. This is a situation that will not improve. So, where will we get our food? From China? Wouldn’t it be preferable to support small farms around the country, and wouldn’t government at all levels better serve its citizens and taxpayers by working on the food security issue. There are really just a few basic needs. This happens to be one of them.

Generic press releases that advocate buying local, supporting ag, etc. appear with frequency, but how much is actually being done to help the small farmer—help you. A local NPR station aired a talk during which the speaker suggested that farmers be provided with health insurance. Many have to leave the farm and take low-wage jobs in cities miles from home in order to get benefits to protect their families. What a waste of good men and women. They would rather be on the farm, growing and harvesting, and personally, that’s where I would rather have them.

Subsidies and tax breaks go to agribusiness. The small farmer gets nothing or close to it. Governments should set up farm markets in parking lots, school playgrounds, and parks. The small farmer often pays hundreds of dollars each season to be part of a market because there is no free alternative. Then the markets, and the need for local food security, should be publicized until every family understands that food shortages could become a possibility. Some of the small farmers’ costs could be subsidized. They typically have modest needs, and modest means. Having a good tiller or greenhouse or irrigation system can make a huge difference in output and will more than pay for itself in available produce for the consumer in the community.

Because of the scale of the small farm, everything is expensive compared to the costs of commercial producers. Feed is bought in bags or grown and mixed on site, for example, not stored by the ton in huge warehouses. The profits are tiny, if there are any at all. And labor isn’t even counted in the calculations. There is a lot of labor.

So why does the small farmer do it? If not for money, it must be love, and it is. It is also about directly serving a person or family who appreciates his efforts. It’s for the woman who said she hadn’t eaten real free-range eggs since she was a child on the family farm in Australia. Or the customer who asked for advice on cooking a vegetable he had never before tried, one that must be grown on a small scale and carefully tended, as opposed to the standard easy-store/easy-ship varieties commercially produced. These are the people who want to savor the delicious purple tomato, the blue potato, the red kale, and the really incredible egg with the bright orange yolk. I love having them to offer.

Crops are closely watched and tended, and always with the customer in mind. Local chefs and restaurant owners come to the farm or market to buy so that they can use the finest, most healthful ingredients in their dishes. All of these customers are supporting the growers who may someday be their lifelines. With a future that could include fuel shortages or other disruptions, can we always count on trucks being able to carry commercial produce from California and Mexico and other distant regions where it is grown? That’s a long way baby.

The huge operations that grow just one type of vegetable, fruit, or grain are practicing monoculture, a system that is cost-effective and efficient for them but one in which an entire crop can be decimated in a fell swoop by an invasive organism or a weather event. Then there’s the other way, the one that is also supported by people who save and share seeds and the seed cooperatives and companies that find new sources for heirloom varieties and encourage their production. May they grow and prosper.

And may we all do whatever it takes, including putting pressure on our legislators to provide food security and safety. This is an issue about which they can do something. The question now is, will they?

A couple of years ago I moved back East from Montana, where I had cable/digital everything for $99 a month. In my new home, I now spend the same amount for limited satellite internet. In Massachusetts, home to the Massachusetts Institute of TECHNOLOGY (MIT), not to mention a bunch of other good schools, I couldn’t and still can’t believe that broadband is not available to all.

I am in Franklin County in the western part of the state that the powers that be in Boston tend to forget exists. Last month Executive Director Andre M. Porter of the Massachusetts Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship visited this area and met with a local group. One of the issues discussed was the fact that beginning in 2009, Massachusetts businesses are required to submit their sales tax information online, a cost-saving measure for the state. The problem is that few businesses in the area are “connected.” A very few have DSL, more have dial-up, but many have no computer at all. They are grocers, mechanics, loggers and others who support a modest but sustainable economy. Porter, who had no idea, in spite of the fact that broadband crusaders have been raising the warning flags for some time, plans an electronic newsletter, but a local accountant told him that just won’t work here. There is also a lack of cell service in the Hilltowns, but that’s another issue.

Area towns are small, and most libraries have one computer for public use. Naturally there is high demand, and since these libraries are typically open just ten or fifteen hours a week, a line often forms before the librarian puts the key in the lock on the three days when it is. I don’t see children using the computers, but usually adults with no other access. What about the kids? Isn’t this an education issue as well as a communication issue? Why are rural children any less entitled to spend hours on YouTube than those in Boston or Springfield?

I work under contract for a large educational publisher. I write text for their reference books and also the code that enables what I write to fall into online databases that most of the children in my area can’t even access. There are kids in Hong Kong who can read online what I and others write, but the families down the street cannot. That means that they can’t go to the sites of the great newspapers, magazines, libraries and museums. They can’t download the words of Shakespeare or Jefferson or Obama. Online courses aren’t available to them; hell online college catalogs aren’t available to them. And like the state’s new effort to save paper, more and more information will be accessible only online. Denying information is like denying food. A child will become stunted without it.

The people here are smart and industrious. They are the kind of folks who do grow small businesses, rely on their own skills and resources to get ahead, and save when they do. They are the people government tells us can rebuild this country, and yet, what does government do to help them? About as much as it does for the small farmer, an occupation of many who live here. With a little help from their friends — that would be the state and federal governments — they could expand the economy in Western Massachusetts and in all the other little towns and hamlets across the country that don’t have broadband access. A small business without e-mail or the ability to create a Web site doesn’t have the resources to compete in this country, let alone the world.

President Obama has stated that he intends to bring broadband to every child. Children do need access, as do small businesses and entrepreneurs who, along with their families, including those children, are economically disadvantaged because they must function without it.

The groups traditionally studied are teens and the elderly, but the numbers for 15 to 19 year-olds increased less than 2 percent during this period, and people over 65 are actually now taking their lives less frequently, although the number does rise after the age of 85.

New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen wrote that “for officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery.” Excuse me, but it’s probably surprising to them only because they have secure government jobs with guaranteed pensions paid for by Ernie and Bert, who unload boxes stamped “Made in China” onto the receiving dock in the back of Wal-Mart for $8 an hour. And their bosses in Congress and the White House, whose food, gas, lodging are subsidized by the average middle-aged American, certainly don’t have a clue as to his/her state of mind.

Oldsters have the best numbers because they get happier when they hit their 65th birthdays, that magical moment when they can kiss goodbye paying a fortune in medical insurance premiums and go on Medicare. People older than 54 and younger than 65 are caught in a double bind. No one wants to hire them, and they are too young for the government program.

When they hit 65, they can trash the costly and crappy policy with the $5,000 deductible, the best they could get because they once suffered from something more serious than an ingrown toenail, and actually be able to go to a doctor when they are sick.

This group has also typically seen hard times. They recognize that what’s coming down the pike is a lot like the 1970s without the bellbottoms, only worse, and if they are older, they may have memories of the Great Depression and war years, so things don’t seem all that bad to them.

The study revealed that while suicides in this group increased by 20 percent, among women the number is 31 percent, a figure that send chills up and down my spine. Why are my sisters suffering so?

Maybe they’re depressed because they still earn less than men and because there are fewer good jobs available to them, especially those lucrative acting jobs in financial services or drug spots that feature a handsome sixty-year- old guy with a slim and much younger spouse who is enjoying his money or his erection, or both.

I’ve often wondered if the wife’s prematurely gray hair is natural or if this is the new “blondes have more fun.” I’m waiting for the study that shows that not eating enough fat to nourish brain cells causes early dementia. Then working women will have jobs pushing the skinny bitches around at the nursing home.

I once read the autobiography of a woman who wrote about her attempted suicide. As far as I could tell, she had never had to work to survive, nor had she suffered any serious life setbacks. Her family was well off, and she had spent most of her life basking in the sun on the sands of New England beaches.

If somebody plopped me on Cape Cod, I think I’d overdose from happiness. There’s that big pond with all those yummy bass skimming through the clear water. And the sandy dunes, walks on the deserted beaches, and the great restaurants. A hardship, really.

I’m not saying she wasn’t actually suicidal or depressed, but she had professional help from several hospitals, top-notch therapists and support groups. She got the best drugs and had a circle of loving and understanding family and friends. Maybe if you have enough money, you can afford to be suicidal, because when you get to that point, you can punch in the number of your health-care-provider-of-the-day. It’s programmed into your phone–your kitchen phone, your bedroom phone, your cell.

You never really have to take that final step, because someone will grab you by both arms just as you reach for that bottle of pills, razor blade or handgun.

And if, like the author, you have oodles of money, you can fix the problems that make you suicidal. Confused? Go find yourself at a retreat in the Rockies. Unplanned pregnancy? Get an abortion, and make a vacation of it. Husband left you for a trophy mate? Rent yourself a hunky gigolo. Lost your job? Write a memoir. As I recall, her reviews were mixed.

There are people whose suicides could be understood. They are poor, abused, oppressed. Some have been mutilated and scarred. Some live in wretched conditions, drink water contaminated by their own shit, eat once a day if they’re lucky, and receive no medical care. They lose their loved ones to war, famine, disease.

In the United States, there are people who have never ventured more than a couple of miles from the urban tenement or rural shack where they were born. All of their waking time is taken up with figuring out how to survive.

Many suffer in prison for minor offenses, and they survive, somehow. Someone is depending on them. Their children, their parents, community, society. They become stronger. They may despair, but there always seems to be a glimmer of hope. Something good is just around the corner. If I kill myself, I’ll never discover what it is. These are people who have never known good times yet still hang on.

The government tells us inflation is low, the economy is fine, and that unemployment is less than half of what it really is (How many of those middle-aged people ran out of unemployment payments and then couldn’t find any sort of job?). Inflation is literally a tax on income, and if inflation (caused by the government that increases the money supply to save its sorry ass) is 10 percent, you need a 10 percent raise just to stay even. Good luck with that.

Unless they are aware of the manipulation of numbers, a person who is busting his or her butt but keeps falling behind wonders what is wrong with them. The government and media have been saying that everything is cool. Where have we failed? Two recent AP headlines contained the word “soar.” The articles aren’t about our spirits soaring or prosperity soaring, however. They are titled “US Home Foreclosures Soar in January” and “Wholesale Inflation Rate Soars.”

Many men and women have taken unwise risks to put their families into nice homes and give them what they perceive is necessary for quality of life. The average American family is portrayed by the media as having every gadget and innovation that is on the shelves. This is done through programming and advertising, so that you will direct deposit your paycheck into the account of big business while the government (which in other countries prohibits marketing to children) looks the other way.

The government is not your daddy, and big business is not your mommy, except that they do spank you if you don’t make the right choices, for example if you don’t buy whatever it is they’re selling, whether it’s the misinformation being sold by the government or the faulty and unnecessary crap being sold by business.

And if you resist, they’ll just consolidate until they own the industry and control everything you buy, read, view, love. And the government will be right there to give business a hand, including big finance by hanging the foreclosure sign on your door when you can’t pay the mortgage they pushed you into.

And speaking of this cozy collaboration, the number of 10 to 24 year-olds (a broader range of the young) taking their own lives has jumped, some suspect because of the effects of legal antidepressant drugs. Drugs may also be linked to the suicide rates of the middle-aged group.

Of course people are depressed, and if they have a life insurance policy, they are likely to consider suicide if it means their family will be cared for. It is generally accepted that many fatal car crashes are actually suicides committed by people who purchased their policies less than two years earlier, since most policies exclude this cause of death if it occurs within that period.

As times become harder, I expect that insurance companies will eliminate the two-year period altogether and refuse to pay up when there is a suspicion that a death is a suicide.

People in the middle generation are being squeezed for their last nickel before the national buying frenzy comes to an end. This group includes the boomers, a word I usually associate with fireworks, but folks, there ain’t nothing to celebrate now. Soon all of our time will be spent figuring out how to feed our families, patch the knees of our jeans, and repair our own cars.

The barter system may come back into use as the value of paper money sinks, especially since wages aren’t keeping up. And then when there aren’t any wages. Give you two dozen eggs for a day’s work.

Okay, enough with the bad news–is there any good news on the horizon. Well, no. I’ve yet to hear any of the major candidates talk about how they will relieve the suffering of the average American or shore up our crumbling economy, infrastructure and pride. If anybody gets saved, it will be the financial institutions, not us.

We watch congressmen grill CEOs who receive fortunes in salaries, benefits and retirement packages, even though they lost the retirement savings of their investors, and we find it unbelievable. Remember that those same congressmen and women have pissed away billions (trillions? I can’t comprehend the numbers any more) of dollars of our money but are also not held accountable.

It’s interesting that while the presidential candidates promise us the moon in order to get elected, they don’t mention where the money will come from. Might as well empty your pockets and put anything else you have left into a big brown envelope and just send it to them now. And remember: If you elect the same people who brought us this mess, don’t expect a different result.

Hopefully, down the road, after the recession/depression that no one wants to admit is upon us has run its course, the 45 to 54-year olds will feel better about themselves. By then, we will all have learned to be more responsible, self-sufficient, and less reliant on government, which, hopefully, will look very different than it does today.

This is the age group from which we will want to select new leaders, people with life experience who are young enough to have the energy to apply it. They will be survivors of the tough times ahead and I am encouraged will also, like true patriots before them, fight for what is good for the country and the people.

The bottom line is that we all want to feel better, and the only way to do that is for all age groups to pull together and support the changes that must be made. Whatever it takes.

Ms. Edwards is a powerful and intelligent woman who has the country’s ear. I realize that she is working for healthcare reform along with her husband even as she battles cancer, and this cannot be easy, but I fear that she is overlooking the Americans who can’t even afford to buy citrus anymore, especially in the off-season. These are folks who are more concerned with putting food in their kids’ bellies than they are with the global warming debate, and some of them are also ill but have no medical insurance or treatment options.

Now there is talk of adding a carbon tax to foods that require transportation, but that seems a bit regressive to me. We all have to eat, even the poor who are invisible to the rich. The tax should be added to the cost of private planes, yachts, second homes and maybe even campaign trips. Perhaps a tax break should be given to those of us who grow some of our own food. That’s about as local as you can get. There could be a new tax form to file for a GWGC (Global Warming Gardening Credit) onto which we could calculate the size of our smaller footprints. Of course, very few of us can grow citrus, especially in the north, but we could use the tax savings to stock up on cans of refried beans and bags of Ramen noodles and take our chances with scurvy.

John Edwards talks about worker rights. Does his wife have any idea how many workers would lose their livelihoods if the jobs of growers, pickers, packers, truckers and store clerks were eliminated by a mandate for locally grown — or because of reduced sales because consumers couldn’t afford to buy as much food? Locally grown is best, especially as transportation costs soar, but the government does nothing for the small or subsistence farmer, except tax and regulate him into bankruptcy. I’d be interested in knowing if Senator Edwards has proposed legislation to help the owners of the small farmsteads he passes in his travels. With the proper aid, these growers could expand their operations and provide food for more people. For the good of your own family and the food supply, you can support your local producers listed here: www.localharvest.org.

How about a mandate that we all cut back on our meat consumption just a little. According to a report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per capita per year than vegetarians, and meat production is expected to more than double by the year 2050. The growing and processing of livestock is responsible for 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Methane has 23 times and nitrous oxide 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. By cutting down on meat, we could reduce our CO2 burden more positively than we would by trading our traditional cars for hybrids. Animals produced for food also consume huge quantities of water and grains that require vast acreage, land that could be better used to grow produce for direct consumption. And the rain forests get smaller and smaller as trees are cut to accommodate beef cattle. Animal waste piles up as efforts to deal with it fall behind. Small producers enrich the soil with manure. Big producers pollute our waterways with runoff from improperly managed manure lagoons. I’m not suggesting that we meat eaters become vegetarians, but we could fit in a couple of meatless dinners or reduce meat portion size.

If the federal government really cared about the environment instead of the food giants, paper and plastics industries, gas and oil companies, and the crap producers and importers who screw over the consumer, and, oh yeah, the giant ag corporations they pay to switch from growing food crops to growing corn for ethanol, leaving the rest of us unable to afford corn chips, they would mandate that there be a recycling program in every town in America. And they/we would fund it. It isn’t just the recycling, it’s also the mindset that goes with it. In small towns where the dumps charge a fee for every bag of trash but also have bins for recyclables, families pull up on Saturday with just one bag of trash and at least twice that much in deposits to the recycling center. Everyone does his part to save money and the environment. Is there a compost bucket under the Edwards’s sink for their vegetable peelings and coffee grounds? Do they have containers for cardboard and paper and bottles, cans and plastics? Do they think using energy-saving light bulbs and wearing bamboo fiber pajamas fulfills their obligation to the planet?

Speaking of recycling, www.freecycle.org is a nonprofit, grassroots movement that spans the globe, made up of local subgroups of people who give away what they don’t need or want. Posts begin with “offered/promised/taken” and the name of the town where the item is offered or needed. Since no money changes hands and no bartering is allowed, no taxes need be collected or paid. When I made a recent move, I separated out inexpensive belongings that would cost more to ship than to replace at the other end. I listed everything from flower pots to an old vacuum cleaner that had only one condition attached. The person who took it had to wait till I did the final cleanup of the apartment before my landlord came to inspect. Many wonderful people came by, some of whom simply couldn’t afford what I was fortunate enough to be able to give away. Freecycle items go straight to those who need them. Even local charities usually charge for used clothing and household items. But here you can give away anything from an old door to used fencing to children’s outgrown clothing. If you go to the site and don’t find a group in your area, you know what to do.

Elizabeth Edwards is on the right track, but she and other wealthy environmentalists may be too far removed from the problems to comprehend the solutions. They often consume enormous amounts of energy just getting their word out or living lives that are not remotely similar to those of us who scold the kids for leaving the lights on when they exit a room. The people with the power need to dig deeper if real change is to occur. It is said that ignorance is bliss. I say it could sink the mother ship.