Patterico's Pontifications

3/29/2017

Trying To Fix The Problem Of Four Liquor Stores And Rampant Alcoholism

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:29 am



[guest post by Dana]

Recently, The New York Times had a story about four liquor stores in the unincorporated village of Whiteclay, Nebraska. Located just a few miles away from the officially dry Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the stores are where the local Native Americans go to purchase their beer. In Whiteclay, with a population of less than a dozen people, the four stores collectively sell a staggering 3.5 million cans of high-alcohol malt liquor annually:

This town is a rural skid row, with only a dozen residents, a street strewn with debris, four ramshackle liquor stores and little else. It seems to exist only to sell beer to people like Tyrell Ringing Shield, a grandmother with silver streaks in her hair.

On a recent morning, she had hitched a ride from her home in South Dakota, just steps across the state line. There, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, alcohol is forbidden. In Whiteclay, though, it reigns supreme.

“You visit, you talk, you laugh, you drink,” said Ms. Ringing Shield, 57, as she stood on the sidewalk with friends, chain-smoked Montclair cigarettes and recounted her struggles with alcoholism, diabetes and cirrhosis. “It makes you forget.”

The grim scene in Whiteclay has scarcely changed for decades. Particularly in the warmer months, Native Americans can be seen openly drinking beer in town, often passed out on the ground, disheveled and ill. Many who come to Whiteclay from the reservation spend the night sleeping on mattresses in vacant lots or fields.

Even under the chill of winter, people huddle outside the liquor stores, silver beer cans poking from coat pockets. The street, busy with traffic from customers, is littered with empty bottles and scraps of discarded clothing.

“It promotes so much misery, that little town,” said Andrea Two Bulls, 56, a Native American on Pine Ridge, who added that she hoped the state would revoke the licenses. “My brother used to go to Whiteclay all the time, and we’d have to go look for him. People sit and drink until they pass out. They just succumb.”

In a place where “unemployment exceeds 80 percent, poverty affects more than 90 percent of those living on the reservation,” and a staggering 25% of newborn babies on the reservation have fetal alcohol syndrome, there is now a concerted effort being made by the Nebraska legislature to find some sort of solution to the crisis:

[M]any residents of Nebraska and South Dakota are pushing for the liquor stores of Whiteclay to be shut, disgusted by the easy access to alcohol the stores provide to a people who have fought addiction for generations. The Nebraska authorities, in turn, have tightened scrutiny of the stores, which sell millions of cans of beer and malt liquor annually. Last year, for the first time, the state liquor commission ordered the stores’ six owners to reapply for their liquor licenses.

The fate of the stores could be decided next month, when the three-member commission holds hearings in Lincoln, the state capital.

While it appears that there is a general agreement that this is a public health emergency and must be solved, just how to do it remains a problem. There seem to be two schools of thought, neither of which are surprising.

First, there are those who believe that the government needs to step in:

[Sen. Pansing Brooks] introduced LB407 to examine the impact of alcohol sales in Whiteclay and its surrounding communities and make recommendations to the Legislature on how to solve the economic and social issues facing the area. Members of the task force would collect, examine and analyze data on fetal alcohol syndrome rates, access to treatment services and the risk of alcoholism for children raised in the area.

“Both our actions and inactions in Nebraska are having devastating effects on the people of Pine Ridge,” she said. “We have to help the people who are being harmed by this public health emergency and we must not continue turning a blind eye to this vulnerable population.”

Gordon Sen. Tom Brewer* supported the bill. He said many of the surrounding communities do not want to see the alcohol stores in Whiteclay shut down because it could cause the problem to spread to their area. An entire generation has been lost to alcoholism and another is in the process of being lost if the Legislature fails to act, Brewer said.

“We’re poisoning a group of people that we’ve forced onto a piece of land and we’re not taking action because the problem could spread to surrounding communities,” he said. “Ignoring the problem and ignoring the people and just accepting it as inevitable is not the right answer.”

Sen. John Lowe of Kearney also supported the bill, saying concern for the state’s people should outweigh any concerns for the rights of small business owners.

“It’s up to us to take a stand and make that decision that business is not more important than our people,” he said.

And then there are those who are against upsetting the status quo:

“If we would get rid of the stores, there would be an uproar,” said Allyssa Comer, 20.

Vance Blacksmith, 47, a Native American and teacher on the reservation, said he favored leaving the stores alone.

“They’re not hurting anyone,” he said. “Drinking is a personal choice. The people who drink are trying to accept life as it is. And it’s depressing, being here on Pine Ridge.”

In addition, local sheriff Terry Robbins noted that even if the four stores were closed down, people who wanted to drink would just be compelled to drive farther to buy their beer. This would result in other drivers being endangered. Sheriff Robbins also noted that ultimately, closing down the four stores would not end the crisis of Native American babies being born with fetal alcohol syndrome. And he’s right. This is not a simple problem involving just a few people. It is a multi-generational issue endemic to American Indians – the catastrophic results of which not only impact those exercising their freedom to drink (excessively), but also directly impacts the most innocent and vulnerable among us, as well as the taxpayers.

With that, in our nation a person with a plan and enough money can set up shop, provide a legal product to consumers, and make a living from their efforts. If compliant with the laws of the land, should business owners be denied their freedom to make a living because people of legal age choose to make unwise decisions? Given that these are a people that were horribly mistreated by the federal government, are they now in need, or in want of that same government to come to their rescue?

*This is rather significant: Sen. Tom Brewer grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. That he found a way to avoid the tragic life of so many, evidences that one can work toward a different outcome, and that even in the cloistered confines of the reservation where desperation abounds, there are options. That Sen. Brewer did so with such honor, speaks volumes:

He grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation – where poverty and diabetes, fetal alcohol syndrome and suicides – run rampant, seizing too many Lakota lives each year. He’s walked the streets of Whiteclay, where some descendants of those who once wiped out Custer’s command now surrender to a can of Budweiser.

Back then, there were few choices for Indian youth like him, a direct descendant of the famed Sioux Chief Red Cloud. So when a military recruiter came calling, Brewer did the only thing he could think of: He signed up for a hitch, donning the uniform of the country that had destroyed his own.

“The Lakota spirit is a warrior spirit and that’s what drew me to the military,” Brewer says. “We’re a warrior culture, and if you’re going to be a warrior, you should do it in uniform.”

And so he did, serving 13 tours of duty. Six in Afghanistan. Countless battle wounds. Shot seven times. Blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade. Traumatic brain injury. Two purple hearts and a bronze medal.

A couple of items to consider: Disagreements about whether store owners are breaking the law by selling to individuals who are already intoxicated have been going on for some time in Whiteclay.

Additionally, some people believe that the lack of law enforcement officers contributes to the problems in Whiteclay as well:

The village does not have its own police force. It relies primarily on the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office, which is headquartered about 20 miles away in Rushville. Besides the sheriff, the department has four deputies to cover a county the size of Delaware.

At a public hearing last week, a street minister said it was almost pointless to call 911 because it took so long for the sheriff’s office to respond.

By state law, liquor licenses can only be issued in areas with sufficient law enforcement.

–Dana

82 Responses to “Trying To Fix The Problem Of Four Liquor Stores And Rampant Alcoholism”

  1. What a quagmire. I read somewhere yesterday, and can’t remember where, that one solution is to just dismantle the reservation system, once and for all. And then the government should pay the Indians reparations by giving them back Manhattan. (Which is obviously a joke, but consider how the uber-liberal, socially conscious Manhattanite would feel about that!)

    Dana (023079)

  2. Require there be a special lock on the door to each store that can’t be opened if the person attempting to enter fails the breathalyzer test.

    NC Mountain Girl (89daf0)

  3. Nobody likes to hear the truth, that this is evolution in action.

    The aboriginals did not have mass produced alcohol and are not, statistically, genetically able to handle it.

    Those who can handle it will breed more healthy children than those who cannot.

    We have two choices: let it happen on its own, probably quickly, or drag it out over thousands of years at huge expense. But it will happen, regardless. Dragging it out will in my view cause much, much more pain.

    I’m not racist. The same thing happened to us whites when we got cheap distilled spirits. Google about a bit on the effect of gin in the UK. Here’s a start. http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Mothers-Ruin/

    Fred Z (05d938)

  4. Whiteclay, Nebraska, U.S.A. … skid row, ramshackle liquor stores…. streets full of debris… hasn’t changed for decades?

    Not a shining city on a hill?!?!

    Reagan lied.

    “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, an actor’s life for me…” – Walt Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ 1940

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  5. It’s an inherited deficiency of aldehyde dehydrogenase isoenzyme I in Mongoloids, which group includes American Indians as well as East Asians. A racial trait, like the epicanthal fold and straight black hair. Not Lysenko epigenetics.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. @1;

    Regarding giving back Manhattan; what if the Indians are smart enough to not want the headaches?

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  7. Mr. Instapundit did a thing on this yesterday

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  8. “The Lakota spirit is a warrior spirit and that’s what drew me to the military,” Brewer says.

    what. ever.

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  9. I’d like to know more about the reservation. Is it actually run by the Tribal council, or does the Bureau of Indian Affairs get to meddle? Is there poverty on the res because it’s poor area, because BIA demands policies that don’t work, because the locals are bigots, or for some completely different reason (curses by aliens?)? The problem isn’t four booze shops near the res. The problem is a cycle of poverty and despair. Closing the booze vendors won’t solve that.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  10. In prison Indians are the main distillers.

    mg (21de20)

  11. Greetings:

    They gave us tobacco and we gave them alcohol.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  12. They gave us tobacco and we gave them alcohol.

    We gave them smallpox and they gave us syphilis.

    Mike K (f469ea)

  13. Personally, I think there are too many wine shops in Santa Monica. It makes the residents insufferable. Some argue that they should all be closed, others point out this will simply bring these arrogant aholes into surrounding communities in search of their pacific northwest chardonnay.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  14. There are 6 AA meetings a week in Pine Bluff, SD, 3 miles to the north. Those that want to stop might check those out. But so far in this life I have not found a way to FORCE an alcoholic to stop drinking. Fools still try.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  15. 15. Considering some of those neighboring communities and the neighbors in them, that might be a short-term problem.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  16. I got my sweet ’94 4Runner destroyed by a drunk Indian gal. She led HP on a 45 mile long chase , eventually on three rims after driving over spike strips, that terminated in the rear end of said truck.

    We both ended up in the ER together, separate rooms. I was told that she was putting up a .030 an hour after the crash.

    She had three minors in the car. No license, registration or insurance. She caught at least five misdemeanors but didn’t end up in the big house till she violated about six months later. But some of them are great people.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  17. I suggest they legalise drinking on the reservation, and the problem will self correct. Telling people they can’t have something just makes them want it more. Making them leave the reservation to drink just conceals the problem drinkers from the rest of the tribe.

    The Indians near my house have a gas station on the highway and sell everything from beer and cigs to ammo, tax free. Plus the casino. They are some of the wealthiest people in the county. You never see them passed out in front of liquor stores.

    Incidentally, they were one of the tribes that wanted to keep the redskins mascot at the local HS, but Jerry Brown told them that was racist and forced them to give it up. Stupid injuns don’t know what’s good for them ‘less white man tells them.

    Leon (168f33)

  18. C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37) — 3/29/2017 @ 9:39 am

    Is there poverty on the res because it’s poor area, because BIA demands policies that don’t work, because the locals are bigots, or for some completely different reason (curses by aliens?)?

    Because it is a poor area, of course, and it’s a poor area because there are no businessess or factories located there, which might have something to do with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and also because for decades now money has been flowing to the cities, and even bank deposits. Dodd Frank makes the problem a little bit worse.

    The reservation probably never made any economic sense in the first place, unlike rural towns and counties in Nebraska. Most other concentrations of people were economically viable because went there voluntarily. Maybe the inhabitants were supposed to be farmers, but I think land is held in common. Maybe it worked for a generation or two, I don’t know.

    Practically everybody living there probably is supported by the government I suppose, and they have money to spend on alcohol, which isn’t terribly expensive in spite of being taxed, and without the need to steal.

    It probably doesn’t make too much sense to locate factories on reservations because the population is spread out and relatively low, and many of the people there are alcoholics and uneducated, and even if it did or does make sense, and maybe it does *, entrepreneurs aren’t familiar with the area.

    If the liquor stores closed, pretty soon the alcoholics would be getting their liquor from further away, maybe from a place with a police force, and maybe some of them would wind up in jail for drunken driving, and some people would buy beer for resale illegally.

    A person doesn’t stop being an alcoholic because it gets a little more difficult to find liquor, and they don’t become an alcoholic because it’s especially easy to obtain alcohol, which it isn’t anyway (no liquor on he reservation.)

    —————
    * [and maybe it does] Rubashkin in Iowa opened a satellite meat packing plant on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, as a means of avoiding the question of employing illegal immigrants, but they had to close when they had to stop borrowing more and more money, because they went bankrupt when the government pursued other lines of investigation after an immigration investigation and child labor investigation and PETA complaints failed to close them.

    They were actually losing money but making it up on volume. That is, the business was expanding, which made the loans possible to service even though they were maybe growing in amount over time, but their competitors didn’t like the expansion, and the union didn’t like it either, and they sicced immigration on them, and after that failed in shutting down the business (although they got a lot of non-Americans to plead guilty and take a little jail time before being deported) they got them on borrowing money on accounts receivable which they had already received, (the people in the bank didn’t care or didn’t verify that the collateral existed) and also on not paying farmers or ranchers promptly.

    So anyway, after they went bankrupt and the collateral wasn’t there (a big no-no), a member of the family that owned it, who wasn’t chiefly responsible for the way the business was run, but maybe had been put in charge a few years before precisely because he could plead more or less innocence, became the fall guy for his father and his brother, and got a 27 year jail sentence in part because the government made sure the loss in bankrutcy was over $20 million by telling potential buyers they could not employ any member of the family in any capacity.

    Most other meat packing plants have stayed where they are and recruit people from places like Dallas, usually refugees who have already moved once or twice to strange places for them, usually recruited from the same ethnic group or two.

    Sammy Finkelman (8a31dc)

  19. I used to deliver to the Northern Arapahoe/Shoshone Reservation twice a week. There was a place called Hines General Store that was run by white people who got a 99 year lease. They told me the employee turnover rate the previous year was literally one person per day.

    There was actually a hot springs a little ways up the road that was open to everybody but it was basically the equivalent to a white people’s sundown town.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  20. Why not just ask Elizabeth Warren to help out. Since she “is” native American, I am sure she could broker some sort of solution to this “crisis.”

    Ryan (60001b)

  21. Senator Brewer

    Name checks out…

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  22. I ran into this wino at Taco Bell. It was depressing because he thought it was Saturday and he wanted me to call him a cab so he could stock up till Monday. It was Friday. I’m depressed enough because I can’t buy wine on Sunday and I have to stock up myself.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  23. 5. nk (dbc370) — 3/29/2017 @ 9:21 am

    It’s an inherited deficiency of aldehyde dehydrogenase isoenzyme I

    The consequence of which is people get hangovers, and they get them fast.

    Now the fastest and most familiar way to get rid of a hangover is to get more alcohol into the system, (called “a hair of the dog that bit you”) and people become alcoholics.

    There are other cures for hangovers, I think fructose is one of them, (or maybe not) but they remain largely unknown. Nobody’s pushing them.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/sciences-best-hangover-cures/333719/

    http://www.caveday.com/hangovers/pho-the-best-hangover-cure

    Phở is typically served with lime, been sprouts, basil, and jalapenos. Sauces like sweet hoisin or spicy Sriracha can be directly added to the broth….No one really knows why Phở is so effective at combating hangover effects…

    Now if a pharmaceutical company could patent something and charge $100 maybe it would actually be used.

    Sammy Finkelman (8a31dc)

  24. Substance prohibitions don’t work. The Pine Ridge experience is typical. All in the name of protecting people from themselves.

    Palefaces, along with some redskins, have tried to keep firewater out of Indian hands for a very long time. Thomas Jefferson proposed a law criminalizing the sale of alcohol to Indians in 1802. The Indian Prohibition Act finally passed in 1834 and remained the law of the land until 1953.

    So why the repeal in 1953? To protect Indians – who were skirting the ban by drinking aftershave, rubbing alcohol, and the like – from themselves.

    In 1953, tribal governments took over the job of prohibiting alcohol sales to Indians, with, rather unsurprisingly, the same result.

    The is by no means a “problem of four liquor stores.” Give it up. Please! Better that they drink Bud than Sterno.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  25. Elizabeth “Talking Bull” Warren should be able to assist. She has great medicine.

    Colonel Haiku (6b7575)

  26. I shouldn’t have done him the disservice of calling him a wino. Too much Fred G Sandford as a kid. He lived in the Sec 8 across from TB and drank vodka so he was just a garden variety hard core alcoholic.

    Winos drink Ripple and are mostly homeless, right?

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  27. If there’s a segment of our citizenry that fully deserves all the help that can be provided, it is the Native American segment. Stop increasing the burden on limited resources incurred by unfettered illegal immigration and focus all that we can on our own disadvantaged citizens. Find something that works.

    Colonel Haiku (6b7575)

  28. Back in the day they said wherever you find four Catholics you always find a fifth.

    I’m wondering if all the laws against selling wine on Sundays were a slap in the face to Jews and Catholics.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  29. After delivering to the Indian Health Services I will say y’all have a point about the free market. If you like your sweat lodge you can keep it. No joke.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  30. There’s a mediocre movie out there called Smoke Signals.

    There is one scene, however, that tells you everything you need to know about The Rez.

    Adam Beach and this other guy are walking to the store. Two girls drive up and offer them a ride. Here’s the thing: They are driving the car in reverse. Not because they want to, but because the forward gears of the transmission are trashed. But hey, driving around The Rez in reverse beats walking, buying a new car or even routine maintenance. As soon as reverse doesn’t work the car is going to sit on the ground till it turns to rust.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  31. 18 more or less nails it – the problem is welfare. Get rid of it, and people have to work or starve. You can’t work while drunk, and starvation cuts right through all your mental BS, both “I need”and “I can’t”.

    Identical problem to the inner cities, Appalachia, etc. Government is the problem.

    StarkChoice (45e938)

  32. Indian reservations are a microcosm of democrat/liberal/progressive ideas in action. Government controls everything.

    gbear (c97ba2)

  33. hey you wanna come over to my teepee i feel like having a few cocktails

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  34. Indian reservations are a microcosm of democrat/liberal/progressive ideas in action. Government controls everything.

    gbear

    Is everything about partisanship? Like when someone passes you on the right on the highway do you cuss Obama?

    And if you think like Starkchoice, that much of this is due to welfare (I think welfare is part of the problem) then how is this not Republican ideas in action? Republicans are in power and we have a lot of welfare. Trump wants welfare. His fan in this thread says the problem is that Mexicans are taking all the welfare that Native Americans deserve. At what point do we admit it’s beyond party?

    Partisan bickering is actually perpetrating this and most other policy problems because the only solution people have in mind is to vote for their set of blowhard con artists over the ‘worse’ ones over there. We kept doing that for a couple of generations and now … surprise… it didn’t fix anything.

    Let’s follow Starkchoice’s idea and regardless of identity group or party, reduce welfare, food stamps, Trump/Obamacare, and other handouts. Let’s start programs to relocate these citizens to prosperous places with jobs, and also job training. Let’s start a voucher program for the schools on these reservations so the families have a choice for a future.

    And let’s accept that some of this problem is a matter of personal responsibility.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  35. Kind of Ironic the Senator’s last name is “Brewer”

    Dejectedhead (fcc6fc)

  36. ” We kept doing that for a couple of generations and now … surprise… it didn’t fix anything.”

    Well, to be fair, we have the fattest poor people in the history of poor people.

    Leon (168f33)

  37. Hahaha

    but that’s because food is cheap and willpower has been eliminated. Nixon’s admin got corn syrup in everything and the damage has been intense. Would have been better if government had stayed out of the way.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  38. The most obvious solution is to allow Muslim and Mormon evangelists on the reservation for a mass conversion.

    David Barulich (f1f816)

  39. Muslim “evangelists” carry swords for the recalcitrant.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  40. I thought the obvious solution was for these Indians to stop identifying as Indians. That way, there would be no history of alcoholism for them to struggle with.

    Dejectedhead (fcc6fc)

  41. Dustin,

    Are you saying that HFCS erodes willpower?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  42. I thought the obvious solution was for these Indians to stop identifying as Indians. That way, there would be no history of alcoholism for them to struggle with.

    That is closer to the truth than you think. Changing one’s outlook on life is a major element in ending the obsession to drink. For some people it might be enough, actually.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  43. @ StarkChoice,

    18 more or less nails it – the problem is welfare. Get rid of it, and people have to work or starve. You can’t work while drunk, and starvation cuts right through all your mental BS, both “I need”and “I can’t”.

    Identical problem to the inner cities, Appalachia, etc. Government is the problem.

    It’s just fascinating to me that a group of people that were victims of an attempted genocide by the U.S. Government, are now not only living off their handouts, but expect a/d/or hope that the very same seat of power will step in and be able to fix the problem.

    Let’s get smart about this: In the past 180 years or so since the Indian Removal Act saw Indians forced off their lands, what has the U.S. Government done that would convince anyone on a reservation or off the reservation, that it is the government that holds the solution to this problem?

    What the government is good at, very good at, is assessing the problem and throwing gobs of money at it. A big band-aid, which in turn, creates yet another dependent group of people convinced of their hopelessness while waiting for Big Daddy to dole out their next check.

    Dana (023079)

  44. You can’t work while drunk, and starvation cuts right through all your mental BS

    Well, no. See Row, Skid.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  45. Are you saying that HFCS erodes willpower?

    Kevin M

    Nope! I’m saying being overweight is a result of cheap food and low willpower.

    However, another problem with obesity is that everything is the corn subsidy. Once again, the GOP was the party of big government and they were thinking short term, about elections, and wound up enacting terrible policies.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  46. A very good book for understanding the history of welfare, public and private is Marvin Olasky’s “The Tragedy of American Compassion.” The reservation system is probably the worst offender.

    https://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-American-Compassion-Marvin-Olasky/dp/089526725X

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  47. Nope! I’m saying being overweight is a result of cheap food and low willpower.

    For most people, obesity is the result of profound changes in metabolism in early middle age that are not reflected in changed behavior. Many 20-year-old men can eat a box of donuts without worry. The same man at 50 will gain weight.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  48. In the mid-80s we pulled in to a market in Tuba City AZ for some film (on my way to Canyon De Chelley and Monument Valley) and there were 20-25 native peoples sitting around the parking lot.

    As soon we stopped they all got up and started walking slowly towards our truck. I remarked to my companion: “Night Of The Living Dead!” The ones that reached us first asked for spare change or a few bucks.

    Looks like things haven’t changed much in 30 years. As Trump would say very sad.

    harkin (70fe68)

  49. Just imagine if the government just stayed out of what crops are produced, or what food we should eat?

    That would create volatility though. If food was more expensive, that might be a problem on election day. The solution is to maximize corn production and jam it everywhere in our diets that you can, because corn can be stable, and if everything relies on this stable ingredient, food prices will be less volatile.

    If you look at our obesity problem before and after the Nixon administration, and look at the amazing impact on our diet they had, it’s pretty clear that corn is a big part of the problem. It’s not like we’re eating an ear of corn covered in butter. We’re eating a chemical in our ketchup, our lasagna, our beverages.

    At the same time, ignorance is spread with a food pyramid and other programs that aren’t very well informed. A diet primarily of meat and fresh veggies is an issue the GOP actually had an issue with. It’s amazing.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  50. BTW is it possible to eliminate HFCS from your diet. This does not appear to cause weight loss.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  51. For most people, obesity is the result of profound changes in metabolism in early middle age that are not reflected in changed behavior. Many 20-year-old men can eat a box of donuts without worry. The same man at 50 will gain weight.

    Kevin M

    That doesn’t explain why obesity is a problem today at all. It doesn’t explain all the 20 year old obese men I see.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  52. BTW is it possible to eliminate HFCS from your diet. This does not appear to cause weight loss.

    Kevin M

    Source?

    Everyone I know that eliminated junk food, including but not only HFCS stuff, did in fact have a profound improvement. Of course for a lot of folks you’re undoing damage basically and you need to eat a lot of green veggies, a lot of meat, and do a lot of exercise while eliminating “high glycemic” food.

    There must be 1000 fad diets with this premise. Paleo diet, atkins, south beach. There’s a reason you can’t do them and eat a bunch of corn syrup. Are you actually saying HFCS isn’t bad for you?

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  53. Just imagine if the government just stayed out of what crops are produced, or what food we should eat?

    I would add more to that list, but yes. There is a wonderful set of “The Good Wife” episodes regarding lobbying for inclusion the the “new food pyramid.” See for example 3×09 (“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”)

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  54. Any Tony Hillerman fans in the blogosphere?

    Pinandpuller (71f7a4)

  55. On this, I completely agree with you Dustin.

    Big government and bad nutritional “science” are killing us.

    Of course, the media “hunger” meme, which, oddly enough, is still being pitched in this era of obesity, didn’t help.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  56. No, Dustin, I’m saying that replacing HFCS with sugar in the exact same foods does not help. There is a lot of HFCS in “regular” foods, not just Twinkies.

    There are only two things that seem to work for me: eat less, and keep the carbs down. Until I was 50, I never looked at labels and could eat the worst stuff imaginable and not gain weight. Now, it’s different. Even cooking from scratch almost everything I eat, and not using anything listing HFCS or the words “partially hydrogenated”, it is still a struggle not to gain weight. My body wants to add pounds. Apparently adding fat is a (short term) survival strategy for old people somewhere in evolutionary history.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  57. Dustin

    I was just listening to Robb Wolf on Rogan. He said that your gut biome has a lot to do with how you process glucose. If you think about how the use of HFCS has followed the overuse of antibiotics it’s pretty easy to connect the Domino’s Dots.

    Pinandpuller (71f7a4)

  58. Kevin M

    Try out intermittent fasting.

    Pinandpuller (71f7a4)

  59. The Kroger here has a really good French Dressing sweetened with agave called Sky Valley. They’ve also started carrying ground lamb and bison.

    Pinandpuller (71f7a4)

  60. Dustin, I’m saying that replacing HFCS with sugar in the exact same foods does not help.

    Yes sir, this is true. You are 100% right as far as I know and in my personal experience.

    But they wouldn’t put sugar in everything because it’s more expensive. They put corn in everything they can (often as HFCS). It makes cheap, consistent food.

    PNP, I actually use Intermittent Fasting and it’s worked really well for me after a long mental adaptation to the routine. I have no insight into probiotic stuff and probably should learn about it, but I think you’re on the right track.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  61. Big government and bad nutritional “science” are killing us.

    ThOR, I’ve never seen you as the partisanship type, and I like how you’ve explained the problem. It’s big government. It’s not Big Government under Clinton and it’s not Big Government under Nixon. It’s just Big Government. We are better off accepting the problems as individuals that we encounter when government gets out of the way. This is not the philosophy taking over at all, but it’s what we need to argue for whenever appropriate.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  62. Most agave syrup has a higher fructose content than any commercial sweetener — ranging from 55 to 97 percent, depending on the brand, which is FAR HIGHER than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which averages 55 percent.

    High or low, fructose is a problem – this includes most fruits. For natural sweetening, sucrose is a better option.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  63. Or just learning to love food that isn’t so sweet.

    If your new moderation is to have a few strawberries instead of a donut, it’s really not that bad.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  64. After a lifetime eating a high carb – low fat/protein diet and thinking I was making a healthy choice, I am not a happy camper. You know, I don’t usually trust government, but for some reason I completely bought into the pyramid and all that “heart healthy” PR.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  65. Let’s privatize the whole thing. Give everyone who lives on the reservation a chunk of it and dissolve the legal entity. The government’s been screwing it up for 160 years. Build some roads and infrastructure to create jobs. Give everybody a nice chunk of cash to go with it and wash our hands of it.

    David Aitken (e0d788)

  66. i like pop tarts

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  67. In Alaska they don’t find the bodies until the Spring thaw.

    Maybe someone can ba.ck me up. It may be survivable to drink yourself into a stupor in a in Fairbanks into August. September, possibly, in Anchorage. I’ve seen native Americans passed out on streets.

    It’s tragic.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  68. Just in case I wasn’t clear, let me clear. I hate seeing someone ruining themselves.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  69. I hate seeing someone ruining themselves.

    So do I and I also hate seeing people blame someone else when hey do.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  70. Rev. if you can find cause against me, tell me where I laid blame.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  71. Not against what you said, Steve57. I agree. I’m referring to all the folks in the article blaming other people. It’s become the American way to establish an order of blame for everything and usually one of the last is themselves.

    First, there are those who believe that the government needs to step in:

    The government stepping in is what caused the problem. The Indians are the most subsidized and controlled ethnic group in the country. They’re not considered American citizens yet receive tons of taxpayer largess. Restitution if you will. They’re allowed to build casinos with little hindrance from EPA, OSHA and the rest of the gaggle of dopes. They make and market tax free cigarettes. They pay zero taxes. With all that they are the poorest ethnic group in America.

    There’s a reason we refer to the way democrats keep blacks on the reservation you know.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  72. “There’s a reason we refer to the way democrats keep blacks on the reservation you know.”

    I usually refer to it as the voting bloc plantation of misery.

    Harkin (e70e36)

  73. @27

    “Find something that works.”

    The only thing that has a history of working is mainstreaming into society, and that’s spotty.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  74. Fat old white men with opinions about what’s wrong with Indians. At least they’re only commenting on a blog and not setting policy in Washington DC.

    Are Indian reservations more dysfunctional than Detroit; half of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia; half of Appalachia; and all of the trailer parks south of the Mason-Dixon line? Ok, they’ve got an alcoholism problem. How are they doing with drugs, gangs, murders, rapes and robberies?

    As far as I know, and I know I’m right, it’s been legal in the U.S. for Indians to “jump the reservation” since at least 1925. And the ones who want to, do. What they leave behind and what they have to come back to may not be much, but home is where you can always go and they can’t turn you away, and it’s their business and that of their fellow tribesmen.

    nk (dbc370)

  75. Rev., I am pleased we are in agreement.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  76. Considering the cohort involved, the ratio is staggering here’s the problem, they need work in those communiirs yet the tribes are in part against key stop e. Or any other productive endeavor.

    narciso (d1f714)

  77. Might this book help

    Israel (fd3452)

  78. nk and Hoagie you are both equally right.

    I kept up with the blog of an Episcopalian priest who became the priest in charge of the Church’s mission at the Standing Rock reservation. That is the same tribal grouping that was the focus of the Dakota Pipeline furor. In its wake she apparently made her blog completely private. As you might expect from her choice of career she is an out and out leftie, so far out that her previous parish in Richmond fired her. I stopped reading the blog when she started to openly condone Hamas.

    But I did get some idea of what problems the Lakota face. Most of them prefer to stay on the reservation because they have no connections or support system outside, and wind up as merely one more member of the urban poor if they do move to the city. At least on reservation they have family and friends, and the tribal welfare system. But there is little incentive for the jobs to come to them. Furthermore, the tribal lands have immense spiritual meaning for them, and many are loath to leave because of that. (This is not always true of other reservations, but Standing Rock apparently contains, or is close to, several places important in their (to use the best approximation) native religion.

    It seems that suicide and the results of rampant drug abuse lead to a high death rate, and Standing Rock is allegedly one of the poorest places in the USA. She would freely admit that she had no real help to offer beyond handouts and a sympathetic ear.

    kishnevi (b8df0f)

  79. That doesn’t look like it’s working kish, there is a similar dynamic occurring in Scotland, the once former engine of the empire, hence they cling to the eu.

    narciso (636179)

  80. With that, in our nation a person with a plan and enough money can set up shop, provide a legal product to consumers, and make a living from their efforts. If compliant with the laws of the land, should business owners be denied their freedom to make a living because people of legal age choose to make unwise decisions?

    If something is legal, should it be legal forever?

    Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd)


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