affluence
sastyk | May 6, 2013Fast food sales now outnumber sit-down restaurant food sales in the home of gastronomy:
More than half of all French restaurant sales now take place, sacrilegiously, at fast food chains, according to a new survey by food consultancy firm Gira Conseil.
This is the first time fast food sales have surpassed sit-down restaurant sales in France — you know, the the country that gave us cafes, bistros and the Michelin star. It also makes France the world’s second-biggest consumer of fast food, NPR reports, with 1,200 McDonalds franchises alone.
That number is only growing (much, it must be said,…
sastyk | November 25, 2012A friend of mine who volunteered at a shelter in New York City told me this story over Thanksgiving. The shelter she worked in responded to the range of people affected by the crisis. Many of them, as always in a crisis, were those who were already struggling and marginalized - illegal immigrants afraid to go anywhere else, the already-homeless whose usual shelters and places of refuge were closed or underwater, the mentally and physically ill who had to be evacuated from hospitals in the flood zone. Many of the rest were storm evacuees from some of the city's most expensive neighborhoods…
sastyk | September 21, 2010...and I don't really have time today. Seriously, you've got to read the whinings of this idiot, and MTMB's response.
Maybe because my family of six pulls in less than 50K a year (as opposed to the 450K the gent in question is whinging about), and because I can identify still with the realities of poverty, I've got no tolerance for this bullshit. I still remember what it feels like to have your power turned off and the phone ringing off the hook about bills you simply can't pay. I'm lucky - my family is comparatively secure now - for now and by the grace of good fortune. But it is a…