Tasty Morning Bytes – Posh Bottled Water, Fast Food Stamps and a Gay Black Gang
Good morning, DCentric readers. Ready for some newsy links?
Pulp to Close in November “On a wider scale, the closure comes at a fragile time for the corridor — which, as both long-standing retail fixtures and relatively recent additions are vacating, is experiencing a real shake-up…’The day is rapidly approaching when I won’t be able to buy anything on 14th Street except a $10,000 sofa and a $100 dinner’.” (DCist)
Council drinks high-end bottled water at breakfast “Wednesday morning’s D.C. Council breakfast with the mayor featured your typical buffet spread with one snazzy feature: pricey Voss brand bottled water, which sells for a few bucks per bottle. Is this part of the council’s effort to be more civil to one another?” (Washington Examiner )
Food Stamps for Fast Food: An Absurd Idea “Poor nutrition habits contribute to an obesity epidemic that affects everyone, especially children, the poor and people of color. That’s why allowing food stamps to be used at fast food restaurants is absurd. It makes no sense to use government funds to purchase foods that contribute to disease and increased health care costs.” (The New York Times)
The Value of College Is: (a) Growing (b) Flat (c) Falling (d) All of the Above “The case against college is gaining steam: Tuition costs are rising and graduates’ incomes are flattening. Male bachelor’s-degree holders saw a nearly 10 percent decline in real pay over the last 10 years, according to recent Census figures. The U.S. has the highest college-dropout rate in the developed world, and studies have found that college confers ‘exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent’ gains in academic skills.” (The Atlantic)
The Link Between Food Stamps and Obesity “Forty-two percent of low-income women in the United States are obese, and the rate of obesity is even higher among women who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly the food stamp program.” (The New York Times)
Gay black youths go from attacked to attackers “Whenever there’s trouble around the Chinatown and Gallery Place Metro stations in the District, the finger of blame often points to a most unusual group of suspects: a black gay gang called Check It…D.C. police estimate that Check It has a core membership of about 20 and counts between 50 and 100 others as ‘associates.’” (The Washington Post)