Jezebel: Food Crisis

When The Going Gets Tough, Women Are The First To Suffer

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Skyrocketing prices for food and fuel have pushed more than 130 million poor people across parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America deeper into poverty in the past year, and guess who are the "hungriest" and "skinniest" victims? Women. Malnutrition among females is emerging as a "hidden consequence" of the food crisis, reports Kevin Sullivan for the Washington Post. Sullivan's focus is the African nation of Burkina Faso, where he follows the life of a woman named Fanta Lingani, who starts her backbreaking streetsweeping job at 4:30 am and makes $10 a month. More »

Bigger Than Burning Man.

Moe — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Seventy five thousand people showed up to see Obama's biggest yet speech in Portland, Oregon yesterday. Firstly, that represents something like one-seventh the entire population of Portland and undoubtedly the biggest-ever congregation of fixed-gear bicycles. In fact, the crowd was bigger than pretty much any outdoor rock concert including Burning Man (though not including the Stones at Altamont Speedway) and it was in a city, a city we can only imagine smells kind of awful right now, if only because the coffee in Portland lends itself to really foul shits. Anyway, a friend of mine used to call Portland "White People Gone Wild." It is not such a terrible shock this crowd digs Obama. So as this woeful chapter in our nation's history concludes I can only hope the WPGW contingent will stop saying ludicrous things like the election of John McCain would be "eight more years" of Bush. To say such a thing cheapens the trauma of the World's Worst Presidency and further tries our almost thoroughly bankrupt national capacity for nuance, a capacity Obama is trying to restore. That and lots more with Megan and I, after the jump. More »

Dear Gitmo Residents, How About We Wake You Up When This Jeremiah Wright Crap Is Over?

Moe — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Dear Osama Bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan: you had the right idea, sleeping through your court appearance this morning. Seven years you've resided in Guantanamo, yet somehow the Pyrrhic victories you score against the idiocracy do not cease. You won a Supreme Court case against one of the most loathed men in the most loathed presidency in US history; then the guards moved you into solitary confinement. Your empathetic lawyer was named one of the 100 most influential in America; then he got fired from the Navy. Outside your cell walls yesterday George W. Bush heaped new praise on ethanol subsidies and gas tax relief and the World Bank President wondered whether we were really opting to feed our cars before we fed our stomachs. (The answer to that is yes.) So yeah, we'll wake you when the world is just a little less absurd. Till then Megan and I will parse Jeremiah Wright and whether "pansy" is a gay slur and all that usual crap we do after the jump. More »

Dear America, Maybe Leave The Hoarding To Countries That Can't Live Off Their Fat For A Few Months?

Moe — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

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"It is just unreal what can happen when we get fear being spread as it is now, and when the general populace goes out and starts doing idiotic things like lining up at the Sam's Club and the Costco and not buying one bag but buying 10 bags just because they might run out." [WSJ]

Are You There, God? It's Your Favorite Client, Messiah Barry Hussein Obama

Moe — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Barack Obama thinks the new Pope is hustling the opiate of the masses. But it's the opiate that kept him off his cokehead ways so it's okay! Hillary thinks the potential for life begins at conception, and that Obama is an elitist. Is it possible that the second coming of the Messiah is also the reincarnation of Karl Marx? Is it possible that some countries can only subsist on dirt and opiates for so long? Are we talking about Marx when we should be talking about Malthus and stockpiling guns? Barack Obama seems to think so, and guess what? We agree. In Jezebel's deepest spiritual discussion since I wrote about how being a Libra made me believe in God, the inimitable Megan and I discuss the papacy, fave hymns, and how cool it would be if Jesus came back as a Palestinian stand-up comedian. More »