www.FoodNotBombs.net addresses two of my favorite issues in one stroke. It questions how we can spend incredible amounts of money on munitions to kill hundreds of thousands of people and ruin millions of lives while people around the globe go hungry or starve every single day. Then they take up their slotted spoons and spatulas, go forth and feed people.
Sometimes the results can be rather odd. A young man was arrested in Orlanda, FL back in April for feeding too hungry many people and potentially faces six months in prison for his “crime.” Apparently he was serving stew in a public park and the law is that up to 25 people is legally considered a picnic, but 26 or more requires a permit or permits. A police officer counted as he ladled stew into hungry people’s bowls and when he delivered the 30th ladle, he was immediately arrested. (You can’t make this stuff up, but just in case you think I might have dislodged several cerebal screws on this one, check for yourself.
If you didn’t click through, I’ll provide the relevant part of the page here:
A volunteer with Orlando Food Not Bombs was arrested April 4, 2007 for sharing more than 25 people vegan food.
Undercover officers filmed the food line, meticulously counting Montanez serving 30 unidentified persons food from a large pot utilizing a ladle,according to an arrest affidavit. Food Not Bombs volunteer Eric Montanez, 21, was arrested Wednesday, April 4th for feeding the hungry in Orlando, Florida in the United States. This past July the cities of Orlando, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada passed laws making it illegal to feed the hungry. Other cities also tried to ban Food Not Bombs but their efforts failed. The City of San Francisco made over 1,000 arrests starting on August 15, 1988 but after spending over a million dollars and failing to stop the group the city gave up and let Food Not Bombs continue with it’s work. When the public saw you could get arrested for feeding the hungry people from all over the world contacted San Francisco Food Not Bombs to see how they could start a local chapter.
Who knew that feeding people is as subversive an activity as trying to get people to stop supporting killing people in mass quantities? *sigh*
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