Re: 100 Pounds of Food/Year From a 12 Square Foot Plot?

FarmI wrote:
> "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> FarmI wrote:
>>> "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>> FarmI wrote:
>>>>> "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>>> FarmI wrote:
>
>>>>>>> And one has to wonder why kids these day seem to have so many
>>>>>>> diseases that
>>>>>>> were rare when I was a child.  People of my age were 
>>>>>>> relatively
>>>>>>> lucky
>>>>>>> because we were raised in an era when the production of food 
>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>> organic, or
>>>>>>> only beginning on the inorganic track.  Kids when I was young
>>>>>>> were
>>>>>>> considered to be rather defective if they had things like
>>>>>>> Asthma,
>>>>>>> psoriasis,
>>>>>>> allergies etc, because they were incredibly rare.  Now they 
>>>>>>> seem
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> be
>>>>>>> almost the norm rather than the exception.  Something has sure
>>>>>>> changed since
>>>>>>> I was a kid.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The question is "were the diseases rare or were they 
>>>>>> commonplace
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> the diagnosis of them rare"?
>>>>>
>>>>> They were rare.
>>>>
>>>> How do you know that?
>>>
>>> Because I have a good memory of my childhood and the children I 
>>> grew
>>> up
>>> with,
>>
>> And you were capable of diagnosing medical conditions when you were 
>> a
>> child?  And kept careful records of your diagnoses?
>
> Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean that I can't do it.
>
> I went to a very small rural school.  I went through 6 years in that
> school and there were never any blow ins - all long time residents
> descended from the people who first settled that area 100 years
> before.
>
> I know that of those kids, 1 had polio, 1 got lead poisoning from
> lead water pipes, and 1 had an allergy to paspalum and got a rash
> each summer when the paspalum seeds came onto the plant (she'd dead
> now sadly).  Other than that, the only illnesses were things like
> Chicken pox, measles and mumps and when they came, we took turns in
> getting them.
>
> If anyone in our community went to the doctor, it was a topic of
> conversation as it had to be booked by using a manual exchange and
> our Post Mistress was the world's biggest blabbermouth.  There were
> no secrets. Even now I could tell you which adults were having ***
> with other peoples spouses or who which men the women avoided and
> why.  I could still name the one man in the village who was rumoured
> to be gay and why and how the one person who was left a huge amount
> of money by his parents over 50 years before I was born lost it all.
>
> People always assume that kids don't take notice, or don't know what
> is going on, but we did.  We still gossip about the past and people
> now long dead when we get together.  For 6 years I sat next to and
> was good friends with the daughter of the woman who ran our phone
> exchange so I got all the gossip from her, and if she didn't tell 
> me,
> her cousin did.  For the next 6 years we had to travel together for 
> 3
> hours a day to get to high schools so the gossip still continued but
> our circle of contacts just got bigger.
>
> It was a small closeknit community where all the people came from 
> the
> one area of Ulster (both Protestant and Catholic) and they cleared
> and settled the land and then stayed there.  Even now as I research
> in Ulster, I can rattle the names off the top of my head that I knew
> as I grew up and that I know I willl see in the records of Ulster.
>
> I knew what the diseases were and I still do, just don't ask me what
> I did yesterday.
>
>>> have always been interested in social history and pay attention
>>> when
>>> media re****ts an increasing incidence of such diseases.  Here are 
>>> a
>>> couple
>>> of articles which supprt the information re****ted in our national
>>> news:
>>> http://www.nationalasthma.org.au/HTML/strategy/cam/cam005.asp
>>> http://www.allergy.org.au/content/view/28/255/
>>>
>>>>> They aren't now, but I also these days they might be
>>>>> overdiagnosed.  Seems every second kid wanders round with an
>>>>> Asthma
>>>>> puffer.
>>>>
>>>> None of the kids in my neighborhood walk around with asthma
>>>> puffers.
>>>
>>> How do you know that?
>>
>> Because none has the bulge in his pocket that would suggest an 
>> asthma
>> puffer.
>
> I'm sure you don't have any idea how ludicrous that sounds. 
> However,
> if you are paying such close attention to the lumps and bumps in the
> clothes of the children in your neigbourhood then I'm certain that
> you will shortly be arrested.
>
>>> 24% of the US population has it, 36% of the UK, 33% of Aus and it 
>>> is
>>> rising
>>> at 0.5%/year.
>>
>> Well, considering that the US department of health and human 
>> services
>> thinks that the incidence is 7.6 percent for adults and 9.4 percent
>> for children.  The CDC thinks that the incidence of childhood 
>> asthma
>> peaked in 1995 and had been steady or declining since.
>>
>> Asthma Australia says that the figures are 15 percent for adults 
>> and
>> 11 percent for children in Australia--that's not "every second 
>> kid".
>
> So you have a good knowledge of the children in my area too?  Your
> fascination with children has gone iternational has it?
>
>> So it appears that your statistics came out of your ass.
>
> I don't own any donkeys.  We only ever had horses on this farm.
>
> Speaking of horses, you certainly know how to make yourself sound
> like a complete horse's arse.
>
>> You bloody Australians who think that you know everything about the
>> US would be laughable if you weren't so damned annoying.
>
> You are sadly transparent and obvious.  Your real reason for posting
> is that you are upset that America and American's are not seen
> universally as being the great people some of them think they are.
>
> That's fine by me.  I don't care if you chose to sound like a
> pedaphile.  I also don't care what you say about Australia or
> Australians.  I don't suffer from cultural cringe and I certainly
> don't care if you still do.
>
>> What's amusing to me is how in your mostly rural country with a 
>> total
>> population that wouldn't make up a good sized town in the US you 
>> have
>> a higher incidence of asthma than in the US.  Perhaps your 
>> ancestors
>> turned to crime because their asthma prevented them from holding 
>> down
>> a job in England?
>
> I'm highly amused too.  I find it amusing that you seem to be too
> obtuse to notice that you sound like a pedophile.  I also find it
> amusing that you obviously don't know about the convict history of
> America.
>
> I'm also amused at your ignorance of the name for the nation of
> origin of the convicts.
>
> I'm even amused by the fact that you know nothing about the 
> geographic
> distribution of the population of my country.  However I'm not
> surprised by it because you've proven repeatedly how ignorant you 
> are
> in post after post.

Since you cannot engage in a discussion without accusing others of 
such things as "pedophilia", there is no point in attempting to have 
one with you.

Do remember to put the boots on the sheep.

<plonk>

-- 
-- 
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)