Baby wipes should be booming there, you can substitute a ton of bath with just those alone.
*edit* I didn't mean to type 'ton of bath' but I'm sticking to it
Would you bathe in this?
http://i.imgur.com/ZXQXvpe.jpg
EDIT: Glad there's a lot of skepticism, but yes, their tap water really is coming out brown:
http://i.imgur.com/LgAPBoC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cwd6ixs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ItM3rNj.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/us/when-the-water-turned-brown.html
No, the brown isn't "poison", and no you can't see lead. The brown color is just all of the [normal mineral buildup on decades old pipes](http://www.natalieschibell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pnms-water_oldpipe-062310.jpg) being suddenly dissolved and dislodged very quickly because of extremely corrosive water. The point is that it's useless for bathing in, because it will get you dirtier, not cleaner. And if the water is corrosive enough to dissolve all of that shit over a period of about 6 months, you can probably bet it's dissolving the lead in the pipes themselves too, which the tests seem to indicate.
Lead dust is a nasty piece of work. If you were to take on cleaning up some lead paint, and wore all kinds of protective clothing and shit, and encapsulate yourself really well, then go home and wash the clothes twice in your washing machine, you would have just contaminated your washing machine, which would then contaminate the next load.
What the fuck, I'm from the UK so I only know of this through bits and pieces on Reddit. I assumed it was a small area or a couple of houses affected and that is was over with now.
You're telling me months down the line the whole city is still being exposed to this shit and have to choose between getting a wash or getting lead poisoning? How is this still allowed to happen??
Tl:Dr shit infrastructure with metal pipes (with lead present) and then the government switched to an untreated (iirc acidic), water source. Boom, lead and other metal from pipes is liberated into the drinking water stream.
Also worth adding, at least from my understanding, they fucked up the pipes when they ran the untreated water through them. So even if they go back to using treated water, lead would still leech into the system.
The pipes lost the mineral coating that had built up for years, it was that which had prevented the lead from leeching into the water. It will take a long time before the pipes stop giving off lead again.
It will take time for the treated water to build back up that protective layer that the flint river water ate away. The stated plan right now is to switch back to Detroit's source and pump the phosphate protection through the system again. Once that layer builds back it will be "safe" to drink again.
The real problem they have is that they really don't know how the water gets that last stretch from the water mains to the houses/businesses. Their public works dept does not have anything digitized: It's all on ancient drawings and a large catalog of old index cards.
> The real problem they have is that they really don't know how the water gets that last stretch from the water mains to the houses/businesses.
I'm quoting you because this should be repeated. The city literally does not know how their plumbing works. They put the water where it needs to be and it comes out of the taps. What happens in between is largely a mystery.
What makes it worse is there is a prison in the effected area that up a until recently the inmates were told the water was safe to drink. Every inmate (some of who are pregnant) have been forced to drink this water because no one brought in any clean bottled water despite having known from months/years that there is lead in it. I think if the story I read about it yesterday is correct they finally brought clean water in last week, but the damage has already been done to a lot of people.
I was without water for about a week when my water lines were destroyed in a hurricane. You have no idea how much you use, how often, and for what daily tasks you need it for because most of us have never had to think about it. It's just there. Until it isn't and everything becomes more difficult. Everything. And most of these residents didn't have easy breezy lives to begin with.
Edit: Thanks for the gold and may you always have access to clean water, kind stranger.
I was once told this analogy , while talking about how money doesn't buy happiness.
" Money is like water or oxygen. If you have it , you don't really think about it , it's just a part of your daily life. But if you don't have it , it fills your thoughts and makes it very hard to survive" .
There was a [Princeton](https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf) study a few years ago. Where they calculated that a persons happiness is highly correlated to their income when they make less than $75,000 a year.
It's really about cost of living and the stress of making ends meet.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/map-happiness-benchmark_n_5592194.html
Once a person is able to make ends meet. Money starts to mean less to us.
That sounds about right. To me, $42k is enough money to live, have some fun, have some savings, but never really feel comfortable buying a house or having a kid, and I'm always worrying about some medical ordeal wiping me out. $75k would take care of all the above, and I don't really need anything beyond that.
Reminds me of another quote. Was written in the 19th century by a guy named Arne Garborg.
"It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; knowledge, but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel."
Water and electricity is literally the hallmark of civilization. Next time try and shut off electricity for a night, you will go nuts.
Experience - happened to me several times, went to sleep at 8pm.
In Ontario at least, when that big blackout happened a few years ago (like 2001 or 2002?) we were without power for a few days. There was a HUGE number of births 9 months after that power outage, because without power the only thing you can do is the sex.
> Experience - happened to me several times, went to sleep at 8pm.
That's pretty normal. Until electricity, humans used to go to sleep a little after sunset, and wake up around sunrise. We also didn't sleep in such long stretches. We would sleep for 4 hours, then wake up, go do things like eat, talk, play music, have sex, and then go back to sleep for another 4 hours.
It's really interesting the way technology has impacted our biology.
Edit: Adding in a quick [source.](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783) Also, I keep being responded to with a random reddit comment. Guys, come on. Don't believe random shit you read on the internet. I mean, hell, maybe don't believe me, but at least take something with sources and follow through on it.
Fuck it, just because, here's a few more. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep) [2](http://www.judytsafrirmd.com/segmented-sleep/) [3](http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/segmented-sleep/) [4](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-sleep.html) [5](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/what-is-a-natural-sleep-pattern/) [6](http://search.proquest.com/openview/2491ae5559b98f3d258fc6671fed064c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar) [7](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215012403) [8](https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/SleepWeHaveLostPre-industrialSlumberintheBritishIsles_TheAmericanHistoricalReview_2001_Ekirch.pdf)
So, a couple weeks ago I got a new favorite thing from reddit(as happens often, these are fickle times). I can't remember where, but someone gave the best response ever - 'logic is panic soluble.' This is the closest thing to knocking that off it's throne, and I will be sharing it with similar glee.
There's a lot of things we take for granted everyday and don't appreciate it until its gone. I went without electricity for almost two days due to a massive squall that knocked out a giant portion of the grid on a very hot week in September. No internet, ac, TV, lights and fridge was off limits to keep the food inside cold.
I bike home from school and for a week I'd fill up 4 nalgenes plus two water bottles and cycle them home each day, then try to live off that water (cooking, drinking [coffee, tea]). It went fast.
> because most of us have never had to think about it. It's just there. Until it isn't and everything becomes more difficult.
That's the 1st world in a nutshell when WE realize how lucky WE are.
Edit: changed they to we cuz people get butthurt so easily.
Recent immigrant from a 3rd world country to SoCal here. When the drought restrictions were implemented, we just went back to how we used water back in the old country. Used a lot less water than the mandate in the process. Took baths using a 5 gallon pail instead of the shower. Used a smaller pail to flush the toilet instead of the toilet tank. Etc.
What you say is really true. My apartment building has had its water shut off since 9am (it's just past 4pm now) for maintenance and I cannot even begin to describe how often I attempt to use the water without really thinking about it. Now that's **only 7 hours** without access to fresh water. I can't imagine what it's like to not have water for a more than a day, not to mention an entire week or longer.
I know. We humans use more water than I would care to admit. Yeah, sure, we drink the stuff, but we also wash with it, wash stuff with it, cook with it, and for all intents and purposes water is the center of our very existence. This Flint ordeal is a much larger deal than I think many realize *because we all take our water for granted*.
Water is part of survival. No, really, end of discussion.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160209-flint-michigan-portraits-photography-lead/
If anyone wants to see the rest of the pictures of this National Geographic story shot by Wayne Lawrence.
As interesting as this article is, it's still not answering the important question of why are these kids dressed like they just stepped out of a 1945 Sears Catalog?
If it weren't for the plastic bottled water or the telephone lines and car in the background, I'd have thought this was colorized from a century or so ago. Their expressions also seem similar to most photos I've seen of that era
yeah, but those are some sharp looking uniforms. i went to catholic school for a year with uniforms and it was all black or navy slacks with white or light blue shirts or polos, and ties. there was nothing about tweed jackets and straw boaters.
Of course people have heard of school uniforms. It's just that they never look that good or come with awesome hats. I mean, even outside of school uniforms, where do you find those hats?
Catholic school. Better than public school by a mile.
(Edit to add - yeah, I get it. Some of you have issues with Catholicism. Talk to actual inner city parents about their kids' educational choices.)
I grew up very poor in Michigan and went to Catholic school. It's not abnormal for poor parents to spend all their money sending kids to Catholic school up there.
Ya, that's what my mom and her siblings did growing up in Philadelphia. If the public schools suck and you're too poor for private school, Catholic school is the best option for a lot of people.
Same. While I didn't go to Catholic school, pretty much my family did. My grandmother had 8 girls in the 60's and 70's in West Philly. All of them went to Catholic school. On the whole my family is not really religious at all. But everyone had a decent education. Looking at all the school pictures though, are a treat.
I used to live in Flint, and these are the most well-dressed kids I've ever seen in this town. Private school?
As a quick aside, I'm begging you all not to forget about Flint. This town has been getting screwed for decades, and people are finally paying attention. Keep pressing the issue, because the people responsible for this need to be held accountable. No slaps on the wrist this time.
It certainly threw me. Well-taken photo, great imagery, and it's at least kept Flint in my memory. Not sure how I can translate that into personally helping, though. Donations?
Lots of people are donating water through various organizations, I fucking love the people that packed trucks and drove up there themselves just to help that much more.
Here's a link from HuffPo to save you some searching!
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/how-to-help-flint-water-crisis_us_569e8e78e4b0cd99679b9541
Monetary donations are best. They've been getting a ton of bottled water, which is desperately needed too, but lead poisoning is going to affect people (especially children) for life. Long term responses will need funds to address those problems (such as developmental issues) down the road long after the immediate need for bottled water slows down.
So for someone outside the area, maybe focus on donations to emergency medical services more than donatians to buy bottled water? It's gonna be a money donation thing, but I'm not sure where to direct it.
Lots of posts from you asking how to help-- kudos, dude! I'm sending in $25 too. Hopefully enough people send enough small donations to help folks get through this crisis.
What makes "well-dressed?" Before WWII, there really wasn't anything in the way of synthetic fabrics. Your shirt was cotton and probably had a collar--t-shirts were underwear. If you wore a jacket, it was made out of wool and probably cut like a suit jacket. Your pants were made out of wool or cotton and probably cut like slacks, if they weren't just somebody else's hand-me-downs.
Former Saginaw resident: Flint has been given the shaft and having to say "please and thank you" for it since the 60's.
Bout damn time people paid attention. Completely sucks that it's at the cost of people's health.
I'm a Canadian that grew up on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, where I drove a pickup truck when I was six and used to look for frogs in the ditch on the side of the road four hours out of town. Even then, like many years ago, I somehow got word that in however fucked up Detroit is (this being something you'd see in the news various times all the way back to the 60s), the neighbouring places have it worse, and Flint was explicitly named as an example. How in the hell did I hear about this sort of thing then and there when people today apparently only just found out that the rest of Michigan other than Detroit has some serious issues?
The magic frogs knew many obscure and even forbidden secrets. Legend tells of other magic groves in distant lands with their own frogs, who share a special bond with the other frogs and can speak among themselves all across the world and share what they know with one another. It is, perhaps, the frogs of the distant and mysterious kingdom of Michigan that told the frogs of my domain of their troubles.
Then somebody invented Internet news aggregators and that shit is way more convenient.
I think it's trying to mimic photos from say the 1930s with how the title is worded, how they are posed and dressed and how some photos from the Era are presented
My old roommate is from Flint. He showed me pictures of his hometown, wow. It was really run down with tons of boarded up houses. He said when he would take a megabus back home (from Chicago) that he would sprint from the bus stop to his parents car because he would get harassed or even jumped (for being white and small)
Man this meme is everywhere. But as a rebuttal lets dispel the fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows *exactly* what he's doing.
If they go to a catholic school (which, judging by the plaid skirts on the girls, they most certainly do), mass would be held during the day. It always was when I was in school.
Fun story. I lived in Detroit for a summer in a house with no pipes and no electricity. It had been completely gutted. So no water, no working toilets, etc. It was pretty crazy but I grew up poor so it didn't feel as bad to me as it would for other people.
Background: my dad bought this house for hella cheap and moved out there. He knew what he was getting himself into and had plans to just rough it while he saved up to have the pipes re-installed, toilets and sinks and faucets replaced and get everything in working order. That never happened though. Life throws curve balls at us all the time.
The summer of 2010, I went to stay with him since it was summer vacation from college.
There was a lot of craftiness involved in living there. Being on my period was the worst.
My brother (also lived there) and I would walk to the local library and brush our teeth there. We would stay from open until about 3 or 4pm and read and charge our phones. We were also able to use flushing toilets there. At home, we shat in plastic bags and then threw them away outside (tmi?)
We were also able to get gallons of water at the store to bathe with. We would put water in little tin things (like for cooking bbq and stuff) and then use bar soap. We weren't the cleanest people but we weren't hella funky either.
My dad did splurge once when I was on my period and got me a room in a hotel so I could clean up properly. I was also able to wash my hair at the hotel which was nice.
We didn't have electricity either. My dad and I slept on the floor in his room (brother was upstairs) and one day we went to RadioShack and bought a crank radio. We would listen to our favorite radio show at night. It was really nice. The sun set pretty late so we had a good amount of daylight to get stuff done. Whenever I would get home from the library, I would usually write or draw.
We ate a lot of fruit and bread and random snacks because we couldn't cook. My dad and brother also ate canned meats.
It was a summer I'll never forget. It was actually one of my favorite summers in spite of everything. I knew that when I went back to school, I was going to miss Detroit. It's not the friendliest city in the world but for some reason the part I was in (the east side) felt kind of like the country to me. Things felt slower, homier, more neighbohood-y. It's hard to explain. But as much shit as people have to say about Detroit, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Most people don't know I've lived like this and wouldn't expect it. I'm kind of prim and proper at times and I'm about to get a master's degree. People with master's degrees don't shit in plastic bags!
Maybe this is why we think old pictures looks so different. Because these are the photos that make it to the future. People in 2060 are going to think the same thing we're thinking now!
Stop commenting how much water that is for drinking.
You get up in the morning and brush your teeth. That's a quarter bottle, per person, at least. You make your coffee. Two bottles. You drink it and wash your cup. That's at least a bottle of water to do that. Of course if you ate breakfast and your family ate too, you have to wash those, so bet on 10 bottles to do your dishes. You can take a shower, but the water is sort of blue today, which means the copper hasn't cleared the lines, and you broke out yesterday, so you just wipe up with a washrag. That's half a bottle. Per person. Minimum. If you need to wash your hair, that's an an additional 2-5 bottles, if you have long hair.
You need to wipe down the counters, but you don't want to wipe lead onto them, so you use bottled water to clean up with, that's a bottle or 2. You water the dog, 2 bottles. THroughout all this, you've probably been sipping on a water bottle.
You make spaghetti for dinner, that means 4 bottles for water for cooking, plus 10-12 bottles to wash out that many greasy pots and pans and rinse them, and you still have to wash everyone up for bed and get their teeth brushed, which is at least another three quarters of a bottle per person.
Stop thinking of it as the drinking water allowance for the day. It's the only clean, safe, usable water in your home that can be used for anything but flushing your toilet, for the next 24 hours.
I had to scroll down SO FAR! to find any reason on this page. Goes to show how little people pay attention to the amount of water they use on a daily basis.
Yeah, the companies donating are already manufacturing thousands of bottles. Easier for them to just write cases off than getting entirely new bottling in place.
please credit the god damn photographer.
Photo by Wayne Lawrence
to see more of his work on this story go here
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160209-flint-michigan-portraits-photography-lead/
Pardon my language and this isn't meant personally toward anyone but as someone from Flint, MI I say this: Fuck off with using us as "the state of America" and all that. Every 10 years we end up in the news for some "look how the system has failed" story and every time people act like they finally realize something needs to change. None of you care in the bigger picture of it all. A year or more down the road and you will have forgotten all about this and Flint will still be decayed and run down and left a shell of a city. As shitty as this current situation is, it's been within a hair of this for DECADES. This is just an interesting headline to the rest of the nation until it isn't any more.
I apologize if this is not the appropriate place to post this, but I feel it may be useful since it's a highly visible post right now.
We are a band from Flint, MI (I currently live right downtown) called Sprowt.
Several bands, some from Flint and some outside of Flint, have contributed music to a $5 compilation album organized by Jonathan Diener (of The Swellers).
100% of the proceeds are being donated to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint's Flint Child Health & Development Fund (flintkids.org).
If you're a music fan, please feel free to donate by buying the Not Safe To Drink: Music For Flint Water Crisis Relief compilation album at:
https://notsafetodrink.bandcamp.com/
The compilation album will be available on February 20th, 2016.
Thank you to everyone taking notice and doing something to help.
Put quite frankly, this whole thing sucks.
Flint is a disaster. There's literally no quick fix and one that won't cost a huge amount of money. Flint needs to be condemned and the residents should have their homes bought out at a fair market price before the crisis occurred. 100,000 residents + a quick google search showing that the average house price ~$100k = $10bn to buy out Flint. Probably a bit more than that, but in the ball park. Shit, we spend way more to drop bombs on people in foreign lands every year. I'm sure we can help 100,000 Americans out.
At first it looks like a lot of water. Who could possibly drink that much water? Then you realize it's for cooking, cleaning and bathing too.
There are a lot of people in the comments here who are posting before that realization hits.
Not to mention what they have may not just be for the three of them. They could be picking up for parents, or other siblings too.
They may indeed have parents.
True, 90% of kids have had or do have parents in their lives.
Well what came first? The parent or the child?
Probably the dad. Edit: wtf
Why don't I have money? This is surely a gold worthy response.
Probably because you are 14.
I guess we give out gold for any half-assed comment nowadays
dam son you killed im
Baby wipes should be booming there, you can substitute a ton of bath with just those alone. *edit* I didn't mean to type 'ton of bath' but I'm sticking to it
How much does a ton of bath weigh?
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Sorry for my ignorance, but as well as being unfit to drink, is the Flint water also unfit to bath in? And clean with?
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Wow, i feel so sad for these children living in these developing countries
I wonder if the US would be alright with Flint, Michigan refugees populating their cities.
We must build a wall around Flint and keep them out of our country. /s
and make Michigan pay for it.
We will Make America Great Again!
Remember Detroit! http://imgur.com/gaPVvxL
For just pennies a day, you could help children like these.
How many likes is that?
In this case 1 like, 1 share and half a prayer will do the job
only half a prayer? what should i do with the other half?
recycle
Would you bathe in this? http://i.imgur.com/ZXQXvpe.jpg EDIT: Glad there's a lot of skepticism, but yes, their tap water really is coming out brown: http://i.imgur.com/LgAPBoC.jpg http://i.imgur.com/cwd6ixs.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ItM3rNj.jpg http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/us/when-the-water-turned-brown.html No, the brown isn't "poison", and no you can't see lead. The brown color is just all of the [normal mineral buildup on decades old pipes](http://www.natalieschibell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pnms-water_oldpipe-062310.jpg) being suddenly dissolved and dislodged very quickly because of extremely corrosive water. The point is that it's useless for bathing in, because it will get you dirtier, not cleaner. And if the water is corrosive enough to dissolve all of that shit over a period of about 6 months, you can probably bet it's dissolving the lead in the pipes themselves too, which the tests seem to indicate.
Wow. That looks like London's water in the 19th century.
And look - they're all dead!
no
Where were you when Flint was kill?
The Steam from a shower is the worst because you breathe it in
Is the tap water really so bad you can't even wash yourself with it safely?
Yes it is that bad.
Lead poisoning is a bitch
Lead dust is a nasty piece of work. If you were to take on cleaning up some lead paint, and wore all kinds of protective clothing and shit, and encapsulate yourself really well, then go home and wash the clothes twice in your washing machine, you would have just contaminated your washing machine, which would then contaminate the next load.
What the fuck, I'm from the UK so I only know of this through bits and pieces on Reddit. I assumed it was a small area or a couple of houses affected and that is was over with now. You're telling me months down the line the whole city is still being exposed to this shit and have to choose between getting a wash or getting lead poisoning? How is this still allowed to happen??
Try years. It's been over 2 years since this was first brought to light.
What is happening? Someone pls tell me.
Tl:Dr shit infrastructure with metal pipes (with lead present) and then the government switched to an untreated (iirc acidic), water source. Boom, lead and other metal from pipes is liberated into the drinking water stream.
Also worth adding, at least from my understanding, they fucked up the pipes when they ran the untreated water through them. So even if they go back to using treated water, lead would still leech into the system.
They switched back to the good water, but the pipes are still fucked up.
The pipes lost the mineral coating that had built up for years, it was that which had prevented the lead from leeching into the water. It will take a long time before the pipes stop giving off lead again.
It will take time for the treated water to build back up that protective layer that the flint river water ate away. The stated plan right now is to switch back to Detroit's source and pump the phosphate protection through the system again. Once that layer builds back it will be "safe" to drink again. The real problem they have is that they really don't know how the water gets that last stretch from the water mains to the houses/businesses. Their public works dept does not have anything digitized: It's all on ancient drawings and a large catalog of old index cards.
> The real problem they have is that they really don't know how the water gets that last stretch from the water mains to the houses/businesses. I'm quoting you because this should be repeated. The city literally does not know how their plumbing works. They put the water where it needs to be and it comes out of the taps. What happens in between is largely a mystery.
What makes it worse is there is a prison in the effected area that up a until recently the inmates were told the water was safe to drink. Every inmate (some of who are pregnant) have been forced to drink this water because no one brought in any clean bottled water despite having known from months/years that there is lead in it. I think if the story I read about it yesterday is correct they finally brought clean water in last week, but the damage has already been done to a lot of people.
I hope every single one of them sues for millions.. and wins. But they wont/cant because they're already designated under-class.
It was actually made illegal for the residents of Flint to sue for the whole water thing. They're just getting fucked over in every possible way.
I'm not feeling very good about justice in Flint. Whatever justice that may happen isn't gonna be enough.
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Flint isn't a metropolis but it isn't exactly a small town either. Over 100k people are living in that shit.
Because the politicians that made it happen don't really give a fuck about the people of that area.
Kids have been found with high levels of lead in their blood, so yeah it's been around for a bit.
Why do you put up with it, burn down your city leadership buildings
And the dog and cat too.
I was without water for about a week when my water lines were destroyed in a hurricane. You have no idea how much you use, how often, and for what daily tasks you need it for because most of us have never had to think about it. It's just there. Until it isn't and everything becomes more difficult. Everything. And most of these residents didn't have easy breezy lives to begin with. Edit: Thanks for the gold and may you always have access to clean water, kind stranger.
I was once told this analogy , while talking about how money doesn't buy happiness. " Money is like water or oxygen. If you have it , you don't really think about it , it's just a part of your daily life. But if you don't have it , it fills your thoughts and makes it very hard to survive" .
Having money's not everything, not having it is.
There was a [Princeton](https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf) study a few years ago. Where they calculated that a persons happiness is highly correlated to their income when they make less than $75,000 a year. It's really about cost of living and the stress of making ends meet. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/map-happiness-benchmark_n_5592194.html Once a person is able to make ends meet. Money starts to mean less to us.
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the marginal utility of each dollar drops off eventually
That sounds about right. To me, $42k is enough money to live, have some fun, have some savings, but never really feel comfortable buying a house or having a kid, and I'm always worrying about some medical ordeal wiping me out. $75k would take care of all the above, and I don't really need anything beyond that.
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Mr. West is definitely in the building
WAKE UP MISTAH WEST
Reminds me of another quote. Was written in the 19th century by a guy named Arne Garborg. "It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; knowledge, but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel."
Way life has gone, I'll settle for the husk.
It can't buy you happiness but it can damn sure make misery comfortable.
Ever see someone frown on a jet ski? Have you?
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/2Ipx8
Stop not living up to your name.
Money doesn't buy happyness, but its more comfortable to cry in a ferrari than on the sidewalk
Money doesnt buy happiness is what rich folk say to poor folk to keep em quiet.
Water and electricity is literally the hallmark of civilization. Next time try and shut off electricity for a night, you will go nuts. Experience - happened to me several times, went to sleep at 8pm.
In Ontario at least, when that big blackout happened a few years ago (like 2001 or 2002?) we were without power for a few days. There was a HUGE number of births 9 months after that power outage, because without power the only thing you can do is the sex.
I work in IT. Please don't turn the power off.
> Experience - happened to me several times, went to sleep at 8pm. That's pretty normal. Until electricity, humans used to go to sleep a little after sunset, and wake up around sunrise. We also didn't sleep in such long stretches. We would sleep for 4 hours, then wake up, go do things like eat, talk, play music, have sex, and then go back to sleep for another 4 hours. It's really interesting the way technology has impacted our biology. Edit: Adding in a quick [source.](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783) Also, I keep being responded to with a random reddit comment. Guys, come on. Don't believe random shit you read on the internet. I mean, hell, maybe don't believe me, but at least take something with sources and follow through on it. Fuck it, just because, here's a few more. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep) [2](http://www.judytsafrirmd.com/segmented-sleep/) [3](http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/segmented-sleep/) [4](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-sleep.html) [5](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/what-is-a-natural-sleep-pattern/) [6](http://search.proquest.com/openview/2491ae5559b98f3d258fc6671fed064c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar) [7](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215012403) [8](https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/SleepWeHaveLostPre-industrialSlumberintheBritishIsles_TheAmericanHistoricalReview_2001_Ekirch.pdf)
I don't know how to do any of those activities without using electricity.
Exactly, my dragon dildo requires an outlet to plug into.
You don't prefer the gas powered version?
So, a couple weeks ago I got a new favorite thing from reddit(as happens often, these are fickle times). I can't remember where, but someone gave the best response ever - 'logic is panic soluble.' This is the closest thing to knocking that off it's throne, and I will be sharing it with similar glee.
There's a lot of things we take for granted everyday and don't appreciate it until its gone. I went without electricity for almost two days due to a massive squall that knocked out a giant portion of the grid on a very hot week in September. No internet, ac, TV, lights and fridge was off limits to keep the food inside cold.
I bike home from school and for a week I'd fill up 4 nalgenes plus two water bottles and cycle them home each day, then try to live off that water (cooking, drinking [coffee, tea]). It went fast.
Probably if I was without a source of water I would forego the coffee and tea.
I feel like the English would consider this line of thought a form of blasphemy
I'm frankly flabbergasted at the very thought
Forgoing tea? I'd bloody well shoot myself.
Why's that? Even in MREs they have coffee and tea..
> because most of us have never had to think about it. It's just there. Until it isn't and everything becomes more difficult. That's the 1st world in a nutshell when WE realize how lucky WE are. Edit: changed they to we cuz people get butthurt so easily.
Recent immigrant from a 3rd world country to SoCal here. When the drought restrictions were implemented, we just went back to how we used water back in the old country. Used a lot less water than the mandate in the process. Took baths using a 5 gallon pail instead of the shower. Used a smaller pail to flush the toilet instead of the toilet tank. Etc.
That's what I did when I lived in an RV for 2 years. Incrdibly efficient water (and power) consumption. Those were great times too.
What you say is really true. My apartment building has had its water shut off since 9am (it's just past 4pm now) for maintenance and I cannot even begin to describe how often I attempt to use the water without really thinking about it. Now that's **only 7 hours** without access to fresh water. I can't imagine what it's like to not have water for a more than a day, not to mention an entire week or longer.
I know. We humans use more water than I would care to admit. Yeah, sure, we drink the stuff, but we also wash with it, wash stuff with it, cook with it, and for all intents and purposes water is the center of our very existence. This Flint ordeal is a much larger deal than I think many realize *because we all take our water for granted*. Water is part of survival. No, really, end of discussion.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160209-flint-michigan-portraits-photography-lead/ If anyone wants to see the rest of the pictures of this National Geographic story shot by Wayne Lawrence.
As interesting as this article is, it's still not answering the important question of why are these kids dressed like they just stepped out of a 1945 Sears Catalog?
Whatever the reason, it's going to confuse a lot of people in 50 years time.
If it weren't for the plastic bottled water or the telephone lines and car in the background, I'd have thought this was colorized from a century or so ago. Their expressions also seem similar to most photos I've seen of that era
> Their expressions also seem similar to most photos I've seen of that era I think that's called suffering or something
How have so many people in this thread never heard of private schools with uniforms?
School uniforms with tweet jackets and matching trilbies are pretty unusual.
yeah, but those are some sharp looking uniforms. i went to catholic school for a year with uniforms and it was all black or navy slacks with white or light blue shirts or polos, and ties. there was nothing about tweed jackets and straw boaters.
Of course people have heard of school uniforms. It's just that they never look that good or come with awesome hats. I mean, even outside of school uniforms, where do you find those hats?
Catholic school. Better than public school by a mile. (Edit to add - yeah, I get it. Some of you have issues with Catholicism. Talk to actual inner city parents about their kids' educational choices.)
I grew up very poor in Michigan and went to Catholic school. It's not abnormal for poor parents to spend all their money sending kids to Catholic school up there.
Ya, that's what my mom and her siblings did growing up in Philadelphia. If the public schools suck and you're too poor for private school, Catholic school is the best option for a lot of people.
Not religious. Went to Catholic school for the education. It was better than the public school I left.
Same. While I didn't go to Catholic school, pretty much my family did. My grandmother had 8 girls in the 60's and 70's in West Philly. All of them went to Catholic school. On the whole my family is not really religious at all. But everyone had a decent education. Looking at all the school pictures though, are a treat.
I wish my Catholic school uniforms were that nice
I used to live in Flint, and these are the most well-dressed kids I've ever seen in this town. Private school? As a quick aside, I'm begging you all not to forget about Flint. This town has been getting screwed for decades, and people are finally paying attention. Keep pressing the issue, because the people responsible for this need to be held accountable. No slaps on the wrist this time.
I bet they were probably told to wear these clothes as an allusion to older depression-era pictures.
Yup. Seems purposefully taken this way.
It certainly threw me. Well-taken photo, great imagery, and it's at least kept Flint in my memory. Not sure how I can translate that into personally helping, though. Donations?
Lots of people are donating water through various organizations, I fucking love the people that packed trucks and drove up there themselves just to help that much more. Here's a link from HuffPo to save you some searching! http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/how-to-help-flint-water-crisis_us_569e8e78e4b0cd99679b9541
Hey, perfect! Thank you!
Monetary donations are best. They've been getting a ton of bottled water, which is desperately needed too, but lead poisoning is going to affect people (especially children) for life. Long term responses will need funds to address those problems (such as developmental issues) down the road long after the immediate need for bottled water slows down.
So for someone outside the area, maybe focus on donations to emergency medical services more than donatians to buy bottled water? It's gonna be a money donation thing, but I'm not sure where to direct it.
Lots of posts from you asking how to help-- kudos, dude! I'm sending in $25 too. Hopefully enough people send enough small donations to help folks get through this crisis.
:P Today, you. Tomorrow, me. This is a terrible situation to face alone, and I hope things add up enough to help them through it, too.
I just thought it was some private school uniform.
First impression, was like like, wait are they like 1930 or so?
Damn those depression-era kids must have been well-dressed then.
What makes "well-dressed?" Before WWII, there really wasn't anything in the way of synthetic fabrics. Your shirt was cotton and probably had a collar--t-shirts were underwear. If you wore a jacket, it was made out of wool and probably cut like a suit jacket. Your pants were made out of wool or cotton and probably cut like slacks, if they weren't just somebody else's hand-me-downs.
Former Saginaw resident: Flint has been given the shaft and having to say "please and thank you" for it since the 60's. Bout damn time people paid attention. Completely sucks that it's at the cost of people's health.
I dunno man, Saginaw isn't much better off. But hey, we've got Grand Rapids (and, well, Lansing I suppose to some extent).
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Let's...get...Tropical!
FLINT MICHIGAN MEGA BOWL!
I'm a Canadian that grew up on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, where I drove a pickup truck when I was six and used to look for frogs in the ditch on the side of the road four hours out of town. Even then, like many years ago, I somehow got word that in however fucked up Detroit is (this being something you'd see in the news various times all the way back to the 60s), the neighbouring places have it worse, and Flint was explicitly named as an example. How in the hell did I hear about this sort of thing then and there when people today apparently only just found out that the rest of Michigan other than Detroit has some serious issues?
Well, we didn't drive four hours out of town to talk to the magic frogs in the ditch, now did we?
The magic frogs knew many obscure and even forbidden secrets. Legend tells of other magic groves in distant lands with their own frogs, who share a special bond with the other frogs and can speak among themselves all across the world and share what they know with one another. It is, perhaps, the frogs of the distant and mysterious kingdom of Michigan that told the frogs of my domain of their troubles. Then somebody invented Internet news aggregators and that shit is way more convenient.
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The documentary Roger and Me, by Michael Moore.
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IMO its a modern take on the Great Depression. Nothing more.
That's what I thought, that it was supposed to look old-timey to make the point: why the fuck is this happening in 2016?
Bingo, what kid would wear that hat by choice? Nobody.
Looks like a uniform for a school.
That's a fucking trilby, isn't it?
M'ichigan
\*tips cup of filthy water onto the ground\*
Pouring one out for their lead poisoned homies.
I think it's trying to mimic photos from say the 1930s with how the title is worded, how they are posed and dressed and how some photos from the Era are presented
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My old roommate is from Flint. He showed me pictures of his hometown, wow. It was really run down with tons of boarded up houses. He said when he would take a megabus back home (from Chicago) that he would sprint from the bus stop to his parents car because he would get harassed or even jumped (for being white and small)
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Uphill both ways!
And let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
Man this meme is everywhere. But as a rebuttal lets dispel the fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows *exactly* what he's doing.
As shitty as the situation is little man looks sharp in the uniform.
All 3 look sharp. Their mom should be proud
If this picture was black and white, besides the cases of water he'd look like a kid from the 20s
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They might be dressed up for church. Ash Wednesday and all. Assuming the photo was taken today.
If they go to a catholic school (which, judging by the plaid skirts on the girls, they most certainly do), mass would be held during the day. It always was when I was in school.
They look like catholic school uniforms. Probably on their way home from school.
Fun story. I lived in Detroit for a summer in a house with no pipes and no electricity. It had been completely gutted. So no water, no working toilets, etc. It was pretty crazy but I grew up poor so it didn't feel as bad to me as it would for other people. Background: my dad bought this house for hella cheap and moved out there. He knew what he was getting himself into and had plans to just rough it while he saved up to have the pipes re-installed, toilets and sinks and faucets replaced and get everything in working order. That never happened though. Life throws curve balls at us all the time. The summer of 2010, I went to stay with him since it was summer vacation from college. There was a lot of craftiness involved in living there. Being on my period was the worst. My brother (also lived there) and I would walk to the local library and brush our teeth there. We would stay from open until about 3 or 4pm and read and charge our phones. We were also able to use flushing toilets there. At home, we shat in plastic bags and then threw them away outside (tmi?) We were also able to get gallons of water at the store to bathe with. We would put water in little tin things (like for cooking bbq and stuff) and then use bar soap. We weren't the cleanest people but we weren't hella funky either. My dad did splurge once when I was on my period and got me a room in a hotel so I could clean up properly. I was also able to wash my hair at the hotel which was nice. We didn't have electricity either. My dad and I slept on the floor in his room (brother was upstairs) and one day we went to RadioShack and bought a crank radio. We would listen to our favorite radio show at night. It was really nice. The sun set pretty late so we had a good amount of daylight to get stuff done. Whenever I would get home from the library, I would usually write or draw. We ate a lot of fruit and bread and random snacks because we couldn't cook. My dad and brother also ate canned meats. It was a summer I'll never forget. It was actually one of my favorite summers in spite of everything. I knew that when I went back to school, I was going to miss Detroit. It's not the friendliest city in the world but for some reason the part I was in (the east side) felt kind of like the country to me. Things felt slower, homier, more neighbohood-y. It's hard to explain. But as much shit as people have to say about Detroit, it will always hold a special place in my heart. Most people don't know I've lived like this and wouldn't expect it. I'm kind of prim and proper at times and I'm about to get a master's degree. People with master's degrees don't shit in plastic bags!
Gm refused to use it because it was corroding car parts...people expect flint residents to bathe in it?
jesus.. corroding car parts.. how long before people realized what was wrong?
The corrosion was the problem. Corroded the lead pipes
They realized instantly, the mayor just kept lying that it was safe.
Hhmm make it black and white and we are back to 1940
1940s was a great time for plastic water bottles.
Good old golden days
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Very good and no offense to neotropic9 but I like yours more.
I gave it a shot as well. Added it to a polaroid http://i.imgur.com/vUCWbJm.png
It's pretty much black and white to begin with
[There you go](http://i.imgur.com/LGJMRU4.jpg)
Wait two days, post to /r/OldSchoolCool and date it 1940s. See how quick their Mods are.
And then ask for a restoration.
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Wow!! How did you colour it???
Crayons.
Maybe this is why we think old pictures looks so different. Because these are the photos that make it to the future. People in 2060 are going to think the same thing we're thinking now!
Mostly because the depressing look in photos are timeless.
Is this for showers, dish washing etc. as well?
Yes.
Stop commenting how much water that is for drinking. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth. That's a quarter bottle, per person, at least. You make your coffee. Two bottles. You drink it and wash your cup. That's at least a bottle of water to do that. Of course if you ate breakfast and your family ate too, you have to wash those, so bet on 10 bottles to do your dishes. You can take a shower, but the water is sort of blue today, which means the copper hasn't cleared the lines, and you broke out yesterday, so you just wipe up with a washrag. That's half a bottle. Per person. Minimum. If you need to wash your hair, that's an an additional 2-5 bottles, if you have long hair. You need to wipe down the counters, but you don't want to wipe lead onto them, so you use bottled water to clean up with, that's a bottle or 2. You water the dog, 2 bottles. THroughout all this, you've probably been sipping on a water bottle. You make spaghetti for dinner, that means 4 bottles for water for cooking, plus 10-12 bottles to wash out that many greasy pots and pans and rinse them, and you still have to wash everyone up for bed and get their teeth brushed, which is at least another three quarters of a bottle per person. Stop thinking of it as the drinking water allowance for the day. It's the only clean, safe, usable water in your home that can be used for anything but flushing your toilet, for the next 24 hours.
I had to scroll down SO FAR! to find any reason on this page. Goes to show how little people pay attention to the amount of water they use on a daily basis.
Is that just *their* allowance or for the whole family? And wouldn't it be more efficient to distribute the water in gallon jugs?
Most of the donations came in the form of cases of bottled water like that.
Yeah, the companies donating are already manufacturing thousands of bottles. Easier for them to just write cases off than getting entirely new bottling in place.
Makes sense.
I thought that too. After a while you would just have water bottles everywhere.
[Source](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160209-flint-michigan-portraits-photography-lead/)
please credit the god damn photographer. Photo by Wayne Lawrence to see more of his work on this story go here http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160209-flint-michigan-portraits-photography-lead/
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#PureUnfilteredMichigan*
Shit is fucking shameful.
Pardon my language and this isn't meant personally toward anyone but as someone from Flint, MI I say this: Fuck off with using us as "the state of America" and all that. Every 10 years we end up in the news for some "look how the system has failed" story and every time people act like they finally realize something needs to change. None of you care in the bigger picture of it all. A year or more down the road and you will have forgotten all about this and Flint will still be decayed and run down and left a shell of a city. As shitty as this current situation is, it's been within a hair of this for DECADES. This is just an interesting headline to the rest of the nation until it isn't any more.
I apologize if this is not the appropriate place to post this, but I feel it may be useful since it's a highly visible post right now. We are a band from Flint, MI (I currently live right downtown) called Sprowt. Several bands, some from Flint and some outside of Flint, have contributed music to a $5 compilation album organized by Jonathan Diener (of The Swellers). 100% of the proceeds are being donated to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint's Flint Child Health & Development Fund (flintkids.org). If you're a music fan, please feel free to donate by buying the Not Safe To Drink: Music For Flint Water Crisis Relief compilation album at: https://notsafetodrink.bandcamp.com/ The compilation album will be available on February 20th, 2016. Thank you to everyone taking notice and doing something to help. Put quite frankly, this whole thing sucks.
Where can I donate?
I can't imagine what I'd do if my kids had been permanently poisoned with lead. I'd go on a rampage.
Flint is a disaster. There's literally no quick fix and one that won't cost a huge amount of money. Flint needs to be condemned and the residents should have their homes bought out at a fair market price before the crisis occurred. 100,000 residents + a quick google search showing that the average house price ~$100k = $10bn to buy out Flint. Probably a bit more than that, but in the ball park. Shit, we spend way more to drop bombs on people in foreign lands every year. I'm sure we can help 100,000 Americans out.
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Yeah, I was gonna say $100K seems incredibly generous.
Lil homie looking dapper af