Who said what, this week at EcoSalon.

“According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, there are 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States. That’s more than three times the amount of grocery stores in the U.S. (36,569), meaning that simply factoring in the numbers, it’s easier to get a hold of a handgun than a bag of spinach.”

“100: Number of orgasms experienced per day by a New Jersey woman, who suffers from Persistent Genital Arousal Syndrome. The rare condition is apparently completely unrelated to one’s sex drive.”

“For a company that purports to support local farmers and small businesses, FreshDirect doesn’t seem to have much regard for the community in its own backyard.”

“Fear of what people will think of you. Fear of failing miserably and publicly. Fear of not being able to pull it off. I was petrified myself in 2008. I got a $200,000/year job offer two weeks before I was scheduled to move to Madrid, after I had quit my GE job and my family thought I was an IDIOT when I said no. I mean, they were really just disgusted with me. I said at the time, “I’ve been working in this field for eight years now. I made a lot of money. I saved. When do I earn permission to do what I want with my life? When does it end?”

“As we documented the day with black and white images, it looked so romantic and felt like a moment from a Willa Cather novel. But the reality behind the black and white is a sordid, ugly history. I can’t pretend that I didn’t think about those that did this work because they had no choice. But I live TODAY and I WANT to grow organic cotton in the state of Alabama TODAY.”

The post The Friday 5: Say What? (Again) Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

Is it easier to buy a gun or a bunch of carrots? 

When it comes to food we often talk about the necessity of access; those that don’t have easy access to healthy food don’t consume it. 23.5 million Americans don’t have a supermarket within one mile of their home. What do they have? Guns.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, there are 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States. That’s more than three times the amount of grocery stores in the U.S. (36,569), meaning that simply factoring in the numbers, it’s easier to get a hold of a handgun than a bag of spinach.

Hunger is a serious issue; in 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure household (in the same year about 5.4 million new firearms were manufactured in the U.S.). Access to food alone won’t change that statistic, poverty has a lot to do with it, but we have to start somewhere, and in a world where a gun shop might be closer than a market, it’s time to question our priorities.

Which raises a good question to ponder: what kind of a society we would have if instead of food deserts we had gun deserts?

Image: Emily Stanchfield

The post An Issue of Access: The U.S. Has Three Times as Many Gun Dealers as Grocery Stores appeared first on EcoSalon.