Foodie Fists

The logo for the Vegan soup kitchen movement “Food Not Bombs” is remarkably similar to symbols for British chef Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution crusade and Mark Bittman’s old New York Times blog. Coincidence?

Logo-napping is small stuff to the veggie volunteers who run the “Food Not Bombs” soup kitchen. They will stoop at nothing, even feeding the hungry homeless within slurping distance of a sacred national shrine, Walt Disney World in Orlando. For free, until vigilant Orlando officials and courts stopped such sacrilege. The FNB conspiracy is spreading to other cities. We blame Al-Qaeda.

Are We Clueless About the Homeless?

Penn Quarter Living has a thought-provoking post on solutions for housing the “confirmed outdoorsmen” of downtown Washington, DC (apologies for altering PQL’s photo, above). The District of Columbia Government has a plan drawn up by a nonprofit, PQL has thoughts on the issue, and so do PQL commenters. I’m not sure any of these proposals address the needs of this most visible portion of our city’s poor.

 

Family Faces

Portraits of homeless families, former residents of DC Village shelter, are on display in the atrium of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, through Jan. 14.

Photographer Tony Brunswick took these portraits for the families at D.C. Village last year, before that notorious swamp was closed. Mothers told him “This is the very first picture I’ve had with me and my child.” “One father just stood with his picture for 15 minutes, and he didn’t say a word,” Brunswick recalls.” He just looked and looked and looked.”

These are powerful pictures. They are beautiful. They are joyous. They show the human face of what most people only know as an abstract social problem.