I found this article at Der Spiegel online. Below are just the opening paragraphs, along with the link to the full text. While we rhapsodize about harmonics and convergences and other stuff that I frankly do not understand (silly unevolved human that I am), here is what is spreading across the world. Where are we when the shit hits the fan? Are we fiddling while the world burns?
8-D
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0%2C1518%2C547198%2C00.html
The Fury of the Poor
By SPIEGEL Staff
Around
the world, rising food prices have made basic staples like rice and
corn unaffordable for many people, pushing the poor to the barricades
because they can no longer get enough to eat. But the worst is yet to
come.
Fort Dimanche, a former prison in the hills above the Haitian
capital Port-au-Prince, is a hell on earth. In the past, it was home to
the torture chambers of former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier's death
squads, the Tontons Macoutes. Today thousands of impoverished Haitians
live in the prison's grounds, digging through piles of garbage for
food. But even dogs find little to eat there.
On the roof of the former prison, enterprising women prepare
something that looks like biscuits and is even called by that name. The
key ingredient, yellow clay, is trucked in from the nearby mountains.
The clay is combined with salt and vegetable fat to make dough, which
is then dried in the sun.
For many Haitians, the mud biscuits are their only food. They taste
of fat, suck the moisture out of the mouth and leave behind an
aftertaste of dirt. They often cause diarrhea, but they help to numb
the pangs of hunger. "I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat,
so I can stop eating these," Marie Noël, who survives with her seven
children on the dirt cakes, told the Associated Press.
The clay to make 100 of the biscuits costs $5 (€3.15) and has risen by
$1.50 (€0.95), or about 40 percent, within one year. The same is true
of staple foods. Nevertheless, the same amount of money buys more of
the mud cakes than bread or corn tortillas. A daily bowl of rice is
almost unaffordable.
The shortages triggered revolts in Haiti last week. A crowd of
hungry citizens marched through Port-au-Prince, throwing stones and
bottles and chanting, "We are hungry!" in front of the presidential
palace. Tires were burned, and people died. It was yet another of the
rebellions that are beginning to occur with increasing frequency
worldwide, but which are still only a harbinger of what is yet to come.
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