No grass-fed beef with tax refunds, either

For all the wailing about the death of print, I’m pretty amazed at how huge controversies online go unnoticed. Or maybe it’s just that when you’re Twittering away your life, it’s easy to forget not everyone is keeping up with all the important stuff. Like the provocative column Salon ran on “hipsters” using food stamps to buy good food, which provoked other sites to rage back, pointing out the obvious: People who buy junk with food stamps get slammed, and those who try to eat well get slammed. And it’s really no one’s business how those benefits are used. A commenter at one site noted that she was an Americorps volunteer whose salary was so low she qualified for food stamps. Perspective, much? So of course I set off an Orson Welles-level war of words by Tweeting about the well-dressed older woman I saw buying extra-virgin olive oil at the Food Shitty and by mockingly adding, “For shame.” Instantly I was slammed with outraged Tweets from people who thought I was serious. Didn’t they realize I was off in the kitchen by then, boiling babies to feed the homeless?