Elderly man who picked dandelions for food gets $75 ticket

[TalkingDog]

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/elderly_man_who_picked_dandelions_for_food_gets_75_ticket/

Among the fans of the food is John Taris, a 75-year-old retiree who lives in the Chicago area with his wife on a $1,500-a-month social security payment. When the couple's food supply was a bit low recently, he volunteered to go pick some to provide a vegetable, writes columnist John Kass in the Chicago Tribune

[SummerSnow]

1. Were so fucked up as a nation

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. Unreal!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. Horrible. But it's still not enough to compel me to read a John Kass column.

Every time I try I get 5 or 6 paragraphs in and suddenly ask myself 'What the eff is this tripe about?'

I still miss Royko (and Kass will never be anything close to Royko).

[TalkingDog]

5. Luckily this is a Law News synopsis.

n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. Which I did read. I just can't bring myself to click through to the original Kass column.

[Tien1985]

6. That's an f'ing disgrace

I hope this story goes viral and they are shamed into some freaking decency.

[Xithras]

7. Foragers are a bane.

It's sad that this guy got nailed for genuinely trying to feed himself, but the inane foodies and the current foraging craze is causing real damage to many parks and forests. In the UK, it's even been linked to the local extinction of plants like wild garlic in some of the small forests around London. When one person does it, it's sustainable. In major urban regions where hundreds of foragers are traipsing through natural areas already suffering from the ills of human development, foragers regularly do a great deal of harm.

Local governments and forestry officials have responded properly by banning foraging in many areas. If this area was under a foraging ban (and it sounds like it was), and he foraged there anyway, then he certainly broke the law. It would be nice if the police exercised a little common sense and simply gave him a warning the first time though.

[Puzzledtraveller]

11. I saw this on an episode of Bizzare Foods

it was mostly hipsters, as you said, traipzing around public land pulling up roots and stuff.

[laundry_queen]

12. I don't think there's much danger of dandelions becoming scarce. nt

[Trillo]

13. Euell Gibbons was a terrorist? NT

[Xithras]

14. Gibbons was fine. It's the hipster foodies that I keep wishing food poisoning on.

Parklands and wildlife preserves are not a grocery store. Leave the edibles for the residents of the forest that will otherwise die without them.

[Igel]

9. Strange.

When I first heard about it, I was outraged. It sounded like he was just in some weedy public area and picking dandeiions.

Now it sounds like he was in some sort of protected area. Totally different kind of thing.

You hunt on BLM land in Oregon, that's fine. But if you venture into a protected area, it's a no-no. Same activity. Same target. Same purpose. Where matters.

Should have just gotten a warning. Probation at the very worst.

I tell people to grow veggies in pots or if they have a yard to engage in edible landscaping. If you have to have a yard that looks presentable, it should also taste yummy.

[TalkingDog]

10. That's funny. When I first read it I was outraged that Social Security doesn't provide enough

for people to live on.

I practice permaculture on my land, so I know what can be done, even in an extremely limited space.

And I agree with you a warning should have sufficed. A living income from Social Security would be even better.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Well, if Donald Trump or Bill Gates picked dandelions for their dinner they'd get arrested too.