Just hearing a report re the influx of the Irish -- and the deadly-poorest of that lot -- and why they became treated as pariahs:

Commentator's view is that, in 1830s America - this was the first experience of 'dire poverty', and the diseases brought along.. were natch blamed on the carriers. Etc.

Of course, behind that famine - was the terminal error of the single variety of potatoes planted, the failure to recognize why diversity was not optional but essential for long-term survival (a lesson not yet learned by people about other shapes of people, it seems).

Now we have the Windoze Potato Famine: a sterile, unsatisfactory kind of auto-rotting spud - which is delivered with the toxic 'eyes' already full grown, and a propensity for attracting its own infectious diseases. But it is gaily wrapped and smeared with mustard to hide the odor of rot. Many like the mustard, and have no idea what a healthy potato tastes like.


Bon Appetit