Mount Rainier National Park official says there are no plans to recover the bodies of six climbers who fell 3,300 feet to their deaths. A helicopter crew spotted camping and climbing gear in an avalanche-prone area below the group’s last known position of 12,800 feet.

Among those presumed dead is Truckee, California resident Matt Hegeman, who worked as a guide for Seattle’s Alpine Ascents International. He had climbed Mount Rainier more than 50 times and was a regular on Northern California’s Mt. Shasta.

Officials add that the continuous ice fall and rock fall make the area too dangerous for rescuers, but that the area will be checked periodically by air in coming weeks and months. They will also evaluate the potential for a helicopter-based recovery as snow melts and conditions change.

A mining company from the UK has applied to the U.S. Forest Service to begin exploratory drilling over thousands of acres of forest lands, including Baldface Creek, in Curry County, Oregon, which flows into the Smith River. It’s the last major California River without a dam and is a passageway for spawning fish and a source of drinking water for Crescent City and other local towns.

The proposal by the Red Flat Nickel Corporation is to begin drilling southeast of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in the Klamath Mountains to determine whether a full-scale mining operation would be economically feasible. The the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says this type of hard rock mining is the largest source of toxic pollution in the nation.

There may not be much anybody can do to stop the company from putting in a mine. The General Mining Act of 1872, approved during the presidency of Ulysses Grant. It says, in essence, that all citizens 18 years or older have the right to make a claim on federal land and extract minerals for a nominal fee.

Miners and prospectors in the California Gold Rush of 1849 found themselves in a legal vacuum. Although the US federal government had laws governing the leasing of mineral land, the Federal government had only recently acquired California by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and had little presence in the newly acquired territories.

Miners organized their own governments in each new mining camp (for example the Great Republic of Rough and Ready), and adopted the Mexican mining laws then existing in California that gave the discoverer right to explore and mine gold and silver on public land. Miners moved from one camp to the next, and made the rules of all camps more or less the same, usually differing only in specifics such as in the maximum size of claims, and the frequency with which a claim had to be worked to avoid being forfeited and subject to being claimed by someone else.

California miners spread the concept all over the west with each new mining rush, and the practices spread to all the states and territories west of the Great Plains. Although the practices for open mining on public land were more-or-less universal in the West, and supported by state and territorial legislation, they were still illegal under existing federal law.

At the end of the Civil War, some eastern congressmen regarded western miners as squatters who were robbing the public patrimony, and proposed seizure of the western mines to pay the huge war debt. In June 1865, Congressman George Julian of Indiana introduced a bill for the government to take the western mines from their discoverers, and sell them at public auction.

Congressman Fernando Wood proposed the government send an army to California, Colorado, and Arizona to expel the miners “by armed force if necessary to protect the rights of the Government in the mineral lands.” He advocated that the federal government itself work the mines for the benefit of the treasury.

Western representatives successfully argued that western miners and prospectors were performing valuable services by promoting commerce and settling new territory. In 1865, Congress passed a law that instructed courts deciding questions of contested mining rights to ignore federal ownership, and defer to the miners in actual possession of the ground.

The following year, Congressional supporters of western miners tacked legislation legalizing lode or hardrock mining on public land onto a law regarding ditch and canal rights in California, Oregon, and Nevada. The legislation, known as the “Chaffee laws” after Colorado Territorial representative Jerome Chaffee, passed and was signed July 26th, 1866.

Congress extended similar rules to placer mining claims in the “placer law” signed into law on July 9th, 1870.

The Chaffee law of 1866 and the placer law of 1870 were combined into the General Mining Act of 1872. The mining law of 1866 had given discoverers rights to stake mining claims to extract gold, silver, cinnabar — the principal ore of mercury — and copper.

When Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872, the wording was changed to “or other valuable deposits,” giving greater scope to the law. The Act also set the price of the land claim to range $2.50 to $5.00 per acre, which has remained the same since.

In 1851, gold was discovered at several locations in the Smith River watershed including Myrtle Creek, Haines Flat, and French Hill. By 1852, gold mining was booming and hundreds of mining claims were staked.

As placer gold deposits in the Smith River system were running out in 1860, copper ore was discovered in serpentine areas. Copper mining was soon booming, and mines were established in serpentine areas of the basin including Hardscrabble Creek.

Copper was in demand for manufacturing ammunition shells during the Civil War. At the end of the war in 1865, copper mining declined rapidly.

At about the same time, another important mineral was discovered in the serpentine areas – chromite. Many mines were established in the North Fork area, including High Divide near Hardscrabble Creek, Low Divide, and High Plateau, but 1894, they were shut down because of changes in tariff laws.

Hydraulic mining became the most widespread technique for extracting gold and continued into the mid-1890’s at the mouth of Hurdygurdy Creek, near Big Flat. But after a landslide destroyed the main water supply ditch, mining became limited and sporadic.

Yet in 1904, a hard rock gold mine and the town of Monumental were established about two miles from the top of Shelly Creek. However, Monumental Mining Company went bankrupt following the destruction of their offices in San Francisco by the earthquake and fire of 1906.

Currently, Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio and U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are being urged to resubmit previous requests they have made to the Obama administration to withdraw the land from mineral development. Meanwhile the U.S. Forest Service is consulting with tribal leaders and is expected to release an environmental analysis this summer.

Mining was the leading industry in the early days of Del Norte County. Much of this activity took place at Myrtle Creek, along the South Fork of Smith River, at Happy Camp (where the industry is still carried on), and in the vicinity of Crescent City.

Journals from the many express companies that operated in those early years, show large shipments of gold dust from the few claims worked. They also detail an influx of miners following the initial discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill.

Walter Van Dyke was an attorney from Ohio who came to California in the first wave of “49ers,” wrote about mining in Del Norte before it was a county.

“In the summer of 1852 the miners pushed on up the Klamath a long distance above the mouth of the Salmon, and by fall a large number had gathered on a plateau at the mouth of a stream putting down from the northwest, which they named ‘Happy Camp,’ writes Van Dyke. “They worked on this stream, and over the divide on streams flowing northwesterly into Rogue River.”

“The mines on these latter were quite rich, and attracted a rush of miners,” he adds. “They were near to, and in some of them over, the Oregon line…”

Since the 1950s, Nevada cattle rancher’s grazing rights have been reduced by more than 50 percent and sheep grazing rights by more than 90 percent. Now former Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is helping the Tomeras and Filippini families turn their cattle out south of Battle Mountain, as they fight the Bureau of Land Management’s latest decision.

“Most people don’t have to fight to make a living. These folks do,” Gibbons said.

BLM District Manager Doug Furtado told the ranching families in February that he was not going to allow any grazing on the Mount Lewis pasture of the Argenta Allotment because of drought concerns. His decision left the families facing financial ruin.

On May 23rd, the BLM agreed to allow a partial turn out of the ranchers’ cows. The BLM termed the agreement temporary, claiming it would have formal grazing licenses prepared by the first week of June.

However there is concern over the BLM’s past history when it comes to temporary agreements.

In 1964 the BLM forced the ranchers on Mount Lewis to cut their cattle and sheep grazing by 50 percent, even though half of the land was privately-owned, as are all of the water rights. The ranchers had been grazing their cattle on the mountain since 1862, two years before Nevada became a state.

In the 1980s Nevada bought out the Tomera Ranches in Elko County to build the South Fork Reservoir. The Tomera family then bought ranches on Mount Lewis, where they and the Filippini’s, have been grazing ever since.

The Tomeras own 80 percent of the grazing rights and most of the water on the mountain. They also own more than 80 springs, 12 wells and 183 miles of streams and have always paid their grazing fees.

The federal government owns no water and only 44 percent of the land, yet they tell the ranchers when and how they can graze,” said Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber. “It is an intolerable situation. Why should the federal government be able to control an individual’s private land?”

In February the BLM informed the Tomeras it was cutting 2014 their grazing rights by 100 percent, leaving them no place to graze 1,800 head of cattle. This was after the families built an $80,000, 16-mile fence in an attempt to satisfy the BLM’s demands — all to no avail.

The current closure led to the ‘Grass March,’ a group of cowboys and girls carrying petitions to Governor Brian Sandoval, seeking Furtado’s removal from office and the lifting of restrictions by the BLM.

“You have my assurance I will continue to speak with the BLM as well as the Department of the Interior to ensure all Nevadans are heard,” Sandoval said in response to receiving the petitions.

About 70 riders on horseback blocked traffic in Nevada’s capital city’s main highway to deliver petitions against the BLM over grazing reductions on federal land to Governor Brian Sandoval. The rally ended a weeklong, 300-mile trek orchestrated by Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber that began on Memorial Day.

Gerber said the horseback protest, dubbed the “Grass March,” was modeled after Gandhi’s “Salt March” across India to protest British control of the salt supply in 1930, which he likened to BLM control of Nevada’s public lands.

“Across the board I would like to see the land transferred to the state of Nevada,” said Gerber, whose family began ranching in eastern Nevada in the mid-1800s. “Then people closer to the issue could make the decisions.”

Several dozen ranchers from around northern Nevada met with Sandoval in Carson City, who assured them he would take their concerns over grazing allotments in Battle Mountain to the highest officials in the federal agency.

“This is what makes Nevada great,” Sandoval said to the crowd packed in his reception area. “The fact that we’re all one family…that you feel you can come to Carson City and present and air your concerns.”

“I’m very proud of the efforts you’ve made,” he added, “I’m very humbled and honored that you would do it and very respectful of all of you being here today.”

The federal government owns more than half of the land in the 11 Western states plus Alaska, and for more than a century, ranchers have turned their cattle loose on many of those public lands in return for a grazing fee. But that arrangement has become more complicated since the rise of the environmental movement, when agencies like the BLM started having to manage lands for endangered species and green groups began pushing to rein in livestock grazing.

Federal officials claim they aren’t overly swayed by environmental groups, though the Western Watersheds Project group has recently lobbied the BLM to remove cattle from public lands, saying they cause damage to streams and other sensitive areas.

“We get pressure from a lot of places,” said Amy Lueders, the BLM’s director for Nevada, whose agency manages 71-percent of the state’s land area.

In Battle Mountain, the troubles for ranchers started when the local BLM office began implementing a statewide drought-management plan in 2013.

“The concern is, you want to make sure it isn’t grazed to bare dirt,” said Lueders.

Gerber disputes Lueders’ claim, “Without notice and without hearing, (they’re) reaching out and hurting the ranchers by not allowing them to turn out their cattle on the grass which is 18 inches to two feet tall.”

Meanwhile, Nevada ranchers signed a temporary agreement allowing them to graze their cattle on BLM lands, with strict limits in place on the amount of grass the cows can consume. If those requirements aren’t met, the cattle will be ordered off the land.

Ranchers worry the limits are “unattainable,” and they are pushing for the removal of Doug Furtado, the BLM district manager.

“The problem we have in the BLM district battle mountain is clearly Doug Furtado,” says Assemblyman Ira Hansen, “and that’s why there’s been a concerted effort to remove him from the position.

“The BLM will respond to the political will of the State of Nevada represented through the Governor,” added Hansen.

Furtado said he has tried to work with the ranchers and blamed “outside forces” for agitating the situation. He said he expected to sign a final agreement allowing the renewed grazing for 2014 within two weeks.

Pershing County rancher Mike Gottschalk summed it up best: “First they came to save the spotted owl, and we did not speak out and thousands of timber jobs were lost. Then they came to save the tortoise, and we did not speak out and all the Clark County ranchers were destroyed. Then they came to save the horses, and we did not speak out and our ranges are now overrun with them. Now they are coming to save the sage hen, and remove all the ranchers, recreationists and sportsmen. It is time we all stand up for our rights and speak out, or there soon will be no one left to speak for us.”

An American soldier held captive for nearly five years by terrorists during the Afghanistan war, has been released. The U.S. Special Forces extracted U.S Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, from his captors during a peaceful handover in eastern Afghanistan.

In exchange for Bergdahl’s release, five detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be released to Qatar. This will not set well with veterans.

The Idaho native was deployed to Afghanistan in May 2009 and captured by the Taliban on June 30, 2009, in Paktika province. Officials believes Bergdahl has been held for the bulk of his captivity in Pakistan.

It remains unclear when he was moved back to Afghanistan.

Oh, oh — the Washington Redskins have launched a Twitter attack on Senator Harry Reid in their effort to keep the team’s name. The Redskins instructed fans to tweet Reid to show their “RedskinsPride” and “tell him what the team means to you.”

Reid said last month that Redskins owner Dan Snyder should “do what is morally right” and change the name. Snyder has vowed never to change the name.

The Associated Press is doing its level best to make it sound like the campaign is back-firing, saying: “Many told Reid they support his efforts to change the name.

After looking through, there are a number of comments like: “I DO NOT have an issue with the logo” and “I wonder how much money the Oneida gave old Harry Reid?!”

Last week, half of the Senate, lead by Reid, wrote letters to the National Football League urging a change, calling the name is a racist slur. The team’s name of ‘Redskins’ is in honor of one of the team’s first coaches, Lone Star Dietz.

The odd thing is — neither of the Koch Brothers own any part of the team.

First lady Michelle Obama put out a call against a Republican proposal that allows a delay in enforcing her new school lunch standards.

“The last thing we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids’ health,” she complained. “Now is not the time to roll back everything we have worked for.’’

The House Appropriations Committee announced last week it plans to let cash-strapped schools opt out of the nutrition regulations via waiver. The change would come through the 2015 agriculture spending bill.

Brian Rell, spokesman for Congressman Robert B. Aderholt, who sponsored House legislation that would grant qualifying school districts an opportunity to postpone enforcement of the new rules fired back

“These new federal regulations should not drive local school nutrition programs under water,’’ said Rell, “This temporary one-year waiver simply provides them a lifeline,” he said, noting that only districts that lost money in part of the past year would qualify for the waiver.

Leaders of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), which had supported the new school menu standards when they were approved in 2010 as part of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, also responded.

“SNA does not see the waiver as a rollback but as a way to hit the pause button,” said Leah Schmidt, the president of the group,

A pause is necessary, Schmidt added, because many schools are overwhelmed by the new requirements and are seeing dramatically increased waste and cost, while sales decline.

“Can we shift the conversation to what we need to do to help school districts that are suffering?” Schmidt asked.

The first lady says she has heard a different story from several past presidents of the SNA despite an SNA survey finding about four percent of its members will either leave the program this year, or are considering doing so.

“Students want it, families want it — and they are participating,” said David Binkle, deputy director of Food Services for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “It is no coincidence that our test scores are up, attendance is up and graduation rates are up,”

Meanwhile, the Laguna Beach Unified School District, in Southern California, is the latest district to rebel against the federal healthy lunch program.

Debra Appel, food services supervisor at the school, said, “It’s not the chicken nuggets, it’s not the popcorn chicken. It’s not the corn dogs and stuff that the kids really liked.”

The USDA, which administers the program, says about 100,000 schools have signed up for the program — fewer than expected.

“USDA continues to provide additional flexibility and technical assistance to schools as they all now work to offer healthier meals,” said Dr. Janey Thornton, deputy under-secretary for Food Nutrition and Consumer Services at the USDA, released in a statement.

Under the program, lunches must include fresh fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. And there’s a calorie cap: 850 for high school kids, 700 for middle school, and 650 for elementary school. In Kentucky, students thought the healthy food “tastes like vomit.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already rolled back one of the standards about pasta — that only whole-grain can be used — after finding that the food fell apart when cooked in large volumes. A 2013 report released by the Government Accountability Office also found a number of problems with the National School Lunch Program.

The report, presented to a subcommittee of the House Education and Workforce Committee, detailed visits to eight school districts to see the impact of the regulations.

“Although the eight districts GAO visited expressed support for the improvements to the nutritional quality of school lunch, they reported additional challenges meeting the new requirements, such as student acceptance, food waste, costs, and participation,” the report states.

It notes cheeseburgers being removed from one district’s elementary and middle school lunch menus because adding cheese to the burger “would have made it difficult to stay within the weekly meat maximums.” Another district switched from shredded cheese to cheese sauce because the liquid cheese “does not count as a meat alternate, while another school district switched from whole grain chips to potato chips because “the potato chip did not count as a grain.”

The report also found some schools had trouble maintaining healthy options for students.

“…the [School Food Authorities] reported adding pudding to certain high school menus to bring the menus into compliance with the calorie minimum…added gelatin, ice cream, or condiments such as butter, jelly, ranch dressing or cheese sauce to become compliant…increased the amount of sugar, sodium, or fat in the meal, potentially undercutting the federal law’s goal of improving the nutritional quality of lunches.”

The GAO also noted the difficulty in complying with the calorie maximums for students based on grade, as students from varying grades use the same cafeteria lines.

“…Athletic coaches expressed concerns that student athletes were hungrier after school than they were in previous years and staff reported that more students were distracted during the final period of the school day than in previous years.”

Another problem is cost as student chose to boycott the lunchroom.

The Fairfield, Connecticut school district raised its lunch prices by 10-cents to deal with the changes.  Similarly, Portsmouth, New Hampshire schools increased their prices by 25 cents per meal, citing “dwindling participation” in the lunch program.

A New York district lost $100,000 last school year in its lunch program while an Indiana district lost $300,000.

Add to this the fact that Orthodox Jewish schools are finding it difficult to abide by the guidelines. That’s because the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act requires the serving of certain foods that some might consider non-kosher.

The Jewish newspaper The Forward which examined the issue reports:

“Their reason has nothing to do with the taste of spinach, kale, or cabbage. It is because these and other leafy greens might be infested with tiny insects that would render them non-kosher.”

It’s not only vegetables  posing a problem for Orthodox schools, but the grain-based food limitation also contradicts Jewish law as well.

“…students require a certain amount of bread, usually one slice. But that would take up all the grain allocation for a meal and would not allow other grain-based foods on the lunch plate.”

But Obama remains a big proponent.

“Because of this act…32 million children get more of the nutrition they need to learn and grow and be successful and I do hope it’s delicious — we’re working on that, yes, indeed,” Obama stated.

With public school students using #ThanksMichelle to tweet photos of their skimpy, stomach-turning school lunches, the Obama’s girls, who attend Sidwell Friends School, eat lunches from menus designed by chefs. Including chicken coconut soup, local butternut squash soup, crusted tilapia. They also eat foods their mother considers to be junk like meatball subs, BBQ wings and ice cream.

Oddly enough, Sidwell Friends School has also been rated as having one of the top rated School Lunch programs in America.

World-renowned author and poet Maya Angelou passed away at the age of 86. Lauded by Progressives as  a civil rights champion, an education reformer and supporter of President Barack Obama, there is one thing you may not know about her: Angelou was a gun owner and she used it to defend herself.

Interviewed by Time magazine in 2013, Angelou spoke of her experience.

Time: Did you inherit your mother’s fondness for guns?

Angelou: I like to have guns around. I don’t like to carry them.

Time: Have you ever fired your weapon?

Angelou: Of course!

Time: At a person?

Angelou: I’ve fired it period, not at a person I hope!

She continued, ‘I was in my house in North Carolina. It was fall. I heard someone walking on the leaves. And somebody actually turned the knob.’

So I said, ‘Stand four feet back because I’m going to shoot now!’ Boom! Boom!

The police came by and said, ‘Ms. Angelou, the shots came from inside the house.’

I said, ‘Well, I don’t know how that happened.’

Happily, everything turned out okay for her. But don’t be surprised if the next ‘bang’ you hear are the minds of the anti-gun lobby popping.

My mother would have freaked. Heck, she lost it anytime one of us kids let our dog eat from her plates.

A giraffe eating from a plate — while at the table — would have been too much for her. And she’d have beaten the child that allowed it to happen.

Michelle Obama has made ‘food deserts’ a part of her campaign against childhood obesity, saying that some people may have to take two or three buses or a taxi to get fresh fruit and veggies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture even has a locator for areas deemed ‘food deserts,’ where there is reportedly a low access to healthy food.

In case you’re wondering, there are specific criteria for how a ‘food desert’ is designated according to the USDA.

To qualify as a “low-income community,” a census tract must have either a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher, or a median family income at or below 80 percent of the area’s median family income; to qualify as a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract’s population must live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store — for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles.

In March 2012, The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services Grants Management Unit implemented a strategic planning process intended to discuss food security in the state. They created a Food Security Steering Committee with four workgroups including Lead Nevada, Feed Nevada, Grow Nevada, and Reach Nevada, were created.

Lead Nevada had two goals that included establishing a state leadership structure for food security and promote a policy agenda to increase food security in Nevada.  The first goal is expected to be completed by July 1st with the second goal by January 1st, 2016.

Plans included adoption of an agency policy to improve efficiency, claims, and reduce errors; an Office of Food Security with a Deputy Director and Support Staff in DHHS; a Statewide Food Policy Advisory Council; an evaluation plan to measure progress on increasing food security; and a public awareness campaign.

Feed Nevada’s aim was to focus the organizations participation in each federal nutrition program available to the state. They also wanted to create an actual or virtual “one-stop-shop” system to increase access to food and other services.

All work is expected to be completed by January 1st, 2015. This included an increased participation in in-school meal programs; partnering with Women-Infants-Children and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; replication of effective out of school meal programs; a single, statewide database system; and expanded partnerships linked to a “one-stop-shop.”

Grow Nevada’s focus was simple: increase the number of servings of foods eaten that are produced in Nevada by January 1st, 2015. Milestones for this part of the program included an increased in collection centers; expanded programs and partnerships; a Food System Asset Map and an education and marketing plan.

Finally, Reach Nevada planned to change the way food is bought and shipped. It also planned to create a data base on those using the system that could be shared between other agencies and organizations. The first half of Reach Nevada is expected to be completed by January 1st, 2015, with part two to be completed six months later.

Again the plan includes internal goals like a “one-stop-shop” for agencies to acquire produce; a comprehensive client/community food supply assessment; a comprehensive benefit analysis study of the current state and nonprofit commodity system. Finally, they’ll begin sharing information on people using their services.

All of this is designed to cut ‘food insecurity’ in what the Obama Administration has dubbed ‘food deserts.’ Statistics are an unfortunate thing when it comes to both ‘food insecurity’ and ‘food deserts,’ in Nevada.

In July 2013, Wikipedia showed Nevada with its 110, 622 square miles had a population of 2,790,136 or 25.2 people per square mile. This makes Nevada the ninth least densely populated state in the U.S.

The latest numbers available, from 2009, show that only 10.5 percent of all Nevada residents have an income below the poverty level. The same stat show Nevadan’s with an income below 50% of the poverty level at 4.9 percent.

Also below the national average is Nevada’s adult obesity rate, which stood at 24.5 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, Nevada’s low-income preschool obesity rate is 13.2 percent.

Business aggregator, Manta.com shows that there are 1,559 stores that provide groceries in throughout Nevada. This includes major chain outlets, mom and pop stores, specialty shops and convenience stores.

Furthermore there are 942,147 restaurants throughout the state. This includes fast food restaurants, roadside cafes and five-star dining facilities.

Even the Department of Agriculture in 2010 estimated poorer individuals lived closer to grocery stores than those with higher incomes.

In a report to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation found no relation between California children and teens whose data he reviewed and the food they ate, their weight and proximity to food establishments within a mile and a half from their home. In a separate study publish in Public Health, Sturm looked at middle school children and saw no relationship between where the students lived and where they ate.

In another study conducted by Helen Lee of the Public Policy Institute of California, Lee gathered data on 8,000 students, including where they lived, went to school and how much they weighed. From there, she established where the students could be getting access to food around their home and even defined neighborhoods based on their economic status.

Dr. Lee found, that poor neighborhoods had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.

Because of methodological difficulties, the idea of a ‘food desert,’ and ‘food insecurity,’ may be little more than junk science.

For example, some researchers look at neighborhood food outlets but don’t have data on how fat residents are. Others examined small areas, like part of a single city and projected the results on the nation as whole.

Still others had a different problem.

They looked at much bigger areas like ZIP codes, which include people of diverse incomes, making it hard to know what happened in pockets of poverty within those regions. Then some researchers counted only fast food restaurants and large supermarkets, missing small grocers who sold produce, while some tallied food outlets per 1,000 residents, which made densely populated urban areas seem to have fewer places per person to buy food.

In the end, it appears to all come down to data and money as Scott Walchek points out in his article, “The Wealth of Data,” for Jetset Magazine:

“An entire industry is profiting wildly on the market for your data. Massive data brokerage companies… are peering into your personal life, collecting data that is generated from everything you do online and much of what you do in the real world. And by generating billions in sales each year offering “analytical services” on nearly every household in the U.S., they are profiting from all that you do in the connected universe,” he states.

“Moreover,” Walchek adds, “this is just a fraction of the evolving…big-data industry now valued at over $300B a year and employing three million people in the United States alone…”