Posted on 03/06/2009 7:53:08 AM PST by icwhatudo
I live in a rural town outside of Austin. One of the local churches used to give away ‘baskets’ of food items for Thanksgiving and Christmas. As a member of the Kiwanis Club at the time, I would often go down and help. When the ‘needy’ folks came in to pick up their food, the main church lady (mean ol’ bat but with a touch of common sense)would ask them if they had cable, or a cell phone, and to the ones who said yes she would say “If you can afford cable television, you can afford food” and send them on their way empty handed.
I actually could care less about the clothes aspect—it was the big bills they were using to buy desserts, when they were on free lunches (cost $.40 for those who could ‘afford’ it!)—
as a teacher my hands were tied in many ways as far as disciplining students went (waste of time to send them to the office like in the ‘good old days’), but one way that worked very well for me was prohibiting students from purchasing those desserts after lunch!! They would get furious, but it worked—until an administrator visiting my classroom for 5 minutes one day caught wind of what I was doing and wrote me up for being ‘racist’ and ‘discriminating’ against these poor widdle 4th graders!! I protested vigorously to get that crap out of my permanent record and threatened to go to the tv reporters otherwise, and ‘supposedly’ they pulled it from my files. I got jobs in other school districts after that so I guess they did!
me 3
I know a guy who would be classified as homeless. He’s basically self sufficient and off the grid. Lives in a hand built shack in the woods in a suburb. Doesn’t have drug abuse issues, just likes to live the way he lives. Rides his bike everywhere, dumpster dives for meals. Is clean and well kept. He does have a cell phone and uses it to find work when he can.
I was also just in Tijuana last week for work. It reinforced my long held belief that there is not one “poor” person in America. Not ONE.
...”we must assume that this man is looking for a job at some point.”
Me thinks you assume too much.
I don’t know if it was “largely”
But if it was true, no one bailed them out with $ for neccesities if they blew their money on trifles. And if they preyed on their own-it didn’t cost others money-or endamger them. If those folks committed a crime and the authorities got involved, they were summarily executed or spent many years at hard labor.
It’s nothing like what we have now.
Same attitude that keeps the drug trade going — immediate gratification. A poverty pathology and no way to stop it.
However, even more importantly: teachers have permanent records? I still live in fear my seventh grade permanent record will one day surface and fall into the wrong hands...
I had lunch once with a professor from UNLV who gave my department a talk on poverty. He said they think of things differently and gave me an example — family doesn’t have a refrigerator, so their church takes up a collection and gets them a refrigerator. The family sells the refrigerator and goes to Disneyland. We find this mind boggling, but the family figures they’ve been OK without a refrigerator, but they’ve never been to Disneyland.
Good for her! :-)
It’s a matter of priorities and teaching kids about responsibility and consequences to me! I also had students who had parents working 2 or more backbreaking labor intensive jobs who sent their kids to school in clean, hand me down, patched up, goodwill clothes who REFUSED to accept the free lunches or any other ‘free’ stuff (except medical sometimes if their kids were sick)—to me, THAT is a person with true dignity. All the rest was simply show and blatant taking advantage of others’ kindness and tax dollars.
Son, that's DARWINISM!
[apologies to 'Tea House of the August Moon'...]
About 5 years back, I went into the home of a welfare family, and noticed that their color TV was bigger and better than mine.
Many "officially poor" people are making money off the books, whether through under-the-table employment or criminal activities.
It was actually much, much worse than we have now — both in the U.S. cities and places like London. Horribly violent and degrading situations.
Of course, statistical data doesn’t exist, but if you read things like Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives) or Henry Mayhew (The London Poor) you’ll get an idea.
I’m an outspoken person, and several times during those 5 years I got in BIG trouble for speaking out against blatant wrong-ness (even got blasted privately once by a district co-ordinator for ‘muddying the waters’, man, he was all in my face, spitting and everything, while I stood there in shock—he’d just praised me publicly in front of my other grade level teachers for standing up for what was right!)
and that’s when I learned the district would try to blackmail you into ‘behaving’ and toeing the line!! Feh.
We do.
Fortune favors the bold.
A rose by any other name, eh?
Any woman could tell you she’s dated at least one bum who was not homeless.
No, it’s just hope.
Possibly a bit. However, having served dinner to the homeless and talked with them one-on-one at church, CARITAS, some of these men have fallen on bad times and are looking for work. Not having a telephone/cell phone decreases the possibility of finding work, don't you think?
I am not excusing or do I support those who do not give a shiite. I am a Conservative, and a realist.
It was probably a machine. They just wanted to process the kids through. Not a surprise.
;^p
Fair ‘nuff.
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