On the Austin news tonight, they showed volunteers delivering free Turkeys and a giant box of Christmas gifts to needy homes. The volunteer was setting the box down on the couch in one house, and there was a giant, brand new big screen TV (looked a lot like a plasma to me). I had to rewind it about 5 times...just couldn't believe it. Some kids out there won't get anything. How can people be like that?
Sadly this is the case with many poor people. They may not all have huge flat screen TV's at home, but they are wasting it one way or another.
I remember volunteering at the GRB Convention Center on Thanksgiving and there were people in leather jackets on their cell phones waiting for some free grub.
When I was in college, I used to work summers at a grocery store in town as a bagger and cashier. It always killed me to see people pay for their groceries with food stamps but drive off in fairly nice cars. Talk about living beyond your means..LOL
I bet some of the Houston folx cashed in some Medicaid dollars and did the same. I bet some Houston folx murdered some other folx. Shall we continue?
Continuously trumpeting the poors' failures hurts morale. Being pro-poor is one thing, but even if you're pro-poor you don't have to hurriedly post negative news of what's going on with the poor. You don't have to rush to post allegations of how the poor mismanage their welfare instead of posting how people are actively helping the poor and having them get back on their feet. How would you like it if people proclaimed only your failures at work, conveniently omitting the good things you do? I'd feel like you weren't on my side, that's for sure. This statement is just talking about being anti-poor and reckless use of funds. That's fine. Just focus on some positive news from time to time instead of all negative, all the time.
This actually happened to me personally. As a Rotary event we were helping families 'in need'. So I arrived at this one home that the 'in need' card said an elderly woman with three young sons and living on welfare/s.s checks. I arrive with a turkey and all the fixins (even dessert!) and she sends her sons down to help me, of course one guy looks about 30 and the other two are in their twenties and I walk in and they're playing a new X-box that just came out of the box on a big screen television. I was just in shock and was about to start gathering up the food, when another rotary guy just convinced me to just leave it and we'd take them off the list. I left, but was livid that people would be that silly. People talk about the great deal of poverty in the US, but when people would rather spend money on high end televisions, wheels or fancy tennis shoes they are not living in poverty and 'hungry', its just that their priorities are completely out of whack.
In before it goes to D&D... "Really? Have you seen a man eat his own head?" "no" "So, then. You haven't seen EVERYTHING." nyquil ... yes, you took too much of it... we only point poor people's negatives because they whine so much that it's society who made them be this way, but in reality, their poor choices are to blame... not US. Man, these freakin' whiners...
