Ranting, Futilely

Ranting, Futilely

I have a tiny bit of spaghetti left because I foolishly bought only one package last time I wanted to try spaghetti. I only bought one package because I wasn’t sure I could enjoy spaghetti yet.  These days I can eat almost anything, though there are still a few things that don’t quite make it. Last time I tried to eat spaghetti,  it didn’t work out.

This time I found that spaghetti sauce, even though it’s a sauce I used to like, tastes odd. But I managed to doctor it so it tasted OK. I’ve eaten almost all my spaghetti.  I’m thinking it might be nice to have a little more. I can’t of course. 

You know why. There isn’t any spaghetti.

Apparently with so many Italians ill or dying,  no more spaghetti can be manufactured. It’s all made in Italy, you know. That’s why people have to hoard several years’ worth of spaghetti.  Apparently human beings die if they don’t have enough spaghetti.

Or at least some kind of pasta, because all the other kinds are gone too.

I know I’m not the only person who finds all this obsession with hoarding things that are in plentiful supply (if only people would stop hoarding them) to be very frustrating.  I know a number of people who tried to “corner the market” on obsessively purchased items have had legal action taken against them.  It makes me wonder if there any laws still on the books from World War II which punished people for hoarding. If there aren’t, maybe we should reinstate them.

I will finish my rant by noting that you don’t have to worry about me. I have enough spaghetti left to make another batch which will give me two, or maybe even three meals. I also have plenty of other food. I guess I’m an abnormal human being who doesn’t require massive amounts of pasta in order to stay alive.  As long as the tortilla, onion, and cheese supply holds out in the stores, I shall survive.

Say…You don’t think just because I said that people are going start hoarding tortillas, onions, and cheese do you?

You know what?  Enough ranting for one night. As the Scriptures ought to say, sufficient unto the day is the ranting thereof. Tomorrow maybe another rant. Or maybe a rave.

I mean a traditional rave. You know, like a rant but a little less sane? Not the kind of party? I seem to be getting a little less sane here. I think I better go to bed.

I shall of  dream of fields of spaghetti.

Or maybe of a field with a picnic table in it that has a big bowl of spaghetti on it?

Good night.

The Deserving Poor

In response to Bobby's post in which a businessman complained about the homeless taking over San Francisco, threatening its residents, and creating unacceptable levels of disorder, I posted:

One of the reasons I refuse to consider myself a liberal is because it seems to be a tenet of liberalism that the homeless are always the victims, never the victimizers.  Having worked with poverty in my professional days, I am well aware of the poor who are suffering for no good reason and certainly through no fault of their own. But I am well aware that a good many of the homeless are homeless because of their drug addiction, alcohol abuse, or mental instability. I hate to sound like I'm from the 19th century but some of the poor aren't among the "deserving poor".

I have known individuals who refused to go to shelters to keep safe because they were not allowed to use drugs or alcohol while they were there.

The problem is complex, but in its simplest form we need to provide support for those who need it and want it, while at the same time refusing to allow the dangerous and addicted to take control of our streets.

Welfare Reform

Excerpts from and some additional commentary on: http://blog.ourfuture.org/20120309/Lets_Get_This_Straight_Welfare_Reform_Was_A_Failure

President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation in 1996. He claims it as a signature success of his presidency. Today, Conservatives say the law worked well and we should get even tougher on welfare recipients. Liberals say the law failed and we should repeal it.

-- Many claim success for the program, but today’s “This Week in Poverty” column in The Nation tells a different story

A stunning report released by the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center reveals that the number of US households living on less than $2 per person per day—a standard used by the World Bank to measure poverty in developing nations—rose by 130 percent between 1996 and 2011, from 636,000 to 1.46 million. The number of children living in these extreme conditions also doubled, from 1.4 million to 2.8 million

Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services in Appalachian Ohio, where he has been doing this work since 1973, told me that the state has cracked down on people who fail to meet their thirty-hour weekly work requirement “and in the last six months or so they’ve driven at least 30,000 people off of assistance. The welfare caseload in Ohio is dropping rapidly. ” He’s traveled throughout the county of late to see how conditions are changing. “There’s a growing number of families out there—through the combination of time limits and sanctions—who have no cash whatsoever, they’re just surviving on food stamps,” he said. “The housing conditions—people are doubling, tripling up even in little trailers. These kids are hungry, they’re sleeping in chairs, or makeshift beds, crammed together. They can’t afford transportation—they’re stuck out in these communities with no way to go anywhere or do anything.” --

So the program IS a great success, if your goal is desperate families and hungry children.

Of course, we are a Christian nation, so we do prefer these things.

From a couple of weeks ago

So studies now show that the wealthy tend to be more selfish and greedy than the non-wealthy. It is also shown that this tends to apply even when people who were poor suddenly become wealthy, for example by winning the lottery. Those of us who have worked in poverty-stricken neighborhoods are not surprised by this discovery. When we used to work with the Salvation Army collecting food baskets for Christmas and Thanksgiving, representatives of the charity always informed us that they got better food items, and more of them, from Adelanto, the poor city, than from other areas of the High Desert. Those who could least afford it, were those who gave the most. Items donated in areas which were better off economically tended toward obvious throwaways from their pantries which were not being used by their own families.

All of which makes you wonder about the details of human nature. We can be a very puzzling species. I don't do very well in this area myself. Clearly, I and others who call ourselves Christians, are obligated to take good care of the poor. All I can say that I do is provide a meal for those of ask when I'm out shopping. This happened yesterday. A couple of young men and a very beautiful dog asked for a meal; so of course I bought them a couple of meals at Del Taco and provided five dollars to purchase a can opener, since the dog's owner said he had the dog food, but was ruining his knife opening the cans the hard way.

For this I was thanked and praised, but I should have been criticized.  Like so many who are doing better than others, I give sporadically and give less than I should.  Humans, got to love us, but we don't make it easy, do we?