Merry Christmas Presents To the Working Homeless

Peace.

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Lucky Ducky Cartoon (that lucky little duck!)
http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2002/12/19/boll/index.html

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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/opinion/24TUE4.html

The jargon of antipoverty work is as restless as the poor
themselves. And here now come the "working homeless" — a
post-welfare-reform category of strivers fighting to hold
onto low-wage jobs the government shepherded them to, jobs
that perversely afford them too little money to pay for
shelter. Ending welfare as we know it has been followed by
the working homeless, if we care to know them.

[...]

Citizens who hailed the statistical success of welfare
reform in thinning down the dole need to see the hard
aftermath in which the new workfare is producing a
variation on some old misery for the working homeless.[...]

[...]

[...]Mothers commute long hours from the shelter to hold
onto fast-food service jobs. Their problem is that, by
local average, it requires a wage of $12 an hour to pay for
the two-bedroom family rental they yearn for and earn for,
but their actual wage is little more than the $5.15
government minimum.

[...]

Worse news is on the way to the nation's mayors and their
homeless. The rent voucher program, designed to have the
poor pay no more than 30 percent of income for shelter,
is already being targeted in Congress. A bill favored by
the Appropriations Committee in the Republican-controlled
House would cut more than $900 million from President
Bush's plan for voucher aid, according to advocates for
the poor. They estimate 125,000 families would lose vouchers
in a program that serves about two million poor and dates
honorably from the Nixon and Reagan eras.

[...]

[free note: this is true - in no. cal, minimum cost of
living is around $1000 after tax; and that is truly minimal.]

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http://www.bushwatch.net/garlicfrogs.htm

Myriam Miedzian, who has published a book on boys and
violence, recently wrote a column in the Baltimore Sun
in which she reported that as a kid George W. Bush used
to kill frogs by putting firecrackers into them, tossing
them in the air, and watching them blow up. She wonders
if this cruelty had anything to do with Bush's mocking
of convicted killer Karla Faye last year in a Talk
interview: "Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock
desperation, 'don't kill me.'" Miedzian concludes by
suggesting that Bush appears to be "empathically
challanged" and wonders if he's fit to be President.
What do you think?

Article here:
http://unknownnews.diaryland.com/000923_68.html

[...]

So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting
firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air,
and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause
for alarm? How relevant is a man's childhood behavior
to what he is like as an adult? And in this case, to
what he would be like as president of the United States.

[...]

Is boy George's lack of empathy and cruelty not just
childhood insensitivity, but rather a personality trait
still present in the man? If so, we have much to be
concerned about.

Last year, George W. Bush gave an interview to a Talk
magazine reporter about the execution of convicted
Texas murderer Karla Faye Tucker, who became a Christian
after her incarceration. Mr. Bush chose to mimic the
late Karla Faye begging for mercy: "Please," Bush
whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation,
"don't kill me."

[...]

It takes a certain capacity for empathy for a man born
to wealth and social standing to imagine what it is
like to live on a $12,000 a year salary and be unable
to afford proper medical treatment for an ill child.

As president, Mr. Bush would undoubtedly continue to
oppose raising the minimum wage or providing health
insurance for all American children.

[...]

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http://www.bushwatch.net/english.htm

Bushisms

"There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the
widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their
loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops,
I've got an additional responsibility to hug and
that's me and I know what it's like."
-—Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2002

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http://www.unknownnews.net/dialogue.html#r238a

H&HH reply to a post:

Whatever rights we have, we're born with or we've
earned. The Constitution, being nothing but commonly-
ignored pieces of paper, grants no rights. It's commonly
believed to, though, and that common belief in itself
protects some of our human rights.

The Declaration of Independence is not part of the
Constitution. It grants no rights, carries no force of
law. Its flowery language about people's rights is as
legally relevent as a poem by Thomas Jefferson, meaning
it might be nice to look at, but as law it's moot.

Talking 'law', though, is for lawyers, and we're both
better than that. So let's talk common sense instead:

There is no American "right" to revolution. There's a
human right to govern yourself, certainly, but no
government can recognize such a right or that government
will be out of business.

Any American who attempts rebellion against US government
will, depending on how seriously the rebellion is taken,
either be seen as a screwball or be killed by US
government. As we don't desire either outcome, this is not
a "revolutionary" website.

We don't endorse ballots or bullets — both seem equally
futile in America 2002. We don't propose Constitutional
amendments or conventions — the same bought-and-paid-for-
criminals who pretend to "represent" America in Congress
would be behind such silly venues. We don't propose quiet
or loud rebellion — that's a dangerous and pointless path
in a police state, especially when millions do not stand
with you.

We don't propose anything, really.

We don't delude ourselves into thinking there's a viable
solution, when criminals have stolen a government and
become thoroughly entrenched for generations, as has
happened in America.

Our only proposal, silly as it seems, is that people be
gently reminded that freedom should be more than a cliché.

Spread the word.

--H&HH

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