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This is my reply to the following comment posted in an article in the New Haven Independent about federal stimulus money going to help the homeless in New Haven.
Posted by: lance | April 30, 2009 4:27 PM
most people that are homeless brought it upon themselves, I wouldn’t give ‘em anything, let alone 1.5 million dollrs worth of food. And how much of the 1.5 is going to be embezzled in one way or another?
Lance, how do you know that most homeless people brought it upon themselves? Have you been out there on the streets and asked them how they ended up there?
Or did you just see someone in the street, someone probably stuck in one of the worst periods in their life, and write them off as irresponsible and unfit for your compassion, let alone your tax dollars.
I wonder who showed you compassion in your lowest moment and what would have happened if they hadn’t.
And from a purely practical point of view: you and your tax dollars are going to deal with the homeless in one way or another, whether through paying police to handle their petty crimes in your neighborhood, through reimbursing hospitals for their unnecessary stays in the emergency room, or through paying for their jail time.
$13,500 = The average annual cost to provide shelter, meals, and case management for one person in New Haven (per Columbus House in New Haven).
$44,000 = The average annual cost to incarcerate one inmate in Connecticut. (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0099.htm).
Why not provide the resources to get the homeless stable, housed and independent when it’s so much more cost effective (not to mention compassionate) than the alternatives?
(The Independent’s site would not, for technical reasons, let me post my reply there.)
From nbcolympics.com:
Get this: One of the greatest sprinters ever refused to talk about The Talk of the Beijing Olympic track meet – Usain Bolt – all because Bolt wears the wrong shoes.
“He’s a Puma guy. I really can’t say anything,” Carl Lewis said Thursday, politely declining an interview when approached at the Beijing Silk Market by an Associated Press reporter.
Lewis has a contract with Nike.
are you kidding?
“I said something the other day and the Nike people saw it and they weren’t happy,” Lewis said.
first of all, this whole episode captures what no one will really say out loud: the Olympic Games–supposedly the pinnacle of pure athletic competition–are owned, packaged and sold, mostly by American corporate sponsors (seriously, how many Visa, McDonalds and Coke commercials do we have to watch in a three-week span?). we are not sports fans, we are an audience who hardly budges from our couches for hours at a time–an ideal target for sappy, inspirational ads (nevermind the fact that most world class athletes will never have to pay off a Visa credit card, and would never be able to reach their level of fitness on a diet of Big Macs and Coke).
second, how is this beneficial for Nike public relations? what does a gag order on Carl Lewis, one of the most prominent track and field athletes of the last century, a sprinter whose feat of sweeping the 100m and 200m races was finally matched by a man who also broke a couple world records in the process, say about the company who stuffed the swooshed tube sock into his mouth?
way to spit on the whole spirit of the Olympics, Nike. lucky for you, that spirit is mostly an illusion anyhow.
in honor of Earth Day, i’m reposting in full something i wrote last November.
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let’s get this straight: the earth is going to be fine. it will go on erupting and shaking and precipitating and flowing as it has done for longer than any of us could possibly fathom. global warming will not cause the planet to implode or disintegrate or spontaneously combust into galactic dust (although, interestingly, that’s what it is–but that’s for another post).
global warming and its ensuing catastrophic (speculative) ice age will not even wipe out every species on the planet. the polar bear and many forms of algae and birds might be doomed, and their disappearance will likely affect the world biosphere as we know it, but many species will go on. it probably won’t even wipe us out. at least in the short term.
but it will change our precious lifestyle. mass floods to the coasts of the world will redistribute hundreds of millions. changes in rain patterns and the ensuing droughts and monsoons will force us to reconsider our sources of food. things will change. every human on earth will have to adapt.
so let’s not make this about the earth. to the planet, this is just another cold to sleep off (or a growth spurt, depending on how you look at it). many species, far more in tune with their environment than western civilization has been for centuries, will sort it out and find a way to survive. because they don’t care if they’re driving an SUV or a Prius. they’ve never had air conditioning. they’ve always instinctively known where to go when catastrophe hits, and those who didn’t died.
this is about us and how we live our lives. the earth isn’t going to care if we become extinct because we’re not able to adapt. in fact, it’ll probably just sigh with relief.
so let’s stop all this “save the earth” bullshit.
save your white picket fence. save your weekly trips to the behemoth grocery store/pharmacy/auto repair shop all-in-one. save your saturday soccer games. or save your great-great-great grandchildren. or save the polar bear.
this is in response to all the rest of my detractors from part I and part II. Read the rest of this entry »
Maya Moore got a free tour of ESPN. no rides from former UConn/current WNBA superstars to the Naismith Awards Ceremony, no houses given to Kathryn Moore, no secret booster checks or Hummers or iPods. just a “hey, how you doin’ ” from Chris Berman, and that wonderful view of giant satellite dishes on a boring road in Bristol.
cry me a river, Pat Summitt. no, Geno Auriemma shouldn’t have arranged the tour. he should have let Maya make the call herself. i hope he’s learned his lesson. i hope that slap on the wrist from the NCAA leaves a scar so you can have at least a little satisfaction. Read the rest of this entry »
you habitually trust your life to the sturdiness of brakes and the reaction times of strangers behind the wheels of automobiles by darting into traffic without looking both ways, regardless of what the traffic signals indicate would be best for your safety. in fact, you often cross where there are no traffic signals or crosswalks, often dressed completely in dark Yale blue at ten at night so you’re particularly hard to spot on the roads. it is often only by the reflective qualities of the YALE LACROSSE or TRUMBULL COLLEGE splattered across the navy blue that you avoid severe injury by contact with bumpers or, in less severe cases, sideview mirrors.
i’ve almost come to accept this about your kind, though i must admit that the behavior puzzles me. i presume that you were the valedictorian (or salutatorian for the underachievers) of your high school class with a 4.0 gpa (or better on weighted scales). WikiAnswers tells me that your average SAT score is 1450-1500. your school has produced five American presidents, 17 Nobel Laureates, and countless other distinguished men and women.
as far as i can tell, you’re relatively bright. Read the rest of this entry »
wendy and i were talking yesterday about civil rights movements and how equality is achieved by minorities in our society, and she made the observation that real (not simply intellectual or idealistic) racial equality finally started taking hold when the market discovered that black women made 95% of their household’s buying decisions. in other words, more equality was achieved when American retailers started to see African Americans (African American women, in particular) as a lucrative market to whom they could appeal.
when this happened, African Americans started popping up in advertisements on billboards, in magazines, on commercials. through these ads, the rest of (white) America saw that black folks had the same problems (mildew around the bathtub), ate the same food (Corn Flakes), and needed the same things on a daily basis (cigarettes and cars).
“so a group’s acknowledged buying power was the key to their acceptance in society?” i asked, mostly rhetorically.
“seems that way,” wendy responded.
the same thing is slowly happening with gays and lesbians. Read the rest of this entry »
last night, Lauren and i attended an engagement party for two of our closest friends.
Carrie-Lynn (on the left) asked Laura to marry her, and Laura said yes (of course!). Carrie-Lynn’s sister says it better than anyone here.
but instead of taste-testing cakes and looking through pages and pages of dress catalogs, they are contending with “are you even allowed to get married?” on the milder end of the spectrum, and “we’re not sure if we can support this” on the worst end. Read the rest of this entry »
our resort was gorgeous. unlike most of the resorts on Cozumel, it had a beach with sand, not just dead coral reef, along its waterfront. the decorations were tasteful, and the staff would have held the kleenex while you blew your nose if you asked them to. if you weren’t stuck on the garden level (like we were the first night), the rooms were simple but quiet. the steel-drum, calypso Christmas carols got a little old after the third day, but the intentions were good.
but then there was the food. Read the rest of this entry »
as we approached our gate at the Newark airport, i looked up at the display (it could not be avoided) and finally found out that Lauren was taking me to Cozumel for Christmas/my birthday. what do you say to someone who treats you to a resort in the tropics for a week of beaches and Mexican color? “thank you” didn’t seem to touch my gratitude. so i just kept grabbing her hand and giving her face playful little kisses.
and how to bring words to the trip without the PowerPoint presentation of an overly-detailed vacation album? (and this is a picture of the hallway of our resort, and this is the little Mexican guy who swept the lobby, and this is the pool. *YAWN*)
the solution: highlights and, yes, lowlights. because a trip on airplanes without misery is no trip at all. Read the rest of this entry »
