Dear You,
I'm a news junkie, so I cannot dodge the Economic Bad News. Each day, NPR and the St. Petersburg newspaper remove the layers of my otherwise insulated life. Increasingly, I am led to care about the plight of the world's poor.
It's not that I do much about it. I cannot dodge my responsibity here - being an American means being part of the problem. And hasn't everyone heard that it's good for one's peace of mind to stop watching the six o'clock news? A head-in-the-sand approach, though, cannot make anyone's life better.
A statistic: the 500 richest people in the world a few years ago earned more than the 416 million poorest people (United Nations report). A story: A woman in Haiti once sold shoes on the street, but falling demand has meant that she used all her income to buy food for her child and none to replace her inventory . . . and now she has nothing but an emaciated, dying child (Nicholas Kristoff).
I ingest the daily news of bank bailouts and million dollar bonuses for those who will never be hungry, and I pause on Sundays to pray for the poor. And I hope the leaders of the world are listening, too.
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2009
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Tides
Dear You,
I'm staying in a rented house on Cape Cod, and Sunday's sermon at Our Lady of the Cape was a troubling one. The readings concerned a rich man, who had the best of everything all his life, and on whose doorstep was a poor man with sores all over his body. Ultimately they died, and the rich man saw from his place of eternal torment that the poor man was at the side of Abraham. The Bible is full of related lessons about the rich and the poor.
A couple of days later I took the ferry to Nantucket, seated in the first class cabin where I enjoyed coffee on the way out and wine on the way back. And in both directions my eye fell on hundreds of luxury boats -- at this season sitting at anchor where they probably won't be moved for weeks at a time. And I thought about the poor who were, as usual, invisible in my range of vision, but who must have been nearby somewhere -- there are so very, very many.
Some economist -- a Presidential advisor, I seem to remember -- justified the programs that benefited the rich by saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. And as I looked at the vessels around the ferry, I knew that to be so. The problem is that not everyone has a boat, and far too many will never have the means to get one.
I'm staying in a rented house on Cape Cod, and Sunday's sermon at Our Lady of the Cape was a troubling one. The readings concerned a rich man, who had the best of everything all his life, and on whose doorstep was a poor man with sores all over his body. Ultimately they died, and the rich man saw from his place of eternal torment that the poor man was at the side of Abraham. The Bible is full of related lessons about the rich and the poor.
A couple of days later I took the ferry to Nantucket, seated in the first class cabin where I enjoyed coffee on the way out and wine on the way back. And in both directions my eye fell on hundreds of luxury boats -- at this season sitting at anchor where they probably won't be moved for weeks at a time. And I thought about the poor who were, as usual, invisible in my range of vision, but who must have been nearby somewhere -- there are so very, very many.
Some economist -- a Presidential advisor, I seem to remember -- justified the programs that benefited the rich by saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. And as I looked at the vessels around the ferry, I knew that to be so. The problem is that not everyone has a boat, and far too many will never have the means to get one.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Along the barge canal
Dear You,
Hamlin Garland once observed that the highway is traveled by all sorts of people, but that the poor and the weary predominate. Still true today -- probably moreso. Yet I find in my time and in my place, the places where I find myself most often, the poor are invisible.
It was with surprise, then, that I came upon a vagrant yesterday. I was cycling along the barge canal just outside Pittsford (where per capita income is unarguably rather high), and I spotted what I took to be a pile of discarded clothes in the weeds beside the trail. As I passed I could see worn boots on one end and a cradled mass of hair at the other. My next thought was that it was a corpse and nearly stopped. Then I realized that this man was no doubt sleeping in the afternoon warmth, and the other bikers, hikers, joggers that were taking this path would surely have determined whether someone were dead or not!
A half hour or so later, as I was returning to where I'd left my car, I passed him again; this time he was afoot. Thin. Shambling along. Eyes downcast. He looked up, nodded. I nodded.
But for those two separated moments he exists only in my memory. Awhile later, as I sat outside a coffee shop, I watched people feeding the ducks, tossing crumbs from their bags into the water. ($1 a bag; available from the table near the door.) Young people walked by wearing tee shirts with names of universities across their chests, talking on their cell phones or discussing the contents of their shopping bags. Briefly I took notice of the young woman who selttled next to me on the bench to adjust her inline skates. Then I wondered -- again -- if the rumpled man was still walking along the canal . . . and where? Bushnell's Basin? on to Fairport? All the way out to Palmyra? Where would he find his dinner, and where his bed that night?
I can't know the answers because I did not stop . . . neither in the going out nor the coming back. I didn't stop to ask.
Hamlin Garland once observed that the highway is traveled by all sorts of people, but that the poor and the weary predominate. Still true today -- probably moreso. Yet I find in my time and in my place, the places where I find myself most often, the poor are invisible.
It was with surprise, then, that I came upon a vagrant yesterday. I was cycling along the barge canal just outside Pittsford (where per capita income is unarguably rather high), and I spotted what I took to be a pile of discarded clothes in the weeds beside the trail. As I passed I could see worn boots on one end and a cradled mass of hair at the other. My next thought was that it was a corpse and nearly stopped. Then I realized that this man was no doubt sleeping in the afternoon warmth, and the other bikers, hikers, joggers that were taking this path would surely have determined whether someone were dead or not!
A half hour or so later, as I was returning to where I'd left my car, I passed him again; this time he was afoot. Thin. Shambling along. Eyes downcast. He looked up, nodded. I nodded.
But for those two separated moments he exists only in my memory. Awhile later, as I sat outside a coffee shop, I watched people feeding the ducks, tossing crumbs from their bags into the water. ($1 a bag; available from the table near the door.) Young people walked by wearing tee shirts with names of universities across their chests, talking on their cell phones or discussing the contents of their shopping bags. Briefly I took notice of the young woman who selttled next to me on the bench to adjust her inline skates. Then I wondered -- again -- if the rumpled man was still walking along the canal . . . and where? Bushnell's Basin? on to Fairport? All the way out to Palmyra? Where would he find his dinner, and where his bed that night?
I can't know the answers because I did not stop . . . neither in the going out nor the coming back. I didn't stop to ask.
Friday, August 24, 2007
For richer, for poorer
Dear You,
On a radio call-in program yesterday, a teacher was decrying the No Child Left Behind legislation that she -- and many, many others! -- claim has taken away nearly everything that was good about school. It is a favorite topic of mine, even nine years after I left the classroom. Indeed, when I first heard it called the No Teacher Left Standing act, I felt its truth.
In all the protests, what I rarely hear is the core of the legislation : NCLB is designed to cripple public schools and advance the cause of vouchers for private schools. In essence, it is merely another case of rich vs. poor.
In recent years a variety of the government's policies have widened the gap between those who have much and those without. Bankruptcy regulations favor lawyers and credit companies; tax cuts gave additional millions to millionaires, but virtually nothing to the poor; bail-outs for the banking industry encouraged the issuing of "sub-prime" mortgages at interest rates far exceeding rates offered to wealthy people; tarrif changes cost the working poor their jobs, and those who held on to them are forced to work fewer than 36 hours a week so the companies won't have to pay their health benefits. Dozens of other examples present themselves. Even the fact that the ruinous war against Iraq does not require sacrifice (no draft; no increase in taxation) -- except, of course, for the blood of the children of the poor! -- further diminishes our faith in government.
A democracy is nourished by citizens who honor and trust their leaders. Thoreau observed that while thousands hack at the branches of a problem, few know to dig at the roots. The roots are too often hidden, and our current crop of leaders thrive on the walls of secrecy they have thrown up.
On a radio call-in program yesterday, a teacher was decrying the No Child Left Behind legislation that she -- and many, many others! -- claim has taken away nearly everything that was good about school. It is a favorite topic of mine, even nine years after I left the classroom. Indeed, when I first heard it called the No Teacher Left Standing act, I felt its truth.
In all the protests, what I rarely hear is the core of the legislation : NCLB is designed to cripple public schools and advance the cause of vouchers for private schools. In essence, it is merely another case of rich vs. poor.
In recent years a variety of the government's policies have widened the gap between those who have much and those without. Bankruptcy regulations favor lawyers and credit companies; tax cuts gave additional millions to millionaires, but virtually nothing to the poor; bail-outs for the banking industry encouraged the issuing of "sub-prime" mortgages at interest rates far exceeding rates offered to wealthy people; tarrif changes cost the working poor their jobs, and those who held on to them are forced to work fewer than 36 hours a week so the companies won't have to pay their health benefits. Dozens of other examples present themselves. Even the fact that the ruinous war against Iraq does not require sacrifice (no draft; no increase in taxation) -- except, of course, for the blood of the children of the poor! -- further diminishes our faith in government.
A democracy is nourished by citizens who honor and trust their leaders. Thoreau observed that while thousands hack at the branches of a problem, few know to dig at the roots. The roots are too often hidden, and our current crop of leaders thrive on the walls of secrecy they have thrown up.
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