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| new cell phone number, contact me to get it.
peace
happy holidays
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| In sum, we are an army of dreamers, and therefore invincible. How can we fail to win, with this imagination overturning everything. Or rather, we do not deserve to lose.' - Subcomandante Marcos | | |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory
thingskeep coming together randomly. i don tknow where i heard of it as ahallucinogenic (or if) but maybe gary snyder (my favorite hippie/beat) dropped the name.
coincidentally i have been trying to find out the name of acertain weed that grows on roadside fences in cities: DC and here onfulton st near work, it would be by my morning walk in DC and myafternoon post office walk here. a GORGEOUS glorious flower... but aweed. the ultimate symbol to me of natures beauty coming through thedestruction of city and what humans have done... DC catholic workerhouse has a quilted poster saying "el mundo se salvara' por la belleza-- dostoevski". i felt that to be true when seeing these flowers, soephemeral but so gorgeous. they really sustained me with their beauty,in both cities. i looked it up in a flower book when i was home in DCafter the SOA, and it was morning glory -- but then i forgot.
so just now i went to the wiki page on hallucinogenicherbs... and im reading about morning glory...and the photos are of MYFAVORITE FLOWER!!! | | |
| "There's something about being able to
bring a batch of brownies or being able to bring a home-cooked
casserole to a shelter and feel like you're doing your part to end
homelessness," she said. "That warm, fuzzy touch is going to go away."
Bringing
food to a shelter, or someone on the street, does NOTHING to "end
homelessness", even though it's a very nice thing to do... Ending
homelessness requires changing public policy to favor the homeless, and
adequately fund the agencies that are supposed to work for them. Almost
my entire job is fighting the welfare bureacracy (which is mainly
staffed by incompetent people from NYC schools -- which have been "left
behind"). Adult Protective Services, part of the same department,
recently declined assisting one of my clients who is being abused and
financially exploited by his family. Unbelievable incompetence and
arrogance..... Which would not happen if these city agencies were
focused on. (My boss pointed out that the city finance department is quite
well funded...)
And as long as there's no affordable housing (my clients on
disability checks have around $6-700 per month) (and Section 8 housing
vouchers are vanishing) (the Bush administration has hung HUD out to
dry, I learned last year -- and the focus is entirely on people earning
well over $20,000 / year, nothing for truly low-income people), how
will homelessness end?
At the Food Bank conference in September, a lot of people were
talking about how soup kitchens and food pantries may be a part of the
problem, by (1) giving homeless/poor people food so they dont get mad
and riot and force change and (2) giving upper-class people the good
feeling that they're helping those poor people, when in fact what is
needed is major pressure on government officials (and higher taxes
perhaps) instead of a casserole... So charity is a "moral safety
valve," and actually prevents justice. Dorothy Day's radical friends
were saying the exact same thing in the 1910s... the Catholic Church
embraced justice over charity long ago, but the message has not at all
reached the population at large. So the bishops write their "Economic
Justice for all" (1980s) pastorals and update it reissued every 10
years... but when it's election year, bishops say they'll deny Kerry
communion because he's pro-choice (
i.e. opposes a church teaching in favor of violence), and noone talks
about denying conservative candidates who oppose justice (i.e. ending
poverty which is violence as well, and causes people to choose abortion
moreover) communion. It's really sad...
quote source:
Freshly Baked Handouts Forbidden in Fairfax
County Says Health Of Homeless Is at Issue
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; Page A01
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| Forbes' Billionaires Nearly Double in New York City
Net Worth of 45 Billionaires is 17.5 Times Earnings of City's Poor;
Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen Use Continues to Soar
According to the just-released "Forbes 400" report, the number of
billionaires in New York City rose from 28 to 45 over the last year, with
their total net worth now at approximately $60.4 billion.
In contrast, the 1.7 million city residents living below the federal poverty
line earned a total of approximately $3.45 Billion, meaning that the 45
richest New Yorkers had more than 17 times the money of the 1.7 million
poorest, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data just conducted by the
New York City Coalition Against Hunger. The city's richest resident, David
Koch, now has a reported net worth of $12 Billion, three and a half times
the total earnings of the city's poor....
Coalition data also shows that the use of food pantries and soup
kitchens in New York City increased by 40% between 2001-2005. Continued
Berg, "I hope that, when New York's wealthiest citizens see all this data
side-by-side, they will commit to both paying their workers enough to feed
their families and supporting robust public policies to reduce poverty."
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