To quote a friend, responding to my declaration that Pirates walk the Plank, ..... "...or get splashed by SEALS...poor folks just trying to get by..."
According to a Somalian official interviewed on CNN, these pirates are thugs. Armed robbers and kidnappers. However the idea that the Somali people are " just poor folks trying to get by..." , victims of nucler waste dumped in their waters, and foreigners overfishing their coastline, stealing their livelihood which has led to these desperate times, is a contention that I only recently became aware. (I don't study this stuff)
In all of the news coverage about Somalia, or rather Somali Pirates, not once was the topic broached that Profit, foreign profit, was responsible for this desperate state. Not once. Only this Somali official brought it up, and he was quickly cut off.
Thugs are thugs, Pirates are thugs, Pirates walk the plank. But what of the rest of the country? The American experience in Somalia, at least as portrayed in "Blackhawk Down" was not a pleasant one. But Knowing how the American public is fed and led by the media , in effort to be fair, I have to ask if these pirates are fighting for survival, poor folks just trying to get by, and it is necessity that makes them so bold.
And they are Bold. That is the story that captures the imagination. In the small world we live in, it is astounding the success these Pirates have enjoyed. Until recently, when a few had their heads blown off their shoulders, they have acted with impunity and great profit. Almost a romantic adventure , their defiance of the Empire. Even after the three shots , the pirates boldly declared French and American hostages would be killed when captured. A high seas declaration of war. Bold.
Wouldn't this be a great story if there was something more involved than greed and thievery? A little Captain Jack Sparrow , or Robin Hood , or maybe saving a nation?
A little pirate background from an article by Johann Hari:
If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".
They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live."
Is this these pirate's story?
Abdmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence". -j.hari@independent.co.uk Johann Hari
So, Both sides have now had a say , huh mate ? But let's not forget the CODE................Pirates walk the Plank!
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tent Cities
A friend here in the mountains called me this morning and related a story he'd seen on television the other day. A story about tent cities in Sacramento. After explaining that he was channel surfing and just happened to catch the story (and normally does not watch Oprah), he then reiterated the story of the tent city emerging next to the river in Sacramento. A 'community' of the homeless, the jobless, and other victims of hard times, or themselves, or the predatory bankers, or the boogie man. Everybody has a story. The place is growing by 50 tents a day. With the publicity the story has gotten recently, I'm sure it's going to swell.
By coincidence I was watching Larry King last night hosted by Ali Velshi, the CNN money man who has been telling people to ride out the stock market throughout the 7,000 point downfall. He was interviewing Kevin Johnson about, you guessed it, the tent city. I think several of the residents were former clients of Ali, back when they had money... and the real loser is, yes, Sacramento.
I know it's said that any publicity is good publicity, but in this case I respectfully disagree. I could be wrong though; yesterday I watched a story on Detroit property prices, where houses, nice houses, are selling for $10,000 and less. Since then I've been thinking about Detroit real estate. Today, they interviewed a Detroit newsman about the story and, according to him, the nightmare started there about five years ago with automaker layoffs that continue to this day and the property prices that have fallen and now reflect just 10% of what they were. Can you imagine?
Listening to the newsman, I could feel his personal shock and disbelief as he described the residents waiting and waiting and waiting, and yet still no bottom is approaching to their deteriorating world.
And so back to the tent city... let's say, hypothetically, that the tent city grows by 50 tents a day for 5 years.....that's 91,250 tents. Other than the obvious, now would be a good time to invest in canvas, or maybe porta-potties.
I have read a little of the Great Depression and these tent cities were common back then. I remember reading stories about the Federal Government battling the residents over squatting in certain places. Sacramento might eventually have those type of problems; if one were going to squat in a tent, Sacramento would be a lot better climate-wise than other places. The place could be a magnet for the needy. What an opportunity, the whole hippy movement could re-emerge from the city in the valley where the two rivers meet. That probably sounds good to the people who have already met the boogie man and predatory banker, but those that are still in pocket probably aren't so enthusiastic about living in a loser magnet city.
I can't wait to return.
By coincidence I was watching Larry King last night hosted by Ali Velshi, the CNN money man who has been telling people to ride out the stock market throughout the 7,000 point downfall. He was interviewing Kevin Johnson about, you guessed it, the tent city. I think several of the residents were former clients of Ali, back when they had money... and the real loser is, yes, Sacramento.
I know it's said that any publicity is good publicity, but in this case I respectfully disagree. I could be wrong though; yesterday I watched a story on Detroit property prices, where houses, nice houses, are selling for $10,000 and less. Since then I've been thinking about Detroit real estate. Today, they interviewed a Detroit newsman about the story and, according to him, the nightmare started there about five years ago with automaker layoffs that continue to this day and the property prices that have fallen and now reflect just 10% of what they were. Can you imagine?
Listening to the newsman, I could feel his personal shock and disbelief as he described the residents waiting and waiting and waiting, and yet still no bottom is approaching to their deteriorating world.
And so back to the tent city... let's say, hypothetically, that the tent city grows by 50 tents a day for 5 years.....that's 91,250 tents. Other than the obvious, now would be a good time to invest in canvas, or maybe porta-potties.
I have read a little of the Great Depression and these tent cities were common back then. I remember reading stories about the Federal Government battling the residents over squatting in certain places. Sacramento might eventually have those type of problems; if one were going to squat in a tent, Sacramento would be a lot better climate-wise than other places. The place could be a magnet for the needy. What an opportunity, the whole hippy movement could re-emerge from the city in the valley where the two rivers meet. That probably sounds good to the people who have already met the boogie man and predatory banker, but those that are still in pocket probably aren't so enthusiastic about living in a loser magnet city.
I can't wait to return.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Young Hippies
After a long day of doing nothing (those are the longest days of course), I settled into bed rather late; about 7:30pm. I had one elbow down, and was about to ease the other half of my body onto the bed, when a car pulled up and parked at the bus stop/u-turn point across the road. The car was there when I fell asleep and it was there in the morning when I went to town. A red Jeep Cherokee. Newer than mine, and from New York. Lic# EJL1303. Duly noted.
Returning from town they were still there, but this time there were people moving around the Jeep. I parked and entered the house. Heated coffee, and went upstairs to view the squatters from behind the mirrors. I was on my first cup of coffee when they approached the shack; a tall woman, not heavy, but not thin either with long, dark, red hair and a child hanging from a wide band of cloth slung around her neck and over her shoulder: a kind of circular hammock the child hung in. The child, a cute little red headed baby girl that was eight months old I would later find out, was adept at holding on to that cloth as a young chimp. A man, at least ten feet behind the woman, with a full beard and wearing a cap with ear muffs he had pulled over his ears, was carrying a small bag with paper handles that, when he got closer, I could see contained four one pound packages of butter and some mushrooms in a cardbord package under cellophane.
I said,"Good morning. What can I do for you folks today?"
The woman smiled and said,"We were looking for a barter."
I smiled and replied that there wasn't a thing in the world that I needed except 380 rounds for my Sig Sauer and shotgun shells (I had planned on driving to Grants Pass and buying both, along with a case of clay pigeons, before they had appeared on my doorstep). Then I asked what they had to trade, and what they wanted.
The woman smiled and said, "How about some coffee? We have butter and mushrooms."
I considered her request. Hot coffee, after sleeping in a car, probably sounded wonderful to her.
It was a moment of decision. I had no interest in bartering, but I thought I would hear their story and invited them in for coffee. The flip side of the decision was to send them down the road. The baby was the deciding factor. I brought them into the warmth and shelter of the stove room in the shack. I sat them down, served them coffee, asked their names, and then asked how they came to sleep in the Jeep across the road (I couldn't help the touch of Seuss).
Their story was a 'friend' had told them that Happy Camp was an old hippie settlement where, if they just went and hung out, they would be invited into a commune or a community, or find their dreams of nirvana or something... and so they were on their way to Happy Camp.
Happy Camp Road starts one mile down the road from my house at what is locally called 'four corners'; a crossing of Takilma Road where Happy Camp Road becomes Waldo Road. I live one mile up from four corners. Happy Camp is thirty seven miles farther south across the border, in California. I know the sign at four corners reads 'Road Open', but as this young couple found out, the road is only plowed to the snow park which is just eleven miles past my house. The road is impassable during the winter months. That was how they came to be sleeping across the street.
I asked where they got the butter. Neither answered
I asked how they came to be in Oregon via New York. Several times the young man got lost in his dialogue descibing the trials and tribulations of being young and aimless and wanting more, without opportunity. At times he made no sense in his words. The two of them had been together since New Year's Eve. She had escaped a musician that hit her, and he a woman now in a cult, who wouldn't have sex for purposes other than propagation of the species. Somewhere there had been a settlement, and he had bought a Jeep, and they had been on their way to her mother's in eastern Washington before Happy Camp had come up...
I tried to steer them right; I explained that Happy Camp was a defunct logging town, heavily influenced by the Indian Reservation where (my impression was) people were neither friendly nor open, and usually didn't like strangers. I went further though and described Takilma. The small community on the south side of Hope Mountain, on the opposite side of the ridge from me. Takilma, an old hippie settlement with an alternative lifestyle community where (if there was a place in this area) these psuedo-hippies would be welcome. It's only a mile and a half from me and I explained twice how to get there. I told them of the community school where they might get help.
They made no move to leave. They were comfortable. I looked at both of them. I knew they were scared to death. Finding our way in the world can be terrifying. My heart went out to them. Maybe they needed to learn about 'work'. I knew they would have been happy to move right in. I stood and escorted them out. As the mother held the doorjam, and lowered her foot down the long step from my doorway to the ground, I noticed the baby under her arm; the baby's legs around the mothers back, still holding to that circular cloth for dear life. The baby understood. I had the feeling she was already learning to take care of herself.
I wanted to rescue them. I hope they rescue themselves. I remember it was not that long ago I had to rescue myself.
It only takes yourself, most of the time.
Returning from town they were still there, but this time there were people moving around the Jeep. I parked and entered the house. Heated coffee, and went upstairs to view the squatters from behind the mirrors. I was on my first cup of coffee when they approached the shack; a tall woman, not heavy, but not thin either with long, dark, red hair and a child hanging from a wide band of cloth slung around her neck and over her shoulder: a kind of circular hammock the child hung in. The child, a cute little red headed baby girl that was eight months old I would later find out, was adept at holding on to that cloth as a young chimp. A man, at least ten feet behind the woman, with a full beard and wearing a cap with ear muffs he had pulled over his ears, was carrying a small bag with paper handles that, when he got closer, I could see contained four one pound packages of butter and some mushrooms in a cardbord package under cellophane.
I said,"Good morning. What can I do for you folks today?"
The woman smiled and said,"We were looking for a barter."
I smiled and replied that there wasn't a thing in the world that I needed except 380 rounds for my Sig Sauer and shotgun shells (I had planned on driving to Grants Pass and buying both, along with a case of clay pigeons, before they had appeared on my doorstep). Then I asked what they had to trade, and what they wanted.
The woman smiled and said, "How about some coffee? We have butter and mushrooms."
I considered her request. Hot coffee, after sleeping in a car, probably sounded wonderful to her.
It was a moment of decision. I had no interest in bartering, but I thought I would hear their story and invited them in for coffee. The flip side of the decision was to send them down the road. The baby was the deciding factor. I brought them into the warmth and shelter of the stove room in the shack. I sat them down, served them coffee, asked their names, and then asked how they came to sleep in the Jeep across the road (I couldn't help the touch of Seuss).
Their story was a 'friend' had told them that Happy Camp was an old hippie settlement where, if they just went and hung out, they would be invited into a commune or a community, or find their dreams of nirvana or something... and so they were on their way to Happy Camp.
Happy Camp Road starts one mile down the road from my house at what is locally called 'four corners'; a crossing of Takilma Road where Happy Camp Road becomes Waldo Road. I live one mile up from four corners. Happy Camp is thirty seven miles farther south across the border, in California. I know the sign at four corners reads 'Road Open', but as this young couple found out, the road is only plowed to the snow park which is just eleven miles past my house. The road is impassable during the winter months. That was how they came to be sleeping across the street.
I asked where they got the butter. Neither answered
I asked how they came to be in Oregon via New York. Several times the young man got lost in his dialogue descibing the trials and tribulations of being young and aimless and wanting more, without opportunity. At times he made no sense in his words. The two of them had been together since New Year's Eve. She had escaped a musician that hit her, and he a woman now in a cult, who wouldn't have sex for purposes other than propagation of the species. Somewhere there had been a settlement, and he had bought a Jeep, and they had been on their way to her mother's in eastern Washington before Happy Camp had come up...
I tried to steer them right; I explained that Happy Camp was a defunct logging town, heavily influenced by the Indian Reservation where (my impression was) people were neither friendly nor open, and usually didn't like strangers. I went further though and described Takilma. The small community on the south side of Hope Mountain, on the opposite side of the ridge from me. Takilma, an old hippie settlement with an alternative lifestyle community where (if there was a place in this area) these psuedo-hippies would be welcome. It's only a mile and a half from me and I explained twice how to get there. I told them of the community school where they might get help.
They made no move to leave. They were comfortable. I looked at both of them. I knew they were scared to death. Finding our way in the world can be terrifying. My heart went out to them. Maybe they needed to learn about 'work'. I knew they would have been happy to move right in. I stood and escorted them out. As the mother held the doorjam, and lowered her foot down the long step from my doorway to the ground, I noticed the baby under her arm; the baby's legs around the mothers back, still holding to that circular cloth for dear life. The baby understood. I had the feeling she was already learning to take care of herself.
I wanted to rescue them. I hope they rescue themselves. I remember it was not that long ago I had to rescue myself.
It only takes yourself, most of the time.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Grand Theft Auto 4
Coinciding with oil reaching another record high of $123 a barrel today, the new video game 'Grand Theft Auto 4' generates $500 million in sales in it's first 1/2 week. That's half a BILLION in three and a half days in video game sales.
At the same time Myamar loses 100 thousand plus people in a cyclone (hurricane), and a good portion of Asia's rice crop is destroyed or threatened, unfotunately and coincidently, the week after experts predict world food shortages. Yet there is still $500,000,000 paid for this one new video game in 3 and a 1/2 days worth of sales. I underline this point because I wonder what the total game sales will in a week, month, year?
Now, I'm no Reverend Wright, and I won't claim to know anything about the divine plan, or how God really thinks. I'm not even going to claim there is a GOD, but supposing there is... then what the hell would you guess the Almighty is going to think upon her appraisal of the current state of affairs: "Things can't be that damn bad" or "How bad can it get"? Might depend on how many shares of Microsoft God owns.
Half a billion in retail sales has to be good for the stimulus package. Let me do a little research on that game and see if the money is going to China....
And just back from Google... Xbox is Microsoft. There you are; the rich get richer. And using theological criteria of appraisal for logic, God has to own a piece of Microsoft, otherwise no way in hell they could have that kind of success. Anyway, if the world falls apart, Americans don't think they care. They're stealing cars on the computer, and getting life's lessons from the perverted wisdom of Wall Street, graphic designers and the thrills of cyberspace.
What are life's lessons? I would guess for every life they are different. In America, where the vast majority of the now living population did not experience the Great Depression, where Baby Boomers have lived their entire lives in what, for the most part, was the expanding economy of the richest nation on earth, the lessons of life already learned may not apply to the world of the future. A world with a shrinking economy and the comforts and luxuries of yesteryear gone.
In a shrinking world, new lessons of life may be necessary to learn and, for Americans, it won't be easy. A world where property depreciates and today's pleasures can't be paid for with tommorrow's equity. How the hell are Americans going to pay for all those $35K SUVs, and put gas into them all $5 a gallon, if we can't refinance our homes every 3 to 5 years? That's why SUV sales are down in the billions and my Jeep has 235 thousand miles. Lessons learned.
A world where people go hungry. Everybody I know that has ever 'starved', afterward they could never be rich enough. Being hungry for food to sustain life, survive, must leave a long and lasting impression/fear. Today's native born Americans, for the most part, have never known real hunger. And the mass production of food depends on fuel and petrol chemicals and the weather. Absurd, Americans hungry! Not in our lifetimes. Hopefully.
Furthermore, in America (in our lifetimes) opportunity has always been available. Why save, just go make more money. Buy it on credit, pay for it with future money. Future money may not be available in the future. Opportunity may disappear. If you can't afford it now, forget it. Learn the value of a dollar and save. Damn, am I talking to the past, or what? I'm talking to the future, too. Too bad I can't afford to save. Anyway, I just thought the juxtaposition of current world conditions and video sales might explain why I think when the Almighty shows up she might be a little bitchy. Half a billion dollars. I wish I could afford that game and see what I'm missing.
At the same time Myamar loses 100 thousand plus people in a cyclone (hurricane), and a good portion of Asia's rice crop is destroyed or threatened, unfotunately and coincidently, the week after experts predict world food shortages. Yet there is still $500,000,000 paid for this one new video game in 3 and a 1/2 days worth of sales. I underline this point because I wonder what the total game sales will in a week, month, year?
Now, I'm no Reverend Wright, and I won't claim to know anything about the divine plan, or how God really thinks. I'm not even going to claim there is a GOD, but supposing there is... then what the hell would you guess the Almighty is going to think upon her appraisal of the current state of affairs: "Things can't be that damn bad" or "How bad can it get"? Might depend on how many shares of Microsoft God owns.
Half a billion in retail sales has to be good for the stimulus package. Let me do a little research on that game and see if the money is going to China....
And just back from Google... Xbox is Microsoft. There you are; the rich get richer. And using theological criteria of appraisal for logic, God has to own a piece of Microsoft, otherwise no way in hell they could have that kind of success. Anyway, if the world falls apart, Americans don't think they care. They're stealing cars on the computer, and getting life's lessons from the perverted wisdom of Wall Street, graphic designers and the thrills of cyberspace.
What are life's lessons? I would guess for every life they are different. In America, where the vast majority of the now living population did not experience the Great Depression, where Baby Boomers have lived their entire lives in what, for the most part, was the expanding economy of the richest nation on earth, the lessons of life already learned may not apply to the world of the future. A world with a shrinking economy and the comforts and luxuries of yesteryear gone.
In a shrinking world, new lessons of life may be necessary to learn and, for Americans, it won't be easy. A world where property depreciates and today's pleasures can't be paid for with tommorrow's equity. How the hell are Americans going to pay for all those $35K SUVs, and put gas into them all $5 a gallon, if we can't refinance our homes every 3 to 5 years? That's why SUV sales are down in the billions and my Jeep has 235 thousand miles. Lessons learned.
A world where people go hungry. Everybody I know that has ever 'starved', afterward they could never be rich enough. Being hungry for food to sustain life, survive, must leave a long and lasting impression/fear. Today's native born Americans, for the most part, have never known real hunger. And the mass production of food depends on fuel and petrol chemicals and the weather. Absurd, Americans hungry! Not in our lifetimes. Hopefully.
Furthermore, in America (in our lifetimes) opportunity has always been available. Why save, just go make more money. Buy it on credit, pay for it with future money. Future money may not be available in the future. Opportunity may disappear. If you can't afford it now, forget it. Learn the value of a dollar and save. Damn, am I talking to the past, or what? I'm talking to the future, too. Too bad I can't afford to save. Anyway, I just thought the juxtaposition of current world conditions and video sales might explain why I think when the Almighty shows up she might be a little bitchy. Half a billion dollars. I wish I could afford that game and see what I'm missing.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The Holidays, A Body Gotta Live, and Respectable Pursuits
The holidays bring out the best in people. Watching the Sacramento Kings play the Boston Celtics on NBA Pass tonight, The Kings (as part of the half-time broadcast) were showing clips of their 'holiday' public service. The Kings and their owners, The Maloof family, along with other major corporations wanting to take advantage of tax write-offs and a chance for creating positive public relations, are very generous during the Holidays. In this 'community service segment' our heroes were going out in the poorer communities giving away Christmas trees, complete with ornaments to decorate them, as well as holiday meals prepared and ready to eat, 'donated' by Raley's\BelAir (one of the nicer supermarket chains in Northern California). Those meals aren' t cheap (my buddy Guy bought one at Thanksgiving and told me what he paid), but they are a nice meal. I feel relief for those few lucky poor people! I'm a sensitive person.Stories of holiday goodwill and kindness make me tear up, normally. But there's more to the story... Well, see... the poor people weren't having these gifts delivered to their homes. Instead they were driving up in their cars and waiting in line. Then, with cameras rolling (wouldn't want to be generous and not have it be recorded\acknowledged, huh), the players delivered the necessities of a joyous holiday to the people waiting in their cars, who (as one happy recipient explained) "would not have been able to afford Christmas without the generosity of the Kings organization."
I guess I would have been happier for this 'poor' women except she didn't look older then thirty, nor was she unkempt, or portraying the appearance of someone downtrodden. And I noticed her nails were manicured in holiday colors (seemingly professionally) on the hand gripping the steering wheel of her newish mini-van. I wondered what the criteria was to qualify as poor and pull your car into line. Obviously a recent manicure didn't disqualify you. I could tell that owning a car didn't disqualify you either, because all these people had cars. I noticed that all the cars in line looked newer than mine too. These people gave me the impression the 'poor' had changed in the fourteen months since I left California.
The second recipient was driving what looked like a new Lincoln Navigator, which is a 10 mile per gallon SUV. I'm glad the Kings organization went out to the poor neighborhoods to play Santa, otherwise those poor people might have not been able to afford the gas to receive the necessities for Christmas. Thanks to the Kings organization they can drive in style and celebrate the birth of Jesus. Hallelujah!
Funnily, I didn't see any shopping carts in the line. I was under the impression that is the usual status symbol for the poor. Maybe those poor people got caught in traffic. Just as well, they wouldn't have had a roof to tie their tree on, or put under, for that matter. Those poor people are generally a little too poor for good PR video anyway. Though they know where the shelters are, it looked like they were completely unaware of this charitable event. In that respect, the Holidays bring out the worst in people too, unfortunately.
Every year there is the perennial story of the poor family robbed of their Christmas by thieves, and the gnawing moral question of how could anyone be so cruel? The following day, inevitably, will be the story of the public generously donating gifts, food, decorations: all the necessities of the Christmas celebration. All that love for those poor people, makes everybody feel good! This year there was another chapter to that type of story too.
It seems that a former friend of a poor family that was robbed, while sitting in his new SUV at a Kings Community function for the needy, waiting for a free meal and tree, saw the news clip on the overhead tv/dvd player in his Navigator, and notified the authorities that the same family had been "robbed" two years earlier. Ironically, the guy in the SUV thought it was atrocious his acquaintance would lie about his circumstances in order to take advantage of the public's sympathy. Morally, he felt like he had no choice but to expose him , saying, "that out-pouring of public generosity might have found it's way to the truly Poor, had it not been stolen by [his] unscrupulous buddy." So, the moral of the story?
ALWAYS HAVE A SCUMBAG HANDY TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM YOURSELF
Merry Xmas to One and All
PS The first snow this winter fell today-
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