It's Summertime

And for the next few weeks, my postings will be based on my thoughts and philosophy. It's too nice to be doing much else. Like I should be outside pulling weeds, but I don't feel like it. Just a few civic comments. Tuesday Nite Live went very well with the election of officers for council. Everyone behaved with dignity and courtesty. And some advice for Mayor Mack which he will ignore, but what the hell. Mayor, be careful with the OPRA requests, because when you lest expect it, this will come back to bite you on the ass. Yes, it's summertime and the, "livin is easy," or it should be which got me to thinking about poverty. It seems to be relative. For example, one could take the poorest person, with a place to live, living in Trenton and compare that person to someone living in, let's say, East Africa. The East African has little if any access to regular meals, clean water, television, air conditioning, education, in door plumbing, not to mention alcohol and cigarettes. Hopefully, you get my drift. Take this resident of East Africa and place them in Trenton, maybe a house on Daymond Street here in the South Ward. The East African would probably feel he/she had died and gone to heaven. Now, I do not consider myself poor; most people in Trenton would not consider me poor, but if one were to compare me with the Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, hell, I'm hanging on by a thread. What I live on annually, any of these people spend in a month, maybe even a week. Yes, I do live better than most of my neighbors, and my annual income is above the median here in Trenton. Now, for the last twenty years or so, I've listened to any number of people describing programs for, "poor people," or the "poverty stricken," or the , "disadvantaged," whatever. No one has ever said, "This program is designed to break the cycle of poverty," or even better, "this program is designed to find out why people are poor so we can move on from there." The main reason is that there is a lot of money to be made off poverty. Just think for a moment of all those employed in non-profits, public agencies, etc. If there was no poverty, these folks might actually have to go out and get a job. And that, dear Blogolanders, is why I am not overly generous to or supportive of anti-poverty efforts. I refuse to be responsible for keeping anyone down. Now, I suppose I should at least do the laundry.