It sort of makes my fluff about flowers and cooking seem ridiculous.
I was listening to NPR this morning as I was making breakfast and feeding the puppies. A journalist was asking a question about how the people in this certain country view America, as the United States has not responded to help many people who have been under attack recently.
The man being interviewed said that most of his country, at this point, see Americans as stupid and selfish. Stupid and selfish because they seem ignorant to the plight of other people and the government doesn't seem to care about certain countries unless there's oil or some other natural resource at stake.
The interviewer then went on to ask if there was any sense of a normal life for the other people in his country - and the man said "What is that?" and then sort of laughed a sad laugh...
Then the interviewer asked further, "Do people go to work, do the kids go to school?"
And the man being interviewed explained that, of course, there's still "life" there, and makeshift schools when people are able to leave their homes. But then he also explained that when there's no food to eat and you're going hungry, school is about the last thing on your mind.
So, there I was in my nice, warm kitchen, overflowing with food, feeding the dogs their kibble and reindeer sausage.
My dogs, I realized, eat better than probably millions of people in the world.
There is so much suffering elsewhere. We have the luxury of bitching about phone service or the internet being slow.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of suffering right here, too. There was an article I read yesterday about the issues facing the homeless here in the United States. The recent recession and policies by our lawmakers have forced thousands of families out of their homes.
I was really saddened when I went to our local homeless shelter to find out they feed thousands in Anchorage per day.
It's called Bean's Cafe and they do an amazing job. There were lots of families there. Little kids. There were older people, middle-aged, too, but I was shocked and disheartened to see the sheer number of families who are clearly living out of their cars or vans.
The stats are all just shocking and expected to get worse:
Here's a link to a piece by PBS about it.
Here's a recent Huffington Post article about the alarming rise in homeless students throughout our country.
National Coalition for the Homeless is a great organization that offers solid solutions and financial aid to help people find affordable or free shelter so that they can get on the road to feeding and clothing themselves and live in dignity instead of going to jail.
Now, on the ranty side:
How can corporations look the other way while children are suffering on a daily basis?
How can these people fill their pockets with millions of dollars and their corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes?
How about bailing out the banks that created these sham loans in the first place? Why do the banks get bailed out while families lose their homes?
How can our government and law enforcement justify confiscating the meager belongings that many of our homeless people have and then send them to jail or just send them along into the cold?
More than 600,000 people are homeless in the United States on any given night.
On average, in the winter, about 700 people will die of exposure each year.
Now, that's a lot of deaths. We would be outraged if that many people died in one winter at war or after a hurricane or earthquake...
But, because they're homeless, they don't matter. Societal discards.
Most people, I think, have a vision of homeless people as older,
disheveled people who are dirty and many of whom are drunk.
The truth is that it's entire families and mostly people suffering from untreated mental illness.
Well, this Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah, you might think about one less gift for each of your family members and instead contact your local homeless shelter, women's shelter, fire station or Department of Social Services office to see what you can do to help. A $20 gift to a homeless child or a $20 food donation can make a huge difference.
Peace out. Thanks for reading.
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