Archive for the ‘Responsibility’ Category
We Are the World?
“I wonder how many people would have been fed with that money in OUR country.” This may not make me too popular, but I know I’m not alone in this sentiment. Whenever a major catastrophe (and sometimes not so major) hits somewhere in the world, the US sends a check, manpower and whatever else they may need, right away. While I think that makes us an awesome country, it still leaves us with 39.8 million people living in poverty. Of those 39.8 million, 14 million are children under the age of 18, and another 3.6 million are senior citizens.1
Poverty is the mother of crime. ~Marcus Aurelius
Now, to be fair, the ‘definition’ of poverty is this: In 2008, in the United States of America, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was US$11,201; the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was $21,834. For my family of 5, the threshold is $25,790.2, and seriously, without taking Jimmy’s unemployment into consideration for 2009, WE were under that threshold.
Again, to be fair, without adding unnecessary facts & figures to this post, I will tell you that in India, the national poverty level is $12 a month.
We, as a family, were far from lining up at food banks – I’ve always managed to keep food on our table. In fact, at least once last year, I brought food TO the food bank (when we lived in NH), and I provided food on several occasions to a friend whose family was in need. I don’t say that for praise, I say that to illustrate, we were OK, living below the “POVERTY LINE”.
In fact, one of the things I had to do was sell ad space on my blog – but you know what? It paid a bill – no matter which it was – a bill got paid because I managed.
But what about those families who can’t make it. How do you explain sending $100,000,000 to another country to help them? Plus, who knows how much more in private donations through the Red Cross, etc. I know – I KNOW – they were in abject need. Of course, we send help. But I’m still left wondering about those families whose kids went without dinner last night, or the night before. And you know, while we’re at it, let’s toss in that additional $200,000,000,000 – yes, that’s 200 BILLION DOLLARS to the bank bailouts. Nearly $700,000,000,000 has been sent to various companies throughout our country to help them out. The millions upon millions of dollars spent on SUPER BOWL ADS!
We held a telethon to raise money for the tsunami. We held a telethon to raise money for the earthquake.
What is so different about a starving kid in some other nation and one in Mississippi?
I was watching the opening ceremonies last night for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Bob Costas was talking about the amount of money spent JUST on the opening ceremonies, and was referring to the designer who did the Salt Lake City opening ceremonies in 2002. HUNDREDS of millions of dollars were spent for a 2 hour spectacle – and all I could think of was, what good that money could have done for the people who weren’t in the stadiums, arenas, stands.
I guess I just don’t get the priorities. This has nothing to do with politics, or who is in charge right now. Previous administrations have been just as ‘generous’ – it has to do with the American PEOPLE who feel that it’s better to help a world neighbor rather than the neighbor down the street.
In the 13 years that Jimmy & I have been parents, we’ve been below that poverty line a few times. We’ve never starved, our children have never starved – but only because we’ve been fortunate enough to either have family help or government help and because we simply HAD to get through it and we found ways to do it. What about those that can’t? What about those that can’t qualify for government assistance because of factors beyond their control? Their KIDS are the ones that suffer…
and no flashy lights and waving banners, movies telecast through the floor or kids on high wires, will make that better.
The thoughts behind this post were spurred by the new We Are the World video that was premiered last night during the opening ceremonies. I posted on Facebook that it gave me chills – mostly because of the vocals of a few of the performers – but it seemed to spur some dissent amongst friends. When I woke up, this was what was in my head.
I’m *not* suggesting that we not help Haiti. Of course the images are heartbreaking – I’m just saying, with all the money our country throws around, why are our own kids starving? My kids might not be starving today, but there’s no guarantees for anyone.
1 http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/hunger-and-poverty-statistics.aspx
Facebook = Beacon of responsibility?
I was notified, via email to my spam filtered email account, that I was being notified of a class action lawsuit against Facebook (gasp!). The first thing I did was check to see if the email they sent it to was the one I use for Facebook. Check. Then I went to the website that they mentioned for this whole http://www.beaconclasssettlement.com/Index.html thing. It explained, in very UNDERSTANDABLE terms, what it was all about. Check. Then I went to snopes.com (can they GET any more popup ads on there? GEEZ) and it wasn’t listed, so I emailed them to ask if it was legit. Still waiting on that reply, but upon further investigation (i.e. google!), it looks like it might be legit.
Are you feeling the victim? Everything you do on Facebook is precipitated with a screen asking you if you really… really want to do it. When you go on OTHER websites as well, such as yahoo!.com, amazon.com
So what I suppose I don’t get is why this is such a surprise that those things you’re doing on those sites are then showing up on Facebook. It makes no sense to file a freaking lawsuit, extracting money from a service that is being provided to us FREE OF CHARGE, giving it to men in suits that most certainly don’t need more – all to protect us from ourselves?
What am I missing here!?!
