# How lucky we are... something to consider



## Gumby (Dec 15, 2010)

View attachment 1570


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

I get up, I make tea and I think "We didn't have to walk for the water and carry it back, and it won't make me ill". So many people living without proper water.


----------



## Katie D (Dec 16, 2010)

Sheesh, that pulls the heartstrings


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

And the purse strings I hope Katie, our kids are so lucky, it's great to give another kid a chance as well.


----------



## Katie D (Dec 16, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> And the purse strings I hope Katie, our kids are so lucky, it's great to give another kid a chance as well.


 I agree totally Olly. I wish I could do more financially.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

A little can go a long way Katie, Charity Gifts - For People Who Need Them Most | Oxfam Unwrapped.


----------



## Katie D (Dec 16, 2010)

I support some wonderful charities, but I don't believe that we should only be giving because it's christmas. Share the love all year round! It's a shame it takes the 'christmas (guilt) spirit' to get people in the mood.


----------



## Sync (Dec 16, 2010)

yes, I agree with this post. I've been to a few countries when in the military that opened my eyes to how 'living' differs.

You don't even have to leave your own country to sometimes see those differences, sometimes you don't have to leave your country to live them also.

livings not always in the control of those trying to survive.


----------



## garza (Dec 16, 2010)

I give to no organised charities. I know that there are some that do good, but I'm afraid that the bit I can give will be swallowed up paying 'administrative costs'. There are too many individuals for whom a little help means all the difference. There are kids who need money for school fees, elderly people who need money for utilities, single mothers doing the best they can for whom a large tin of KLIM, five pounds of pigtail, five pounds of corn flour, ten pounds of rice, and ten pounds of black beans make the difference between going hungry and keeping herself and her kids fed. 

I am bitterly disliked by the organised charities who make a big deal out of giving away a few baskets of food at Christmas time or playing host at a one-time lunch for poor kids or paying a few utility bills once a year. Those bills come due every month. That single mother needs food all the year 'round. When I ask the big-time charities 'where are you in January and February and the rest of the year?' they get angry.


----------



## Baron (Dec 16, 2010)

I'm against giving to organised charities who pay ridiculous hourly rates to the marketeers who sign people up on the street for them.  One of the major charities that I support is Tear Fund, who keep overheads minimal.

I also agree about giving to that single mum in need or the family who are struggling to meet bills.  You don't have to open your eyes too wide to see the need around you and it's the easiest thing in the world to slip a few notes into an envelope a anonymously put it through a letter box.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

I hear what you are saying, I gave to a charity who were fighting leprosy once, I have always felt that it is a disease that we ought to be able to wipe out like smallpox, they must have spent more than I gave them on begging letters asking for more money. Having said that I have sent Oxfam gifts and never had any jun mail from them (so far), and I don't think I have ever seen their reps in the street like many of the others.
It is probably easier for you in Belize to give directly, gaza. Not a lot of real poverty along the kent/sussex border, they don't lack beans and rice but x-box games on the whole.


----------



## JosephB (Dec 16, 2010)

There are plenty of organized charities that have relatively low administrative and fund-raising costs -- and they provide services that simply can’t be provided by people on an individual basis. All it takes is a few minutes of research to find out how much of your dollar actually goes to fund programs.


----------



## Baron (Dec 16, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> I hear what you are saying, I gave to a charity who were fighting leprosy once, I have always felt that it is a disease that we ought to be able to wipe out like smallpox, they must have spent more than I gave them on begging letters asking for more money. Having said that I have sent Oxfam gifts and never had any jun mail from them (so far), and I don't think I have ever seen their reps in the street like many of the others.
> It is probably easier for you in Belize to give directly, gaza. *Not a lot of real poverty along the kent/sussex border,* they don't lack beans and rice but x-box games on the whole.


 

I'll need to borrow those rose tinted specs of yours, Olly.  I've worked with an organisation which helps the homeless and I can assure you that there is no area of the country that is untouched by this problem.  There are also people in all areas struggling to make ends meet on inadequate state benefits which are threatened by further cuts.


----------



## garza (Dec 16, 2010)

In Belize there would be a real problem with dropping cash in the letter box. There may very well be a crack-head in the family who would get the money first.

I never give money. I pay the electric and water bills for an elderly man, but he has no idea who I am. I have his account numbers and pay his bills through Atlantic Bank's online bill paying service the same time I pay mine. 

There's an elderly lady in Cayo I've met one time, and I doubt she remembers me. All she knows is that she has 200 dollars credit at a grocery store every month. She has a totally worthless grandson she loves very much, and if I gave her money he would talk her out of it. She's not allowed to get any kind of alcohol or tinned goods at the store. The grandson would drink the one and sell the other and she would be no better off. She can only get basic commodities like rice, beans, flour, fresh vegetables, and such. I would love to let her get little treats for herself, but I know she would never enjoy them.

For younger folk the help I give does not come cheap. Kids who are in school have to maintain a fairly high grade-point average and get good marks for attitude and deportment. The kids don't know me, but I have a chat with their teachers every six weeks and get a full report.

Single mom's get help with basic living expenses but also help to get into some kind of training programme that will lead to employment, at which point I can move on and help someone else. 

My recurrent budget for this sort of thing is a thousand a month, give or take a bit. That's not so grand as it sounds, because that's Belize dollars which are pegged against the U-S dollar at two for one. (Which leads to my answer when people ask how old I am and I say I'm 35, U-S.) 

There are also the one-shot pleas for help which come to me from many quarters. I believe I mentioned in anothr thread about spending 60 dollars for a school desk. Some rural schools lack the money to provide a desk for every student, and a teacher from one such school called me about a kid who needed a desk and didn't have the money. Without a desk he couldn't attend school. I paid for the desk, then through the teacher added the boy to my recurrent list. 

Now what are we talking about here? Total less than a thousand U-S dollars a month. That's movie, beer, and cigarette money for a lot of people. But ask some of those people to spend even a hundred a month to help keep some kids in school, or help some elderly person on a tiny pension meet basic living expenses, and they'll call you a communist. I know. I have that happen.


----------



## JosephB (Dec 16, 2010)

None of this is rocket surgery. The important this is to give -- how you do it and to whom doesn't matter that much -- as long as it's something you feel is worthwhile and it helps someone.


----------



## Patrick (Dec 16, 2010)

JosephB said:


> None of this is rocket surgery.


 
Now that does sound complicated.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

I know people living on state benefits, Baron, and it is a struggle, finances are often their main topic of conversation, but they have clean water and clothing, their children don't have swollen bellies and stick like arms and legs and when they need to they can go to a doctor. I supplement my pension with bits and pieces, or I would have trouble living on it myself, but these things are relative, a huge part of the world earns less than a $ a day, has no clean water and no health care at all.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

JosephB said:


> None of this is rocket surgery. The important this is to give -- how you do it and to whom doesn't matter that much -- as long as it's something you feel is worthwhile and it helps someone.


I am an old age pensioner living in E. Sussex on a basic income of just under £70 a week, it is bitterly cold here at the moment and I have a chronic illness (Wegener's Granulamatosis). If you would care to drop me a pm I will send you details of how to make the funds available to me, many thanks.


----------



## JosephB (Dec 16, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> I am an old age pensioner living in E. Sussex on a basic income of just under £70 a week, it is bitterly cold here at the moment and I have a chronic illness (Wegener's Granulamatosis). If you would care to drop me a pm I will send you details of how to make the funds available to me, many thanks.



there was a qualifier in there:

"...as long as it's something you feel is worthwhile..."


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 16, 2010)

JosephB said:


> there was a qualifier in there:
> 
> "...as long as it's something you feel is worthwhile..."


Blows my chances then, sick and old, likeley to be dead soon, not worth it, no pay back there.


----------



## garza (Dec 16, 2010)

Olly - That works out to about 900 dollars a month in Belize dollars. You can live quite well on that, and here there is no heating bill because only in the upper elevations of the Mountain Pine Ridge (where almost no one lives) does the overnight low temperature ever go below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and then only on very rare occasions. There are families here living on 300 to 400 dollars a month and making it okay. An occasional day labourer, what we call 'catch and kill', makes 25 dollars a day, which, provided he works steady, is about 15 dollars less per week than your £70, and I know many of them who raise sizable families on that amount.

So I think I'll not be adding you to my recurrent budget. Maybe cap. two if the need arises.


----------



## Writ-with-Hand (Dec 16, 2010)

garza said:


> Olly - That works out to about 900 dollars a month in Belize dollars. You can live quite well on that, and here there is no heating bill because only in the upper elevations of the Mountain Pine Ridge (where almost no one lives) does the overnight low temperature ever go below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and then only on very rare occasions. There are families here living on 300 to 400 dollars a month and making it okay. *An occasional day labourer, what we call 'catch and kill', makes 25 dollars a day*, which, provided he works steady, is about 15 dollars less per week than your £70, and I know many of them who raise sizable families on that amount.
> 
> So I think I'll not be adding you to my recurrent budget. Maybe cap. two if the need arises.



Are you sure about that? That's about what you make in Milwaukee for day labor work - pay that day - after taxes and van rides are deducted. And I'm pretty sure we earn more bread in the USA than in little third world Belize.


----------



## Guy Faukes (Dec 17, 2010)

garza has an interesting approach, I think that along with donate/volunteering to deal with the horrific poverty in developing nations, people should remember to deal with local poverty. 
It's a shame it still exists in the developed world, but it is even if you don't see it. 
I think local action is a bit more... accessible, with some charities, you can see the effect you're having directly.



Writ-with-Hand said:


> Are you sure about that? That's about what you make in Milwaukee for day labor work - pay that day - after taxes and van rides are deducted. *And I'm pretty sure we earn more bread in the USA than in little third world Belize.*


 Well... you'd be surprised after the recession.
But seriously, there are some middle class areas all around the world where people do make decent flow. Not a lot of them... and they might not have benefits or much job security but decent flow nonetheless.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 17, 2010)

Writ-with-hand, remember he is talking Belise dollars, so $12.50 US, minimum hourly rate here is a bit over £5.00. It is all relative, I could move to Belise, but I would be much poorer because the medication that I get for free here would probably cost a fortune. There was a program about Indian ex-pats who had returned home the other day, one was saying that as a fairly successful buisness man they had had a small apartement in Manhattan, in Mumbai he lived in a mansion with grounds and had half a dozen servants, a gardener and a chauffeur. 
guy_faukes, I just get your sigrature at the top of the page, shouldn't that be the "Great Culling", Curling is what Scotsmen do with stones on ice.


----------



## The Backward OX (Dec 17, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> sick and old, likeley to be dead soon


 
join the club


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 17, 2010)

It won't get any sympathy here mate, we don't count as worthwhile.


----------



## Nick (Dec 17, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> Not a lot of real poverty along the kent/sussex border.



Just because they're more hidden away, doesn't mean they're not there. I know plenty of homeless folk in my area that are friendly when you chat with them. Like Baron says, every place has poverty. Still, I know what you mean. I know more people that are doing very well for themselves than I do those that are struggling.


----------



## garza (Dec 17, 2010)

writ-with-hand - I've lived here 16 years. I'm a reporter. I know the law. I have friends who work catch-and-kill and have since they were youngsters. If you like I can send you a copy of the Fair Labour Practises Act. Yes, I'm sure.

A day labourer working 45 hours a week will make 135 dollars for the week. Do remember that the exchange rate is pegged two for one against the U.S. dollar, so that 135 dollars is the same as 67.50 in U.S. dollars, except we are not in the U.S. Living expenses can be very high if you want a U.S. lifestyle here, but reasonable for a traditional Belize lifestyle. I know families in the Toledo District who have cash incomes of under a thousand Belize dollars a year and do okay. They raise all their own food, sew their own clothes, live in houses made of bush stick and thatch, and travel on foot or bicycle. The little income they have comes from selling vegetables and fowl in the market in Punta Gorda. The money is used to buy the few things they can't furnish for themselves. On a dollar scale they are in the depths of poverty, but they never knew that until NGO and UN people started going there and telling them how poor they are. 

The only real poverty we have in Belize is on the South Side of Belize City where people are not in a position to provide for themselves. The crime rate is high, the quality of life is low, and so far efforts to improve conditions have not been very successful. 

And you might consider revising your condescending attitude toward 'little third world Belize'. When I bother, which is not often, to pay attention to news from your country I'm very happy to be where I am.


----------



## garza (Dec 17, 2010)

xO - We have a big club with many members, some of whom will go away soon to cry among the rain clouds. There always will be others to take their places. 

I myself sometimes feel a cold hand clutching my arm, but I shake it off and go on.


----------



## Writ-with-Hand (Dec 17, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> Writ-with-hand, remember he is talking Belise  dollars, so $12.50 US, minimum hourly rate here is a bit over £5.00. It  is all relative, I could move to Belise, but I would be much poorer  because the medication that I get for free here would probably cost a  fortune. There was a program about Indian ex-pats who had returned home  the other day, one was saying that as a fairly successful buisness man  they had had a small apartement in Manhattan, in Mumbai he lived in a  mansion with grounds and had half a dozen servants, a gardener and a  chauffeur.
> guy_faukes, I just get your sigrature at the top of the  page, shouldn't that be the "Great Culling", Curling is what Scotsmen do  with stones on ice.



Okay... my bad. I thought he meant $25 in U.S. currency. 



garza said:


> writ-with-hand - I've lived here 16 years. I'm a reporter. I know the law. I have friends who work catch-and-kill and have since they were youngsters. If you like I can send you a copy of the Fair Labour Practises Act. Yes, I'm sure.
> 
> A day labourer working 45 hours a week will make 135 dollars for the week. Do remember that the exchange rate is pegged two for one against the U.S. dollar, so that 135 dollars is the same as 67.50 in U.S. dollars, except we are not in the U.S. Living expenses can be very high if you want a U.S. lifestyle here...
> 
> *And you might consider revising your condescending attitude toward 'little third world Belize'. When I bother, which is not often, to pay attention to news from your country I'm very happy to be where I am.*



:lol: Fair enough, garza, I really don't like using the terms "third world" and "first world." But I'll use them for emphasis at times. Prefer the terms I "low-income nations" and "high-income nations" I learned in my first semester sociology course.

But I was just trying to emphasize the point Belize doesn't have much money and is essentially a "nobody" on the world political stage.

Belize is also a very dangerous country and not just poor. From the images I have seen it looks rather a bleak and depressing existence. Of course I'm just judging from what impression I got from the Ross Kemp episode on Belize.

We have Las Vegas, Maybach's, diamond studded pink gold chains, fifty thousand dollar watches, big houses, all the women that can buy and several different climates to boot. The United States has it. The only question is can a young man attain it? In Belize a young man's best hope is a tin roof shack and a row boat. If he wants to keep it he has to come up with a gun or a machete.


----------



## garza (Dec 17, 2010)

You have altogether the wrong impression of Belize. I don't know who Ross Kemp is, but life in Belize is anything but bleak and depressing. If you happen to be a very poor person on the South Side of Belize City, you might see life that way, but even then it's doubtful. The crime rate in that particular part of Belize is high, but not as high as in some areas of the U.S., and very small compared to many other countries.

In Belize a young man or woman's best hope is a university education in some field that's not too crowded. I'm sponsoring a young man enrolled at the University of Belize studying architectural engineering. He will transfer next year to a technical university in Chetumal, Mexico, for graduate work. He plans to open his own construction company when he finishes his studies and build affordable houses for lower income people, but also houses for the high end of the market where the real money is. The U-B campus in Belmopan is crowded with young people just like him headed toward professional vocations.

Belize is a regional leader in agriculture technology. The Research and Development Department at Central Farm is in partnership with the Republic of China Technical Mission to Belize in developing new products and promoting non-traditional crops. Part of the same complex is the UB Faculty of Agriculture where future extension agents, agricultural technicians, and progressive farmers are trained. 

Tourism continues to thrive, despite the economic problems of the North. Recessions that hit the U.S. and Europe have an immediate negative impact on tourism here, but because of Belize' natural beauty and rich cultural history the tourists do keep coming, even if there are fewer of them. 

Belize at one time was the centre of Lowland Maya culture in Central America. We have three large groups of Maya in the country, the Mopan, the Kekchi, and the Yucatecan, each with their own traditions and language. One of the major tourist attractions is the abundance of Mayan sites around the country. Many young men who've not been able to afford a university education have trained as tour guides and make good livings, either as employees of tour companies or as independent operators. 

If you've eaten lobster at a restaurant in the U.S., except in the northeast, you've likely eaten Belizean lobster. The export of lobster, tilapia, and shrimp has been an important part of the fishing industry here. 

The one public and two private hospitals in Belize City are equipped at least as well as hospitals in towns of comparable size in the U.S. I've had very serious surgery three times, twice in Belize City and once in Santa Elena, Cayo, and I was treated for stroke in Belize City. 

I could go on all day. Belize is a small, modern nation. The Mayan villages of the South, with houses of bush stick and thatch roofs, not tin, are traditional villages built the way the people want them. I was in a house in Dolores Village a couple of years ago, a traditional Mayan house with high pitched thatch roof, stick walls, dirt floor, hammocks and wooden stools for furniture, a fire hearth at one end where the lady of the house was cooking dinner, and at the other end a really big flat-screen tv equipped with dvd player and large stereo speakers where the kids were watching music videos. One day the family may decide to build a concrete house, but that probably won't be until the kids I saw grow up and have kids of their own. All the children are in school and the two who are in high school are planning to go to university and study agronomy. 

I'm sitting in a rural village at the other end of the country. There are just over a hundred people in the village, mostly Mestizo but with three or four gringos. My telephone and modem are connected by regular copper cable to a Belize Telecom terminal building about two hundred yards away where my line connects to a nationwide optic cable network that provides me with high speed Internet service and, without question, the best landline telephone system in Central America. That same building houses cell phone repeaters that are part of the nationwide BTL wireless network. A young man interested in computers or electronics can realistically look forward to a career with BTL or with BTL's SMART Phone competitor. Of course there are also the many computer companies around the country that sell, install, and maintain computer systems for large retail merchants, banks, media houses, and such. A thriving broadcast industry also has room for young people interested in radio or tv careers.

Name any career path you want, and you will find young people in Belize on that path. And nobody uses row boats. Several people in my village are fishermen. Their favourite 'paddles' are big Yamaha outboard engines. In the November issue of the WF Newsletter you can see a picture of one of my neighbour's skiffs. There's even a picture of his son riding the bow on page one.

I settled in Belize in February of 1995 and I assure you that if existence here were bleak and depressing I would not have remained.


----------



## bearycool (Dec 17, 2010)

and just like that, my bagel tastes like ashes....


----------



## garza (Dec 17, 2010)

I went and glanced through his segments. He has taken all the worst parts of Belize, the parts most people are never in contact with, and made it sound like the whole country is run by gangs. I understand his reasoning, though. The worse he makes it sound, the higher his tv ratings. If he provided a balanced picture no one would watch. 'Boring' would be the comment. 

This is an example of what I mean when I tell news-writing workshops that you can lie with facts. Everything he shows is real. But he dosen't show everything. If I were on the outside, if I didn't live here, if I didn't travel around the country often and talk to all sorts of people everywhere, including gang members, I would be afraid to set foot in Belize. And his picture of Belize could well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he can scare off enough tourists and frighten away enough investors and discourage enough trading partners he can turn Belize into what he seems to want it to be. 

I might have given the impression in my previous post that I believe everything in Belize is perfect. Of course it's not, and if I go on and on about the positive parts of Belize, making it sound perfect, that, too, would be a lie; a lie built on facts. The truth is that Belize is no worse than most places in the world today, and is a lot better then many places.


----------



## Olly Buckle (Dec 17, 2010)

It is an ex-British colony, independence was delayed because of Guatemalan claims but we left it with a democratic, elected parliment. After a ten year run by a single party the ruling party was deposed in elections recently and the system proved stable. With a population of a bit over 300K there are fewer people than in many US cities, there is going to be a fairly stable social network. Their main problem is with drug smugglers using them as a route to the Carribean to feed the American cocaine habit.


----------



## Writ-with-Hand (Dec 17, 2010)

Alright, garza, if most or all of that is true then I guess I stand corrected.

But online sources still rank Belize as having one of the highest homicide rates in the world. 

List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## Writ-with-Hand (Dec 17, 2010)

Forgot to add: Those are noble things you are doing for others, garza.


----------



## Guy Faukes (Dec 17, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> guy_faukes, I just get your sigrature at the top of the page, shouldn't that be the "Great Culling", Curling is what Scotsmen do with stones on ice.



 The Scotsmen do it too?! Well, I bet they don't have giant stones that float in midair and annihilate entire cities! 

Kidding, of course. We're stereotypically known to have it here too.


----------



## garza (Dec 17, 2010)

Writ-with-Hand - There are some points to consider when looking at murder rates in Belize, or anywhere else, for that matter. 

First, those statistics are posted on Wikipedia, so even if I knew them to be accurate I would doubt them just because of that. I followed up the two references given. One is from El Salvador, the other is from a gringo expat from whom I would not buy a used car. I then called a friend in the Belize Police Department. He confirmed the figures given in the report from El Salvador, but pointed out what the figures do not show. 

Most of the murders are in Belize City. Poverty and criminal activity of all kinds are highest in Belize City.

A majority of the victims and the shooters are involved in drugs. If you take away drug dealers killing other drug dealers it knocks the numbers down quite a bit. Of course murder is still murder, but as you look behind the raw totals you begin to see a different picture. 

I lived for four years in Belize City when I first came here in '95, and after more than six years in Belmopan moved back to Belize City for another two years. I never had a problem. I've lived in places far worse than Belize City and I know the rules for survival, so that may have helped. While street smarts are no guarantee, they do reduce the odds of sudden death on the sidewalk. 

Second, with our small population, every murder makes a significant difference in the murder rate. If you were to divide the major cities of the U.S. up into neighbourhoods of 300 thousand each, and then look at the murder rate in each of those areas, I'm betting you would find some with rates far higher than Belize.

And Olly makes a good point about the U.S. addiction to cocaine. Cure that and you cure many of the problems in Central and South America. When drugs are shipped through a place like Belize, a percentage gets dropped off as payment for services rendered and those bartered drugs end up on the street.

What I do to try to help others is not so noble after all, but just continuing to follow the moral code drummed into me by my grandfather. If you have the ability to help someone live a better life, and you fail to give that help, you have done wrong. Granfa told me before he died that if I broke that rule the Little People would cause me pain and suffering. I do not want to anger the Little People.


----------



## Baron (Dec 18, 2010)

This post started out with considering how those who are in fortunate circumstance could consider this in relation to others.  It's gone from there, through the self congratulatory to a discussion on homicide statistics and crime rates.  If someone wants to debate this, or any other crime statistics, perhaps a thread could be opened on the debates board.

How about getting it back on topic by putting in some suggestions about how to recognise need and ideas about how to give in a way that applies beyond the holidays?


----------



## Lamperoux (Dec 18, 2010)

i feel that we as a human race have failed horribly. we cannot support such a large portion of our population. sure, in our own societies there's a gap between the wealthy and middle class that's huge. but it's nothing compared to the gap between us and many men women and children in poverty stricken nations. look right now to wehre you are sitting. you're on a computer, you're probably in a warm place. there's probably a tv somewhere in your house. there's a fridge with loads of food, and you have a car to drive and buy more. you have a job, a job that give good pay, with a relatively easy workload. then look to the rest of the world. there are people who are too hot too cold etc. there are children dying, failing to thrive (medical term), and left without parents. there's no tv where they are. there's no food, just despair. the even sadder thing is that if we gave up soem of our own comfort we could SAVE LIVES, not just increase the standard of living for people, but save their lives. we argue over politics, we argue over football, baseball, cricket and all other sports. we talk about how we can't get this or that. that poster that cumby put up is plain proof of it. we all are most likely in that 8 % of the world, that other 92% is not so lucky.


----------



## Writ-with-Hand (Dec 18, 2010)

Baron said:


> This post started out with considering how those who are in fortunate circumstance could consider this in relation to others.  It's gone from there, through the self congratulatory to a discussion on homicide statistics and crime rates.  If someone wants to debate this, or any other crime statistics, perhaps a thread could be opened on the debates board.
> 
> *How about getting it back on topic by putting in some suggestions about how to recognise need and ideas about how to give in a way that applies beyond the holidays?*



How about I donate myself for conjugal visits to an incarcerated woman? I'm supposedly rather endowed. Good charitable gift or no? 

Unlike garaza I don't care about the elderly - not in the USofA - they lived their pimpish lives from their 20's to their retirement. And while my future and everyone of Gen X throughout the East Coast to the Midwest was being outsourced to the union busting South, then to "third world country's," they were off playing golf. They were looking at Laverne and Shirley and we were looking at the Gangster Disciples and the U.S. prison system. They can bite my left nut if they've lost or spent their retirement bread. One of my grandfather's would reminiscence about how he would drink on the job (allowed in the brewery he worked in) and get fired, and walk down the street the same day and find another good paying job. Those jobs and times don't exist anymore - in the USofA.

I am sadden though when I see film or photographic images of how those in low-income ("third world") nations live. Sometimes it's just horrific. I live a pimps life compared to them. It does not seem fair either. I've squandered my life but many of them are simply hardworking people with little to no opportunities. I really don't care about Americans - not most anyways - because the majority of us have the world laid at our feet.


----------

