I saw this on the news:
I know things are getting bad. Every day I hear about more people losing jobs and homes, but I guess so far I am in a safe middle area and haven't been directly affected. Watching this was a sobering reality.
Unfortunately, many people still don't see how we are all connected. People still want to distance themselves from the homeless.
In the not-so-distant past, it has been easy to overlook the homeless and blame them for their own problems. It has been easy to distance ourselves from the poor.
It is no longer easy.
Very rapidly, no matter how much we try to distance ourselves, the poor and homeless are creeping into our lives. How long will it take us to figure out that we are all connected?
When one suffers, we all suffer. (1 Cor. 12:26)
Showing posts with label economic crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic crisis. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Ant and the Grasshopper
One of the classic Aesop's Fables is the Ant and the Grasshopper. In this fable, the ant worked extremely hard storing up food for the winter while the grasshopper encouraged the ant to slow down and relax with him. By winter, the ant had plenty of food stored and the grasshopper died of starvation.
The moral of the story: "It is best to prepare for the days of necessity."
------------------------------------------------
However, a More Politically Correct Bedtime Stories version seems to be more accurate and more related to our current situation.
Summarized version:
As the Grasshopper went throughout his days, he made a conscious choice to reject the "bourgeois, money-grubbing concept of 'making it.'"
Ant, on the other hand, worked hard to store up grain and stayed irritated at the grasshopper for his lack of responsibility.
By the end of the summer, the ant had had worked so hard he had "developed a peptic ulcer, ...thorax pains, and lost most of the hair on the top of his head. ...and his wife left him." To protect his goods, the ant installed a securty system.
When times got hard, the grasshopper had to humble himself and ask for food. The ant pointed out his laziness and irresponsibility, reminded him of our free market system, and refused to help him.
Unfortunately for the ant, the mantis/auditor came.
All of a sudden, the story began to change. After the audit, contested charges, suit, countersuit, and the ant's attempt to escape to the Caymans, the ant couldn't avoid the charges. After he was sent off to a correctional institution, his wealth was redistributed to community efforts, helping the grasshopper to begin organizing "a program for young area insects eager for cultural interchange..."
The lesson to think about:
Irresponsibility and avoidance of the rat race vs. collecting and hanging on to "things" at any cost...
Which is the worse crime?
Friday, March 06, 2009
Don't beg
I hate when people ask for money. I never know how to respond. It bothers me that people will walk around asking random people for money. It bothers me on many different levels. Where are their family and friends? If I needed money, I wouldn’t wander around asking strangers for money, I’d ask my family and friends.
But maybe they don’t have family and friends who have anything either…or maybe their family and friends don’t want to help.
Is there a reason their family and friends don’t want to help?? Maybe they know something about the person I don’t.
So, if I have something, shouldn’t I give it?
I don’t want to encourage a habit. Plus, again, it really bothers me that people walk around asking for money. Why aren’t they employed? Why can’t they seek out the services that will help them get the skills for a job?
In Turner Courts, seeing the adults (usually addicts) standing at the store asking for money encouraged the young children to do it as well. They’d stand at the store and ask anyone who walked in the store for 50 cents so they could buy a soda or some chips.
Don’t beg.
That’s what I’ve been taught.
But when you have nothing…or, in a child’s mind, when you feel you don’t have enough, is it ok to beg? Is begging more my issue than theirs?
So did the guy at Taco Bell really need $2 for a bus ticket or something else? Was it a bus ticket, drugs, or something much deeper that I didn’t take the time to find out about? What makes a person begin to ask random strangers for money? Was he from that community and all of a sudden decided he needed to go to Baylor so he went up the street to ask people for $2, hoping to gather enough money? Has he known he needed a visit to Baylor for a while?
Is it any of my business?
I didn’t give the money. I felt bad. He didn’t look like a drug user.
I’m afraid I may have made the wrong decision. Is there a right decision??
Who’s to say that his request isn’t a devastating result of our current economic situation??
How do we handle situations like that in a way that always maintains a level of dignity—for myself *and* for the other person??
But maybe they don’t have family and friends who have anything either…or maybe their family and friends don’t want to help.
Is there a reason their family and friends don’t want to help?? Maybe they know something about the person I don’t.
So, if I have something, shouldn’t I give it?
I don’t want to encourage a habit. Plus, again, it really bothers me that people walk around asking for money. Why aren’t they employed? Why can’t they seek out the services that will help them get the skills for a job?
In Turner Courts, seeing the adults (usually addicts) standing at the store asking for money encouraged the young children to do it as well. They’d stand at the store and ask anyone who walked in the store for 50 cents so they could buy a soda or some chips.
Don’t beg.
That’s what I’ve been taught.
But when you have nothing…or, in a child’s mind, when you feel you don’t have enough, is it ok to beg? Is begging more my issue than theirs?
So did the guy at Taco Bell really need $2 for a bus ticket or something else? Was it a bus ticket, drugs, or something much deeper that I didn’t take the time to find out about? What makes a person begin to ask random strangers for money? Was he from that community and all of a sudden decided he needed to go to Baylor so he went up the street to ask people for $2, hoping to gather enough money? Has he known he needed a visit to Baylor for a while?
Is it any of my business?
I didn’t give the money. I felt bad. He didn’t look like a drug user.
I’m afraid I may have made the wrong decision. Is there a right decision??
Who’s to say that his request isn’t a devastating result of our current economic situation??
How do we handle situations like that in a way that always maintains a level of dignity—for myself *and* for the other person??
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Education funding in the Stimulus--Are we finally looking to our future?!
Though I am passionate about education, I didn't vote for Barack Obama based on his stance on education. Actually, I didn't hear him talk much about education. It disappointed me, but I believed that, overall, he had the right vision so I voted for him anyway.
So, when I saw the New York Times article, Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education, I was pleasantly surprised...and actually very excited.
The $150 billion designated for education would more than double the current education spending and would go toward "school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students." It's about time we started thinking about education in a much broader sense than "No Child Left Behind."
There are large amounts of money allocated for Title I (used to help improve schools with large concentrations of poor children) and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which ensures services to children with disabilities, including special education). From what I can tell, it doesn't look like the stimulus package is doing much to change the schools' level of resources and innovative implementation (which is what really needs to happen to help our poor schools get up to speed with the wealthier, more resourced, classrooms) but is more about infrastructure, staying on target with what President Obama has suggested since the beginning. It's not innovation and new technology, but I believe it is a move in the right direction. I just hope the states and the individual districts choose to spend those funds in a way that benefits the children.
Another thing that really excites me about this stimulus is it's focus on college. The plan is to increase Pell grants for low-income students by $500 to $5,350 for 2009-2010 and to $5,550 for 2010-2011. College needs to be just as accessible as our K-12 public education system if we are to develop leaders for our future.
The stimulus will also increase annual loan limits of federal Stafford loans for undergraduate students by $2,000. This will not completely pay for a student's college experience. Even with the $500 increase per student in the Pell grant, though, students will still need to take out loans...which leads to another positive part of the stimulus package...the Stafford Loan.
Stafford loans allow students to take out loans without their parents' credit scores. This is important for those students whose parents are uninvolved or have such bad credit that the student is ineligible for private loans after maxing out their Stafford loan. This is also good because most of the students taking out Stafford loans will be paying them back themselves (without parental assistance). Stafford loans offer much lower interest rates than the private loans that have become such a necessary part of a college education.
The other great thing about the stimulus package is that it will expand Work Study and service opportunities for students, allowing an additional 200,000 students to get paid for work in a field related to either their major or community service. In other words, all of the money being provided is not free. Work study allows the student to gain work experience and understanding, while also providing cheap labor to the university and surrounding non-profits...thus stimulating and helping the economy in more ways than one.
With education, we can begin looking toward our future and planning how to get out of our economic downturn. It baffles me when people like Rep. John Boehner [R-OH] says that "providing ... $140bil in education funding... is not going to do anything, anything, to stimulate our economy, to help our ailing economy."
I don't know where he thinks he got the knowledge that has allowed him to get this far in his career...I would guess it had something to do with a good teacher and a good education.
Short-sighted vision like Boehner concerns me. Hopefully we will have enough others in the House who will be able to see that if we only solve what is right in front of us, we have not really solved anything at all and will be back in this same position sooner rather than later.
So, when I saw the New York Times article, Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education, I was pleasantly surprised...and actually very excited.
The $150 billion designated for education would more than double the current education spending and would go toward "school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students." It's about time we started thinking about education in a much broader sense than "No Child Left Behind."
There are large amounts of money allocated for Title I (used to help improve schools with large concentrations of poor children) and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which ensures services to children with disabilities, including special education). From what I can tell, it doesn't look like the stimulus package is doing much to change the schools' level of resources and innovative implementation (which is what really needs to happen to help our poor schools get up to speed with the wealthier, more resourced, classrooms) but is more about infrastructure, staying on target with what President Obama has suggested since the beginning. It's not innovation and new technology, but I believe it is a move in the right direction. I just hope the states and the individual districts choose to spend those funds in a way that benefits the children.
Another thing that really excites me about this stimulus is it's focus on college. The plan is to increase Pell grants for low-income students by $500 to $5,350 for 2009-2010 and to $5,550 for 2010-2011. College needs to be just as accessible as our K-12 public education system if we are to develop leaders for our future.
The stimulus will also increase annual loan limits of federal Stafford loans for undergraduate students by $2,000. This will not completely pay for a student's college experience. Even with the $500 increase per student in the Pell grant, though, students will still need to take out loans...which leads to another positive part of the stimulus package...the Stafford Loan.
Stafford loans allow students to take out loans without their parents' credit scores. This is important for those students whose parents are uninvolved or have such bad credit that the student is ineligible for private loans after maxing out their Stafford loan. This is also good because most of the students taking out Stafford loans will be paying them back themselves (without parental assistance). Stafford loans offer much lower interest rates than the private loans that have become such a necessary part of a college education.
The other great thing about the stimulus package is that it will expand Work Study and service opportunities for students, allowing an additional 200,000 students to get paid for work in a field related to either their major or community service. In other words, all of the money being provided is not free. Work study allows the student to gain work experience and understanding, while also providing cheap labor to the university and surrounding non-profits...thus stimulating and helping the economy in more ways than one.
With education, we can begin looking toward our future and planning how to get out of our economic downturn. It baffles me when people like Rep. John Boehner [R-OH] says that "providing ... $140bil in education funding... is not going to do anything, anything, to stimulate our economy, to help our ailing economy."
I don't know where he thinks he got the knowledge that has allowed him to get this far in his career...I would guess it had something to do with a good teacher and a good education.
Short-sighted vision like Boehner concerns me. Hopefully we will have enough others in the House who will be able to see that if we only solve what is right in front of us, we have not really solved anything at all and will be back in this same position sooner rather than later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)