This is the third of three posts about entitlement: 04/19 – “Entitlement(s): Attitude and policy” 04/26 – “How I became homeless” Today – “When needs are met” I have no trouble sharing my candy, when I have plenty. Jim Snyder even offers people cigarettes, when he has plenty. When needs are met, one becomes generous. Until needs are met, one will be selfish. And it’s a good thing: I got in the fix I’m in via decades of trying to be unselfish, and I need to reverse that now.

This is the second of three posts about entitlement: 04/19 – “Entitlement(s): Attitude and policy” Today – “How I became homeless” 05/03 – “When needs are met” This is a long post. One may want to avail oneself of a navigation resource here. ———— ♦ ———— I don’t write about easy things. At this writing, a more immediate question is how I’ve stayed homeless, which has prompted no small amount of anger and depression in recent weeks. The short answer appears to be that I’ve st

This is the first of three posts about entitlement: Today – “Entitlement(s): Attitude and policy” 04/26 – “How I became homeless” 05/03 – “When needs are met” Let’s get rid of (the term) entitlements “In 2012, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone represented 44 percent of spending; all entitlement programs were 63 percent. But it’s hard to control entitlement programs because their constituencies are so large.” It makes sense to me that, as Samuelson proposes, we sho

I normally only publish on Mondays (comments on the news), Wednesdays (recycling old posts) and Saturdays (substantial new pieces). A couple things happened this morning that seem to me urgent enough to warrant an off-schedule post. I’d invite e-mail subscribers to hold on to their e-mail copy of this post, and will explain why. Bookmarks: Give from abundance • Out on a limb ———— ♦ ———— Give from abundance A portion of today’s “Ask Amy” is directly on point with my reflect

Prayer for myself often takes the form of imagining myself climbing up a ladder out of a pit, the pit being my current circumstances of poverty and homelessness. Getting out at the top represents a return to the normal life of the American mainstream. I didn’t start with a ladder in there, but I decided to add one to symbolize the various structures and tools that others have made available to me — and eliminate the possibility of clawing at loose earth.