(Originally posted 08/06/14. Reblogged 08/15/24.) Some weeks ago, I stood in line awaiting check-in at the shelter. This place charges $3 a night. I was holding my money in my hand, and someone playfully tugged at it. I snapped. I said, “You don’t value your life much, do you?” Minutes later, I explained this to someone else. I said, “Don’t take a man’s last dollar.” “Why not?” he asked. I said, ” ‘Cause that’s the one he’ll die for. That’s the one he’ll kill for.” Don’t tak

In the days immediately following the initial mistrial of Baltimore Police Officer William Porter on charges relating to the death of Freddie Gray, Bounce TV broadcast Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing several times. I could not help seeing this as a commentary on the mistrial. Bounce had likewise shown the film several times in the days following the April 2015 riots.

A Nation of Cowards Jeffrey Snyder suggests that carrying a handgun is both a right and a duty of every law-abiding citizen. This is hard for me to relate to; as, for all practical purposes, no such people exist in my world. Gun lovers’ slogans include, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Forget laws; in my world, only outlaws have guns now. I have no impulse to join them. Snyder offers a fair assessment of the failure of gun control laws to keep guns out o

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 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

(Originally published 06/06/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.) This has been a very heavy day, and there’s a lot here. For the moment, at least, I will not try to organize this. Darkness at times appears to serve Light; destruction, to serve creation. It is a rude awakening for me to have to revisit the world of infantile self-centeredness, apparently to have to re-learn correctly this time (at age 57!) some things I didn’t learn correctly on the first go-round. A world where i

They'll bleed you dry.