I am innocently whiling away my hours listening to a little "Morning Edition" on NPR when I happen to glance at a link for this article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104107045. I start getting a little tight in the throat as I am reading it, so trying to distract myself, I glance over at my Facebook page and I read this post from my friend, Kathy: "Health care reform is not optional. As a former social worker, I can tell you there are numerous individuals in need of medical assistance and only able to get limited help if any. I had to deny or terminate benefits for folks that would probably die without it. In fact, I had a client who died a month after having to cut of his medical benefits. For him, I send this out. Get involved & make it happen." along with a link to this: http://www.healthreform.gov/. Needless to say I about blew my stack COMPLETELY when I started reading some of the pedantic, high brow, philosophical discussion of poverty I have seen in some time in the commentary after the "richless" article (I might add, I listen to NPR regularly).
My comments started out trying to be illuminating, but finally descended in to my typical hysterical defensiveness like I get when I am really deeply RIGHT about something that means a lot to me that others don't ever seem to get. So, if you're interested, you can read my comment thread (Obviously, I am Fndr Bndr). But in case you don't have hours to waste on the internet skimming over another's petty rant, I will sum it up thusly: While I didn't want to get in to a pissing match over who has it bad and who has it worse, on some level, when does it occur to you that your perspective on life is so skewed that you can't even conceive that REAL SUFFERING exists around you? Why does it never occur to some people that their highly educated, WASPy snobbery is not enough? When is buying lattes that protect the rainforrest or sending a hundred bucks once a year off to the World Wildlife Fund not enough to make up for the enormous, unfair disparity between people who have their basic needs met and those who don't? Is anyone even listening to what they are saying when they post about this stuff??
I must say, I thought that the mainstream media was coming a long way, when on Mother's Day on John King's broadcast, he highlighted a homeless single Mom and talked about Moms who do what they have to do to get by. (Sorry, I don't have the link to the story, but if I find it I'll put it in here later.) We don't use the term poverty enough in our media in my opinion.
Anyway, end of rant.
Here are a select few pictures from MY Mother's Day.
