6:29 p.m. - 2003-12-28
Reflections
Quiet day today, housework, puzzles, surfing the web, and curling up for a nap with the cats. Lazy day, it's allowed once in a while.
Interesting story in the Australian newspapers. Aussie. Apparently, exhaustive research by a British historian has determined that a pretender sits on the throne of England right now. According to historical records, Edward IV's father, Richard, was 160 km away at war with the French, when his mother, Cicely of Neville, conceived him with the assistance of a sturdy French archer. Cuckholded. The researcher in question has found the true heir - a direct descendant of Edward's younger brother, the Duke of Clarence - on a sheep farm in Australia. Too Right! King Michael I - the first Plantagenet since the late 1400's. No wonder Henry VIII's ghost is acting up at Hampton Castle these days. The resulting news special is to be aired shortly in Britain.
Interesting contrast on the evening newscast the other day. The female anchor was talking about a seasonal charity and the people who had organized it. She spoke with admiration of the their efforts - and well deserved. In the course of the story, she mentioned the estimated homeless population in Calgary was at 4000 people. That triggered an exclamation of shock from the male anchor.
She turned to him and said "Yes, isn't it great that someone would show such kindness at Christmas?" His response was, "Isn't it shocking that so many people in Calgary don't have homes. I had no idea it was so bad." Both reactions are fair comment, but the difference in perception is instructive of one of the root causes of the destitution.
Most people see the half full glass. The volunteers that knock themselves out trying to help the homeless. They do deserve praise. The problem is, that a lot of other citizens vicariously take credit to themselves for the kindness of those others and feel it absolves them of the responsibility of helping their fellow citizens too. The provincial government has exploited that attitude by destroying the social safety net, that we used to be so proud of, by a thousand cuts over the past decade.
Volunteers who struggle to fill in the gaps regularly wish out loud that it wasn't downloaded on to their shoulders; that the whole of the community should assist those who have fallen on hard times. The huge gap in resources that forces so many people to sleep under bridges in freezing cold weather, is a direct result of the actions of the government abetted by the indifference or urging of so many other Calgarians.
For example, one story in a local newspaper about a single mom's struggles from the time she was very small and unable to defend herself. That elicited only letters to the editor criticizing her for smoking and commenting that meant she really didn't deserve help. Agreed about the smoking. No one should smoke because of the damage to their own and others' health and the costs to our already overwhelmed healthcare system. So when all those people who wrote in willingly give up their vehicles that cause the same damage for the same reasons and threaten our environment as well, and take public transit instead, maybe they will have the right to point fingers hmmmmmmm? In the meantime maybe they should be charged full freight for the real costs to the community of their travel habits,(road construction, fuel acquisition, environmental cleanup, snow removal, police and emergency services) they'd likely find they were impoverished too.
In the meantime when the same volunteers ask for more assistance for the agencies that support their efforts, our government accuses them of creating an industry out of helping the poor for their own profit. Not, the agency workers' wages and benefits are about half of what the average Member of the Legislature make, for example. Volunteers, by the way King Ralph, don't, by definition, get paid nor are many of them well to do either. The half empty glass.
"Are there no poor houses ...." No there aren't.
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