"Was Bull Mountain always gaunt and bare?"

Mickey gave me an early Christmas present last weekend. It is a book called Humanist Anthology. I highly recommend it. On page 32 there is a quote from Mencius, the second most famous Chinese philosopher (next to Confucius). He lived more than 300 years BC.

This is what Mencius wrote:
"The Bull Mountain was once covered with lovely trees. But it is near the capital of a great state. People came with their axes and choppers; they cut the woods down, and the mountain has lost its beauty. Yet even so, the day air and the night air came to it, rain and dew moistened it. Here and there fresh sprouts began to grow. But soon cattle and sheep came along and browsed on them, and in the end the mountain became gaunt and bare, as it is now. And seeing it thus gaunt and bare, people imagine that it was woodless from the start. Now just as the natural state of the mountain was quite different from what now appears, so too in every man (little though they may be apparent) there assuredly were once feelings of decency and kindliness; and if these good feelings are no longer there, it is that they have been tampered with, hewn down with axe and bill. As each day dawns, they are assailed anew. What chance then has our nature, any more than that mountain, of keeping its beauty? To us too, as to the mountain, comes the air of day, the air of night. Just at dawn, indeed, we have for the moment and in a certain degree a mood in which our promptings and aversions come near to being such as are proper to men. But something is sure to happen before the morning is over, by which these better feelings are either checked or else utterly destroyed. And in the end, when they have been checked again and again, the night air is no longer able to preserve them, and soon our feelings are as near as may be to those of beasts and birds; so that anyone might make the same mistake about us as about the mountain, and think that there was never any good in us from the very start. Yet assuredly our present state of feeling is not what we began with. Truly...'If rightly tended, no creature but thrives. If left untended, no creature but pines away'."

Who among us is unaware of a person, or even an entire class of people, who are oppressed in their lives as those that Mencius referred to more than 2300 years ago?

Outrageous Media Comments - on mental health

While the most visible theme of this blog is getting to the root of homelessness and in so doing, intervene in the process, the following comment serves to illustrate how many decision makers in America think that mental illness can be as easy to fix as simply waking up one morning and declaring yourself "cured".

Read the whole article at this site.

Michael Savage:
"Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' Autism -- everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, 'Don't behave like a fool.' The worst thing he said -- 'Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot. Don't act like a girl. Don't cry.' That's what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You're turning your son into a girl, and you're turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That's why we have the politicians we have." (July 16)

Most Outrageous Media Comments of 2008

It is no wonder that we have no safety net in America left. With buffoons like these representing the "religious right", it will be a cold day in Hell before these so-called Christians come up with a plan to end poverty.

These quotes were compiled by Julie Millican with Media Matters for America on December 11th, 2008. Be careful who you vote for in the future. These guys all come from one party, and they are all male.

MICHAEL SAVAGE
Savage: "Do you think a person on welfare has the right to vote? I don't. Why should a person who is on public assistance maintain the right to vote? Tell me why. Where is it written that they should have the right to vote? I support them, and they should have the same vote I do? That would be like saying an infant has the right to vote or an insane person has the right to vote. Why should a welfare recipient have the right to vote? They're only gonna vote themselves a raise." (October 22)

BILL CUNNINGHAM
Cunningham: "[U]nlike many countries in the world, Steve [Malanga, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of City Journal, an urban policy journal], we have fat poor people. We don't have skinny poor people. Ours are fat and flatulent. You know, people are poor in America, Steve, not because they lack money; they're poor because they lack values, morals, and ethics. And if government can't teach and instill that, we're wasting our time simply giving poor people money." (October 28)

CHRIS BAKER
Minneapolis radio host Baker: "I don't think homeless people should vote. Frankly. In fact, I have to be very honest. I'm not that excited about women voting, to be honest. I'm not. OK? You know? But that's just me. I'm a pig, and that's fine. All right? And we'll see that, I'm sure, on a lame-ass website very soon. But I don't think hobos ought to vote at all. They're nuts. And I think that there needs to be a little more care in who votes." (October 2)

It all started when we volunteered.

On December 10th, 2008, my partner and I took a stand in a national day of protest and took the day off work. As part of the protest, we committed to volunteer in the community. One thing led to another and we ended up at the Broward Outreach Center serving food to the homeless.

That changed a great many things in our lives, and mine in particular.

I have created this blog to record the lives of people who I continue to meet as Mickey and I honor our commitment to not make December 10th the last day that we visit the Broward Outreach Center homeless shelter.