oh Kaylah, that was so eloquent and moving, like your country road, gently meandering through the margins of society then arrowing in to the heart of the issue - what sort of people do we want to be? We have to hope that justice is stronger than greed and beneath aspirational self-interest, people also possess core values of decency, empathy and civility and above all, kindness. Clear vision, Kaylah. Thank you.

I loved your post Kaylah. I'm afraid that the War on Poverty has become the War on the Poverty Stricken. I am so happy to hear about the cord of wood. We must all do our part. Why can't the greedy and arrogant see that by serving the folks with less that we all become richer?

As a teacher at a school where the vast majority of students come from families that struggle to make it, where many students only eat when they are at school, I felt very moved by your words. The passing of the beauty for "upgrades and updates" often saddens me. The man with the wood will probably never be named but some of us will remember and hopefully be inspired to do what we can, too.

Thanks for posting.

Your non-condemnation of these people is heart warming. I, too, appreciate your post. A family member of mine was stricken with schizophrenia and he chose to spend his nights outside, homeless, although he had family nearby and a warm bed inside. Without the proper medication, he could not work, with the voices in his head. He tried to stay away from people, as their talking to him always confused him even more.

I am glad these people have a little 'home' where they can stay sheltered and fairly warm. Perhaps someone will pitch some blankets or coats or even extra food for them. But, I need to warn you not to get too friendly. If they are mentally unstable, they are not to be completely trusted as they might not know their own actions. And it may be, like you speculated, that they have some criminal background and are just unable to find a place to rent. If they are just down on their luck, no matter what the reason, I hope it turns around and they have better days ahead.

I, too, prefer driving to town through the countryside rather than taking the highway. Happy Thanksgiving.

Kaylah- Beautiful story. There are a lot of people, who need help, especially with our struggling economy.

On a brighter note, one of the local Spokane news stations set a goal of 10,500 turkey dinners to be donated, with the help of a local grocery store. They knew it was a lot and they were hoping people would really help out for the holidays. They received over 11,000 dinners in about five days...so plenty of dinners for everyone and a start on Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! :)

Your story moved me, and made me think. I love the kindness of actions, not just spending some money. It takes thought to know exactly the right thing to do.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Rosefolly

Happy Thanksgiving, Oh Ancient Nose :)

I read somewhere that probably about 80 to 90% of homeless people are mentally ill, alcoholics and drug addicts. That makes their plight more understandable since it makes it almost impossible for them to "fit in" with society. But they also need to eat and find shelter and take care of their basic needs like anyone else. Those who make their struggle to exist easier in some way have my utmost respect.

Ingrid

I have cooked and cooked and cooked and cooked. It's a done deal. When I served the pumpkin pie, Pat sez, "Something's up. Did you leave out the sugar?"
I thought I left out the cinnamon.
"It doesn't call for sugar."
Somebody grabs a cookbook.
"Oops."

They grabbed the wrong cookbook. It's called "Savory Pumpkin Pie." You're cutting edge, Kaylah.

Here is a link that might be useful: Savory Pumpkin Pie

Excellent story, Kaylah. Thanks for the reminder.

What a great post. I am so glad to know that other people think like I do. I was so dismayed of late when my stepnephew spewed hatred of people who struggle. His own parents struggled and both died young. I can't understand why he has no compassion. When I argue that health care is a right..I get told to "get a job and get your own insurance". Well I don't mind telling you I have always been blessed with a job and I have always had insurance. But I have compassion for those that don't. Oh what a mess

Well, I've been declared uninsurable, so don't get me started there. I looked into the so-called help for the uninsurables from the new health law. $450 a month. Yeah, so, at least I'm not 61, self employed, with no health problems. $667. The thing is, we did pay, all of us baby boomers. We're still waiting for them to hold the insurance companies accountable for that money.
I once had 5 employees, and my insurance bills were $12,000 per year. Gone, that money is gone.
You should tell your nephew that he too, will get old, and if we don't get some laws on these freaks, he, too, will get ripped off.
Today, I was driving by my overpass, and some old guy in a pickup truck had brought them a deer, all trimmed and gutted. He laid it on the edge of the gully and told them to come and get it.
These guys under the overpass look young and fit. They get called Dangerous Violent Offenders, and are haunted forever. Parole officers, crapola. You can look them up forever. There is a guy on the state website who is dead.
They are forced by law to report their crime to every job opening and to report their residence to the cops. At that point you can get out your cell phone and look up their address.
DVOs can be anything from a barfight to murder. But nobody bothers to explain what the story is on these websites.
If it is not safe to let them out of jail, then they should be there, with heat and food.
We never ever saw such a thing when I was young, people living out in the cold. People used to rent out chicken coops with an old gas heater and a toilet for 25 a month. Beats nothing.

I love the tale. You should call a Socialist Christmas Tale. After all, I think we all would like to help others that we view as down trodden... It's especially heartwarming when we help a whole class of people by the force of law and funded through the confiscation of someone else's money...I know I sleep better at night. Only problem with this is that we eventually end up running out of someone else's money... Too bad we just can't figure out a way to show the down trodden how to fit better into society. You know, contribute in some meaningful way and live relatively happy. I guess that ends up in a circular reasoning logic fallacy since the reason they are down trodden is because they have no money and to rise above that, they need money.

I guess then, the thing to do then is proceed with the thought that charity starts with you and you are the one that needs to take action rather then be content to only describing the injustice in a poem in public venue expecting someone else to do something. I'm sure you have a couple of bedrooms you could share with these folks... I think by sharing your home, it will make you a more happier person by knowledge that you have make this world a better place.

Happy Holidays.

Thank God for the National Registeries. At least you do have the opportunity to check out who has moved in next door to you, who you hire, etc. if you choose to use this resource as it was set up to be used. Leads me to believe many of those who posting on this thread have not been victims or effected by a violent crime.

There are a lot of folks in this world who ain't got your best interests at heart. I feel better knowing that at least SOME of them have a short leash on them.

is there some weird assumption that poverty or misfortune equates with crime or violence. many people are only a payslip or two from finding themselves in much the same misbegotten position. Then, of course, one may feel caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. Starve or rob? Of course, there will always be those who simply cannot countenance the idea that our supposedly civilised society is often less charitable, benevolent or tolerant than the worst favelas and slums of the developing world so we walk by the wretched and the homeless AND WE BLAME THEM for their own misery. When one has a stake in society, we generally behave but when one has absolutely nothing left to lose, what then.

Gosh, Campanula, thank you for sticking up for me, though I wondered if you meant to say that I automatically assumed these guys were convicts.
You are correct, and I am sorry for that. I did, but I have my reasons.
After thinking about it for a day, I've decided it is perfectly okay if people want to call me a socialist. That is an insult bandied about a lot this year, thanks to Glen Beck. My favorite Senator is Bernie Sanders after all, a self described socialist. Fact is, I'm fond of people named Bernie. I got to wondering this evening whatever happened to Bernadette Devlin, the youngest woman member of the British parliament at the age of 21.
I met her when she spoke at the college here in 1974. I was writing for the college newspaper. I have never heard since a greater speaker than her. She was hands down the best speaker I have ever heard in my life.
At the end she said, "We must have socialism, we will have socialism."
I got the address of Sinn Fein from her and said I'd mail her my story, but I never did. I did not like how my editor edited my story.
I read up on her tonight. Her post in parliament lasted til 1975 and she and her husband were shot up by the Ulster Brigade. She quit Sinn Fein and joined a socialist party.
She never got socialism. The dismal costs of Ireland's bank collapse and real estate hustles are going to be removed from every social program Ireland has.
Well, one might argue they'd be better off if they'd listened to her.
In 2003, she was branded a terrorist and banned by the United States, even though she had spoken widely in the United States. She had spoken in Montana in January 1n 1974, when it was 30 below.
And I never forgot.
While I am surprised to find myself a socialist, being a self employed small businesswoman, I guess I must be. Having carried the insurance for five employees, what would you do if one got really sick and couldn't work? You could carry the premiums for a few months, but what then?
Yeah. It's a waste of money. And this person would be in terrible trouble.
And that is true even if you are a multi-national corporation.
In my youth, my husband and I had a disaster. He had run an in plant print shop for an insurance company which went belly up.
We took a job running the printshop at the state prison. The job was sold to him as a way to rehabilitate wayward youth, part of their industries program.
When he got there, his crew consisted of two murderers, a bank robber, a rapist, and a dude who had busted up a bar.
They weren't going anywhere. The thing about murderers is they actually have the most stature at the jail, because they're not professional crooks. They generally had a reason for what they did. So long term guys get the jobs.
He came home, rather sickened, telling me about the blood he saw on the sidewalk, but gamely started to do the job.
In the course of this, you really get quite humble. One of the murderers finally came up for parole. He was in his 50's. They spent almost a year convincing him to go and try it.
They got rid of the rapist. One convict gave my husband a tape of his guitar music. Beautiful.
Another gave him a ring. "Don't forget us."
The other murderer was a Vietnam veteran. He was on the front lines, so accustomed to killing people that he couldn't stop it.
He commonly warned people. "Don't do this. I'll kill you."
I have no idea what goes on now, but in 1985 prisoners were allowed to get a life in some fashion.
The industry convicts threw a party for themselves, their bosses and their wives. They paid for it. We got steak, a baked potato, and corn on the cob.
I went up there and we partied. I had just had a baby. I stood there staring at the guard tower, the fences, and the guy up there with his gun. Then I turned around to find 30 guys staring at me.
I weighed 130 after having a baby, but was startled to find myself a beauty queen.
Well, I began to go around talking to convicts. One showed me his pretty good architectural drawing he had made of the house he was gonna build when he got out. The bedrooms were on the third floor and the laundry was in the basement. He claimed his wife which he had not got yet needed the exercise.
I talked to one guy who showed me his plants in the furniture area. He had raped and killed a woman and burned her body in the forest.
They got rid of the rapist later. They always did.
Another fella showed me his flower garden outside, where every marigold and petunia had been watered by carrying water by hand. That flower garden was not there, the guards did not know, nor did they have any idea how he had gotten the seeds.
They kept cats, who wandered into the prison, and fed them out the windows.
Nobody saw them.
I told these guys, if I got a chance, I'd tell their story, and I just did.
But there's more.
We went there, entranced by the cheap real estate prices. We could have bought a mansion on the nicest street in town for $65,000.
After two years, we got out, unable to deal with it.
We went back home, and got a loan. We bought up the print shop of the insurance company for 13 ,131.13.
Our shop grew and shrunk. At one point we had five employees, but we did one thing wrong, depending on your point of view.
We never asked anybody if they had records. One employee had a terrible problem. She had been busted by the Feds. All she had to do is testify against her friends. She refused, and spent three years with one of those ankle bracelets. Through it all, the other employees began to tell their stories. They all had records.
All of these people are thoroughly rehabilitated now. Two have homes and good jobs.
We swore off employees forever, having done our time.
No doubt greybird and zzyz do not understand living under a bridge at ten below. They live in California and Texas. They do not understand there are no rules to being designated a DVO. Any judge can do whatever they like.
I thoroughly think I have walked the walk, instead of the talk.
And after 13 years, of posting on this rose web, I don't often see my old friends here anymore.
Perhaps it's time to go away.
Merry Socialist Christmas. God Bless America.

And a merry Socialist one back to you, Kaylah. Of course, I mean socialism, not the hateful totalitarian of China and not the fearful submission of the USSR or North Korea.And certainly not the hyperbolic tripe handed about by Tories and Tea lovers on both sides of the Atlantic. However, we are sold such appalling lies from governments in thrall to rapacious and callous business principles where the sole, absolute imperative is to make money off someone elses back. An insane game was played by banks and property developers to gamble with a basic human right- a home. People who owned property found themselves in a position where the rise in house prices guaranteed annual profits far greater than salaries yet the means to aquire these properties - wages - actually remained static. A speculative bubble, in other words. But not based on tulip bulbs, or gold, or stocks and bonds but HOMES. We all know the horrendous outcome. At the moment of maximum vulnerability, at least here in the UK, a vicious propaganda war has targeted the poorest ten% of the country, cutting benefits and jobs, closing libraries. If only similar zeal was invested in extracting taxes from those megacorps. In regulations with teeth. More and better government, not less, leaving everything to an anarchic 'market' In the US, you have it even worse since not only shelter, but also your healthcare has been predicated on ability to pay and the imperatives of making a profit. Greed has never been a good moral arbiter. These things - food warmth, shelter aren't optional - they are basic survival needs. I have been homeless and have never been able to afford a property (we rent from the council - I guess the US equivalent are housing projects - but we are lucky to do so. Council housing did not always have the low-life connotations it has now (A complete myth, although I am in genteel Cambridge). This is town hall socialism, along with a series of safety nets such as free milk, free shoes and school meals. Of course everyone paid taxes and rates and people who were better off subsidised those less well-off. Surely we cannot have such poor grasps of history to recognise the corrosive effects of large numbers of dispossessed and immense discrepancies between rich and poor. We all pay, one way or another. Surveillance, segregation, loss of autonomy, fear, for ourselves, our children - because we have f***d it up good and proper for them. My daughter works 2 jobs (she is 5 months pregnant) and earns enough to pay for a room in a shared house and eat a modest diet and that's it. No savings, a huge student loan. Lots of people work full time and still earn so little that they have to have their wages supplemented by family credits - in effect, subsidising the employers who get away with paying even more meagre wages because people are so fearful of losing even those jobs. Our children are living in lock-ups or squats, little boats on the river, sheds in parents gardens, vans. Min Wage salary in Cambridge £11,700 pa, cheapest property (studio flat) in Cambridge, £169,000. A market is supposedly tied to demand - if prices are too high, the market cannot sustain them and prices devalue, unless, of course, demand is increased by shortages - like unemployment where a certain amount is always good for business, we are seeing no affordable housing stock being built while the stuff which is going up is of the most abysmal quality (we are builders and our parents where skilled tradesmen so we know what we are looking at)
And yes, Kaylah, how we treat our prisoners is a reflection on the priorities of our society. We believe our jails are stuffed with murderers and rapists many of whom will always be damaged beyond redemption. But they are mainly filled with the young, the poor and the desperate, drugs, shoplifting, prostitution, a bitter process with numerous victims. Once you could get an education in prison, learn a skill, actually be in a position to pay back some of the investment - it was almost an opportunity and a chance to repay some of the investment in your rehabilitation. And those quite complacently smug folk who resent being enforced to pay for public services which benefit others as well as themselves must have some independent means or have extraordinary optimism that they, or their loved ones will never find themselves facing unemployment, losing health insurance then getting ill, then homeless, then divorced, then a wreck - well, hey, hope you always sleep well at night.

Thank you for being able to discuss social problems in civil fashion. It's unusual anymore.
Let's compare prices.
Minimum wage? Yours is higher, and your housing price sounds the same, except for our foreclosures. You can pick up those 169,000 condos around here for 69,000.
They just sit there, though.
There is lots to rent here because everybody left. Our state unemployment rate is 8 percent.
All the construction guys left, and several big projects went to the bank.
And we have lots of junky, empty, new buildings, too.
Free milk? You need 3 bucks for gas to get to town to take their class where they lecture you on nutrition.
At least they quit demanding you get a babysitter, too.
Welfare? $330 per month, and you have to take their job hunting classes. It was $230 in 1973.
Jobs in the paper? 34 today. We used to have pages and pages. Everybody tells you to go apply on their website.
Power bill? $200 average in the winter.
Telephone? A hundred.
Gas to get to town? $300 a month for our two cars.
The kids are in a terrible jam here, too. I read this piece where it said the unemployment problem will be solved when the baby boomers retire, in nine years.
That in fact we will have a worker shortage.
Hard to say. It's kinda like that old Elvis song. "Ya said you was high class, but that was justa lie.!"

kaylah, thank you for sharing your experiences.

My daughter's life has been subsumed in somewhat the same way yours was. She too walks the walk and my grandsons and her husband to some extent walk it with her - I think I must have done something right in my bleeding heart, politically incorrect lifetime as I sent a daughter into the world with a passionate mission.

Many have forgotten or never knew - it is up to those of us who do know to "tell the story and tell it straight".

My very best to you and all who believe in the value of every life and our personal responsibility to one another.

I suppose I apologise for harping on about non-rose stuff but I am tired of the silences when we hear of an elderly person dying every 12 hours in East Anglia, I am tired of hearing about repossessions in terms of hundreds and thousands of properties going to the banks - with not one human face. Can you possibly imagine, the fear, the terror of losing a home during what is shaping up to be one of the coldest winters on record. Mostly, though, I am ashamed to walk past people begging, with sad little placards and I am even more ashamed that an awful lot of people are making huge amounts of money on the back of this human degradation. We have hostels here, where a filthy room with a bed and a sink costs £320 per week. As you might have guessed, this is the area I worked in for 25 years with no contracts, no pensions and no job security. The so-called voluntary sector - or what basically amounts to corporate charities. My work was based in the housing sector, ex-offenders and long-term homeless people. It became impossible to suspend cynicism seeing services diminish and corruption thrive. Look, our own leaders have been exposed as lying, venal and self-interested so lets maybe talk about hypocrisy. Three cheers for Wikileaks and other investigators who work to expose the underlying truths. The current ruling cabinet consists of 70% of millionaires. No, this is not politics of envy but merely questioning the ability of our non-mandated govt. to REPRESENT their constituents.
Here, we, the people of the UK, used to own our own transport networks, our communications and our utilities. Renting a property involved a social contract between the landlord, the tenant and also the council. Fair rents and regular scrutiny, as in the rest of Europe where ownership of property was much lower, was the norm after the horrendous scandals of homelessness during the 60s and 70s. It didn't take long for everything to be dismantled under some bleak, laissez-faire economic revolution, much the same as is advocated by your Tea party and their masters. The banking crisis merely offered an opportunity to fastrack a brutal ideology to dismantle the state, leaving the only worthwhile measure of value based on money. It doesn't matter how you got it, as long as you have.
And hey, me and my family will be spending Christmas morning working at our local homeless shelter before gearing up for the next round of battles in the New Year when we face losing our secured tenure if our earnings creep above a certain level(not likely though) and being pushed into the cruel private rental market - the ruling means that all adult income in our house is taken into account...and as I have three grown up children living here, unable to even consider finding an affordable home of their own, we get screwed every way. - you know, rents higher than mortgages, 6 month leases....ho, and as for my little garden. I have been eyeing up my shed at the allotment, recently, with considering eyes. My daughter is saving for a house truck for her and her baby.
Oh, Kaylah, thanks for peering over the parapet - we find ourselves actually disguising hardship as a sort of badge of shame.
And Lottirose. There must be many of us affected in some horrible way and no, writing poems and whinging has little effect but that is no excuse to turn away and do nothing.

Add to all that the fighting of senseless, horrifically expensive foreign wars which have broken the spirits and minds of so many young soldiers who come back almost insane, and yet there is no money to adequately care for them and help them to adjust to a society they can no longer understand after their stint in hell.

Ingrid

You got that right, Ingrid. We marched and marched and Blair still took us into an indefensible criminal war. As did Thatcher. A little foreign excursion is so often a neat pick-me-up for a failing politico and our arms dealers get fat, our media turn into jingoistic buffoons and the general populace are supposed to swell with patriotic pride. Sheesh! Our prisons are disproportionately stuffed with ex-army personnel too.

http://roomintheinn.org/

The organization with which my daughter works - she has been instrumental in raising the funds for the current construction and is now in the process of looking at the issue of foster children aging out of the system with no place to go.

She is a trained scientist by profession but for the last few years, Room In The Inn has been her primary professional focus. When I tried to make the link live it did not work so you will have to cut and paste but it is worth a look.

"No doubt greybird and zzyz do not understand living under a bridge at ten below. They live in California and Texas." Maybe not 10 below, but it does get pretty danged cold here in the panhandle.

"They do not understand there are no rules to being designated a DVO."
Actually, there is no DVO registry here in the US. Just Sex Offender Registry.

"Any judge can do whatever they like."
One has to be convicted of a sexual crime to be on the Sex Offender Registry.

"I thoroughly think I have walked the walk, instead of the talk."
I don't know about actually walking the walk. 15 years of working in forensic mental health care has worked towards giving me a different perspective on the subject.

Socialist/socialism = what is yours is mine is his/hers.

Lottirose, I spent quite a lot of time reading up at roomintheinn.org. It sounds like a serious commitment to ending homelessness, and a beautiful facility.
I read a story one time about a city in Ohio that had created little rooms with a hotplate, dorm fridge and a shower. They were getting people who had been outside for years, and they said many of them began to rehabilitate and get jobs.
The best luck I saw around here was when a rundown old hotel here began renting rooms by the month. No credit check, inquisition, etc. These old beatup hotels used to be everywhere.
We have a homeless shelter. It is just a house. Some wealthy person was driving through here at Thanksgiving and tried to volunteer at the homeless shelter. We didn't have one, so he bought the house.
They had bunkbeds at the house, but they didn't get very much response, so they turned it into a day shelter. But it has made a difference. People can get a bath now. They can apply for jobs. Some of them go sit at the library and read, and keep warm.
Duh. A bath, after all? Is that it? Here's another thing. Low income apartments never have washer/dryer hookups. You can pick up an old set for 50 bucks.
By the time you pay the rent for your apartment and go to the laundrymat, the cost of washing your clothes plus the rent is the same for a regular apartment.
Campanula, the difference between the story of your life and the version we're told is quite different.
Let's see. Your tax rate is 50%. You have so many cradle to grave entitlements that it is bankrupting your state. Your medical care system is broken. You have to wait a year to get an operation.
They call it the European welfare state or 'failed socialism.' It sounds more like a worldwide real estate junkyard, and everybody who lives there is a busted ATM.

Hmmm. I pay tax at 20% on income over my personal allowance. The Higher Rate of tax is levied on those with an income exceeding £150,000, which may be common in the US, but I hardly feel sympathy for them here :)

In recent years I've had two hardcore, expensive cardiac operations including consultancies, diagnostics, post-operative care and six months convalescence on full pay, for free and with no wait.

I guess I live in a different England.

The idea that welfare for the poor and a free healthcare system is what has caused the current financial crisis is a ludicrous piece of Right-wing Conservative propaganda which I've seen used over and over in the US to cover up the real villains, and to say to Americans 'Yes, our welfare and healthcare systems are really bad - but lookie what you'd get if we went down the European (or Canadian) route'.

I am (generally)in agreement with campanula politically, and of course hate to see the injustice and effects of poverty and unequal wealth. It should have been conquered by now, but unfortunately too many of what was once a proud working class were only too happy to buy into the Thatcherite/Reaganite dream to 'own' (hah!) their houses and buy shares in what used to be free. So many, in fact, that the once-Socialist Labour Party had to compromise all of its ideals in order to get back into power under Blair. All we have now is a poor choice between three parties of the middle class. But this has been true all over the more enlightened countries of Europe and Scandinavia, and the anger we feel is not directed toward social policies, but against the bankers, traders and corporate thieves who have robbed our economies of the means to progress toward an equal society. We have been led too far down the path of 'my Right to accumulate individual wealth' regardless of those kicked to the roadside.

Thanks Jon,
Yes, our basic tax rate is now 25%. It used to be 33% but people always want something for nothing.
There is some truth that the costs of the welfare system are indefensible BUT, lets break this down and look a little more closely. Housing benefit. Now this is a recognition that many people can not afford a roof over their heads so local councils are given sums of money to subsidise low income families to pay rent. At one time, you could get this to pay interest on your mortgage too but now, you have to be out of work for 9 months before this benefit kicks in. Essentially, what it is is a subsidy for landlords and it also helps to maintain housing costs at a ridiculously high level. Same with benefits such as family credits, How can it be right that a 40 hour working week has to be subsidised from the govt. because wages are kept below the accepted poverty level? Who is benefitting here. Walmart? Tesco? Still, I suppose there will be employment opportunities aplenty in little private militias and the growing surveillance industry - Cambridge city council has spent £2million on CCTV cameras and are happily using newly minted 'terrorist' (what a gift) laws to spy on post offices and paperboys (I kid you not). Binmen, streetsweepers, library assistants are being sacked and their jobs filled by private companies. They are sometimes re-employed for 30% less money. There is something else being lost here - civic responsibility, communal pride, sharing, watching out for each other. We always had a thriving volunteer ethos in th UK which is now being cynically exploited (Big Society indeed!) by removing funding from a million little community resources in the hope that the voluntary sector will fill the gap. Well, they won't. They can't. Ultimately, the libraries run by a little handful of middle class volunteers are open less and less. No investment. No means of heating buildings. Nothing works for free. What a con.
People like myself and my family who grew up immersed in a spirit of cooperation and social justice are now in the invidious position of having to realise that our good-hearted efforts to help out simply result in someone else's reduncancy. So no, it is not just lack of money which is damaging our society, but a selfish imperative of what's mine is mine and the rest of you can go to the wall.You may not see it like that, Greybird but heres hoping you and yours manage to remain sufficient unto yourselves forever). This is not the world I wanted my children to inherit....and hey, I have not even mentioned the insane and greedy rush for a finite amount of natural resources so some folk can have a TV in every room while the developing world drowns.

So your tax rates about the same as us for working class folks and your minimum wage is about the same if I figured out pounds versus dollars and out of that you get universal health care? Wow.
I remember watching Sicko and they said England has had universal health care since 1948. I never knew that. And I was dumbstruck, wondering how that would feel. Things like being flat broke the day before payday and a child spikes a fever of 105. Being ripped off by insurance companies three times and the bills were ten thousand.
Well, 60 percent of the people here are for universal health care. The governor of our state is for universal health care. When will we get it? When fish fly.
We did a brochure for the single payers. I did the type and design for free and we gave them the paper. They went on over to the town hall Obama threw at the airport and got the best spot first. The tea party showed up with a fire truck and tried to make them get out. They refused and ended up yelling at each other with bullhorns. "And you, with the professionally designed brochure!"
"And you, with the fire truck!"
Meanwhile, Governor Schweitzer introduces Obama with, "They've had universal health care just across the border since 1968. Ain't nothing to be afraid of."
Yep. When fish fly. After the big meeting, Obama went fly fishing up river from the sewage treatment plant. Don't know if he caught anything......
We used to have a bad rental situation here, but not anymore. They did what they always do around here. They left.
I wish I could mail you guys some condos. But I spose we'd better knock it off and talk about roses. Now, here's a related question.
I've been reading that you can put eglanteria rose hips in cooking oil and make a potion that will take away scars. Do you suppose that's true?

Kaylah and Suzy,
Thank you both for what you've said. I'll add that the Italian public health system, here in the tolerably functional North, at least, has always worked very well for us.
Merry Socialist Christmas!
Melissa

OK Kaylah, I truly hope your healthcare bill goes through. You know, human happiness is not tightly predicated on income per se but on vaguer things such as the right to employment, freedom from pain, the right to health care, a belief that our governments are working for all people (that's a tough one for you, Melissa, with the priapic, immature, rampagingly corrupt buffoon at the helm in Italy) and so on. Whenever the arguments turn to a strict redistribution of wealth, complex factors reveal that income does not necessarily equate with contentment. I guess we really need a firm baseline of human rights and a fair universal system of paying for them. Essentially, we need warmth, food, clean water, shelter - everything else really is optional. How hard can this be?
So, in my own little way, I will continue to guerilla garden with my seed bombs and saplings. We (daughter and I)still have 2 apple trees to plant so we are trying again to plant them on public land around our housing estate. If they can survive 3 years, there will be apples for our kids without resorting to Tesco and without using pesticides, fungicides or insane amounts of non-bio-degradeable plastic. More important, in some ways, than money, is knowledge - I swear my first grandchild will have a drill and hammer in their little hands rather than a fluffy toy. I have promised a rose (I have seeds sown and a little hybridising notebook at the ready).
A merry sharing and loving christmas to you all.

I really have difficulty understanding what is so big deal about the socialism. Well apart that it is remnants of a political brainwashing of a cold war, over for 20 years. Somehow Eastern counterpart moved on from it, when Western got carried away celebrating a victory and does not really know anymore what date is today, not to mention hangover.

There also is a distinction between soviet, communism, stalinism and socialism. While the first three are somewhere on par with the fascism, socialism is pretty much valid way of running the country. In fact, if not for the worker rights and other typically left wing agenda, by now we all would be back to slavery, bending our backs to the multinational corporations. In fact, what the multinationals do in the 3rd world countries is very close to slavery if not just exactly that.

As for the West, there has to be a way to leash the leaches, aka the swollen ranks of managers, CEOs and other pests. There are reasonably little people who are actually worth what they get paid, the rest just happened to tag along on the good pay check. I know that first hand, as I have been working in management sector for last decade and no matter how you look at it, it ain't fair. Some recognition to the management is good thing, multiplying the payment x10 with every step up in management isn't.

Then again we have it relatively good here in NL, everyone gets same basic health insurance (costs around 100 euros per person, children up to age 18 for free), minimal wage is around 800-1000 euros, which is enough to live normally, family house comes at around 200.000, but it is possible to find something half that price in more remote outskirts. Of course, showering in gold is not an option, but it ain't too bad either.

What's up with the Christmas wishes already by the way? Isn't it still ages away? :S
Or is it just an effect of "Xmas from China" in the shops that starts as soon as Halloween stuff is out... :/

True, Elemire, we have managed a decent way of living here in the UK but we are seeing, along with quite asounding cuts, a propaganda war where scapegoating the least able to defend themselves is de rigeur. The cutting is deep and uneven - some people, with tracking mortgages will even benefit from them. Not only that, we are undermining every right which has been gained since the second world war in that we have less social mobility than we had in the 1920's, our health system is being privatised and dismantled into a two tier system, as is education. 60% of americans still believe that hard work is all that is necessary to fulfil the 'dream'. Not only is that not the case, the corollary of that sort of thinking is to blame the poor for their own condition while simultaneously denying them the needed help to attain a median standard of living. 22% of children living below the poverty line in the UK are from households where parents are actually working in full time employment. Still, we could go round the houses all day, quoting research and statistics - if eyes are blind and ears are deaf..... Still we have means of communication and numbers on side. A little bit of sly subversion can go a long way.

Kayla, thank you for your heartfelt story. We have such a great country, but continue to struggle with ways to see that everyone has some basic needs (food, shelter, medical care), We don't have to become a socialist country to do this, but we do need to change some of our priorities, What makes me saddest of all is how some folks feel they have to deride the needy to justify their opposition to an alternative. Hopefully at this time of year (how nice if it were year-round) we look beyond ourselves and our homes and families and reach out to someone who isn't so fortunate.

Nope, hard work does not cut it at all in contemporary world, sly opportunism is what gets one there. We got some cuts here, which as well are somewhat a step back (as for example in low income families it is not worth for a mother to work anymore, as the compensations for kindergarten got screwed up , which again gets women back into the kitchen to some extend). There also are issues with European legislation for social apartments, as the boundaries they set are somewhat too high for NL, because there is a huge group of people that now have to leave the social apartments and rent from the free sector, what they cannot afford with the prices as they are in the big cities, and they cannot get mortgages with their payments either.

As with the poverty, it somewhat depends. There is a group of people which are in the situation because society shuns them there, or they have a job that is essential, but underpaid (for example, a cleaner). There also are people though who mess up the business, or take things that they cannot handle and so on, sometimes incapable to realize that they suck in what they try to do. It really does not amaze me anymore when some business goes poof, as there really are people with "bright ideas", who somehow get to the position of power. Then again, somehow they often manage to scramble back up and end up as another CEO of company X...

Oh well, it is glorified crisis - really handy to blame every failure or problem on it. x)

So, we have three Europeans here describing a tax system in which they pay 20-25% of their income for taxes and get back free medical care. Sounds fair to me.
It doesn't sound like socialism to me. I've seen studies on websites for bills before congress to create a single payer system which seemed to cost about a hundred a month. They planned to make the employer pay half and the employee pay half. Which is better than we've got now.
I finally realized that after two years of reading the really strange bumper stickers on the pickups around town and listening to Glen Beck aficionados raving at the front counter is those people are the biggest socialists of all.
They will give you the shirt off their back.
So, if people want to call me a socialist in order to get a civil conversation going, I'm game.
I missed grey bird's post, until today. In Montana, we also have a DVO, Dangerous Violent Offender. One of my relatives is a DVO.
Here's the story. He was 19 and out riding around with some kids. Three guys and two chicks. He said to the driver, "Pull into this gas station. I 'm out of cigarettes."
He went into the gas station, got some cigarettes, gabbed with the clerk guy, got his picture on camera and even told the guy his name.
He gets back in the car and the driver, whose last name was Robb (I'm not making this up. says hilariously, "I'm gonna rob this Kwik Way."
They laughed. They thought he was kidding.
He went in there, pulled a gun and robbed the Kwik Way.
If they'd jumped out of the car, screamed, "Help, help, he's robbing the Kwik Way, they'd have been off scot free, but they sat there stunned, and when he came back out, they drove away.
A day, later, all the boys were busted, and all the girls turned states evidence.
Well, he's 33 now, and finding him a rental is like hunting a needle in a haystack. You are looking for a computer illiterate landlord, whose bones are too achy and creepy to get up the courtyard steps to read that list on the courthouse wall.
Greybird, I tried to read up on your job, and know it is tough. Here in America, we all need to realize we're all in this together, and the politicians are no help. I would like to hear more about your job.
Me, I do not know why the webmaster has not canned this post.
Today, I was making potpourri. I suddenly wondered about the beautiful
apple smell of rosa eglanteria. So we went out and got some.
It smelled like cedar, after being frozen. I was entranced, rubbing the leaves together. After a half an hour, the smell went away.

We have thaw here, so hopefully some gardening later this week, including major replanting (really need to move "mini" cherry which is 2 meters high by now and is not planing on stopping).

You know, it interesting how the things turn in a couple of years. I am reading occasionally different European forums, where people occasionally share their experience with American tax/healthcare system. The general note to it often is that it resembles 3rd world country, with it being too expensive and too low quality what you get for it - and it is a sentiment shared both in Western and Eastern Europe, even in Russia. It is unimaginable here how you can go straight back to work after giving birth and so on, here you cannot get fired because you are sick or pregnant, that sort of things.