I tried not to write about it.  I didn’t want to be just another liberal blogger uninentionally calling attention to the “birther” movement and thereby adding legitimacy to it in the subconscious minds of many Americans who vote.  When the White House went above and beyond any legal requirement of any American citizen to do anything (not to mention presidential candidate, not to mention sitting president) and released his long-form birth certificate I patted myself on the back for staying out at least one pointless debate.  And now they want his college records.  And of course the birthers are not satisfied with the long-form birth certificate.

So let’s go over what we know.  Birthers are racist, and not the pseudo-intellectual “there exist some gifted negroes but as a race they are intellectually inferior” but the “there are just some things nobody with mongrel blood should ever, ever do and being president is damn sure one of them.” All Republicans, racist or not, know that birthers are racist and deliberately pander to this group for political points by pretending that the birthers really care where Obama was born not as much what he looks like and who he was born to.  Polls indicate that over half of people who identify themselves as Republicans don’t believe Obama is American or aren’t sure.  Believe it or not, I can live with that.  Or rather, I have to – I’m black in America.

But here’s what makes me angry.  It’s the fact that so many people, with nothing to gain to from this slander and libel against the President, don’t get angry and don’t stand up to make any sort of change.  Case in point: If you haven’t struck up a conversation with an acquaintance or stranger about how absurd this birther thing is, then guess what? Black or white, you’ve failed the racism/self-hatred test. 

Ok, let’s back up.  Raise your hand if you’ve overheard a birther talking on the bus or in a bar sounding all authorative like he’s king shit of fuck mountain?  Yeah all right, all of you.  Now, raise your hand if you’ve EVER heard someone DENOUNCING birtherism loudly and in the same manner? Now put your hand down if you’re at a small liberal arts college North of the Mason Dixon line with no division 1 or division 2 athletics.  Yeah, not a single hand raised.

Look people.  It’s 2011.  We know that progress isn’t guaranteed with the passing of time.  We’ve seen slavery, holocaust, genocide and the like.  It’s not just that we know what our primal demons are like, we also know, as people how extremely cowardly we are.  I mean, you won’t come to the defense of the President of the United States? Your President? Supposedly the most powerful person in the world?  If not then guess what, you’re not coming to the defense of the gay kid who is being bullied.  You’re not coming to the defense of the Hispanic-American who is having his citizenship questioned by an angry mob.  Come on people, we need to start controlling how the masses think.

Oh, you’re one of those “you can’t control how people think” people are you?  Ever heard of advertising? Your deepest most sacred convictions are bought, sold, bundled, divided and sold again every day on Wall Street.  Your very concept of what it means to be American is 80% commercials you’ve watched during Major League Sports.

So read a book, figure out what your convictions are, and PLEASE don’t just STAND UP for them if they get attacked in front of you.  Convictions aren’t to be used for self-defense only.  ADVOCATE for them.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate stupid people as much as the next guy.  But you know what I hate even more?  A coward.

One of the things that makes our plight so frustrating is we feel we have been punished for doing the right thing. As we serve coffee at rest stops to high school dropouts whose parents own construction companies and get interviewed for junior level positions by former division III quarterbacks who still have credits outstanding despite the diploma in their spacious office, we can’t help but feel the world has done us an injustice.  This election season we are reminded the universe didn’t do us an injustice, we simply exist in an unjust universe. Never are we so reminded of this as we are in this past election.

Let’s go macro first and look at Healthcare.  The House passed a strong healthcare bill complete with the public option and did so in a reasonable amount of time.  Keep in mind, passing healthcare directly equals saving millions of lives over the course of the next decade and actually lowers the deficit. Reward? House Democrats lose control and are voted out mostly by people who will come to depend on this bill for survival.

The Senate takes a different route. It hems and haughs and barely passes a watered down version of healthcare…and barely holds on (just barely) to it’s majority.  Now let’s look at some individual elections.

I am a Philly boy so let’s take the Sestak loss. He thought he knew better than the President. The President asked him not to run against Arlen Specter not because he preferred Specter to Sestak but because Specter would win and Sestak would lose. But as I am finding out with this blog, you can’t tell people anything these days. They have to learn for themselves.

Now, I know what you’re thinking “but by that logic Obama should have deferred to Clinton.” Tssk, tssk. Joe Sestak was not a once in every 40 years transformative figure with that  rare genius it takes to inspire a nation and the world to greatness…he’s Joe Sestak. Now let’s at Rand Paul. He won on a platform of repealing the Civil Rights Act. I can’t wait until Alpha Man gets around to writing about that.

Given that when the Civil War ended and Reconstruction was cancelled former Confederates were elected to Congress in landslides and dominated politics for 40 years, it’s pretty sad that all the GOP could do was take back the House. Also, all those soon to be unemployed congressman, at least those that voted for Healthcare, can know that the injustice they suffered meant something. I think that’s a laudable goal to aspire to, particularly since the Mercedes and house with a pool is no longer an option.

Read Benito’s post. That’s the problem with the Democratic party. They are made up of losers like Benito. Now if you are familiar with me you know I don’t vote unless I can directly personally benefit through favors from the individual to be elected, but if I did vote I would vote Republican and here is why- I like winners.

Benito claims you should vote in your “self interest.” I think we can all agree that I am as self interested as they come but hell if I am voting for them. Think back to high school. Losers were always doing things for their friends whether it was giving them rides, helping them with school work or coaxing them into reconsidering suicide. The popular kids? They didn’t do shit for their friends and wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to talk about them behind their backs. Same thing with the Republicans. They expect your vote and you are not going to get shit for it except the promise they are going to keep doing what they do: getting that money, starting that war, and penalizing everyone that fails to conform to the ideal. Hellz and Bellz bitches.

I mean look at Jesus. He healed people of incurable diseases instantly for free. Now that’s Universal Healthcare. You really just had to ask. Apparently he rarely ever got thanked, such that a leper expressing his appreciation was a noteworthy occurrence. He also multiplied resources from wine to fish and bread. He never asked for any money and would openly associate with anyone. He lost an election for “not crucified” in a landslide to a convicted killer who as far as I know never did anything for anyone. Jesus even had an endorsement from God, Moses, Elijah and from the governor Pontius Pilate.

So vote Republican. People will think you are a winner by association and if you start doing cold shit like that maybe you will actually become one. A winner that is.

So I hear a pathetic whimpering sound late one night a few weeks ago. My first thought was that the waitress I picked up that night left something. Maybe it was the Princess come back to beg forgiveness and explain where my missing condoms are. Maybe her coke head brother needed a place to crash and avoid his dealer or bookie. Or maybe the dog needed food/to go to the bathroom. My response to all four was “who gives a shit?” I rolled over and went to sleep.

So the next day I do my due diligence: No crap that doesn’t belong to the Princess, No Princess and no sign of her coke head brother. Oh yeah. The dog. I found him passed out in his own feces.  I had assumed the Princess had at least been feeding him. Nope. Lazy slut.

I made up some lie at the vet about the dog having run away and me spending a week looking for him. I considered abandoning the dog when I saw the vet bill but the vet was a knockout and I was tired of hitting random waitresses who would be the Princess in five years.

The dog now has become entirely useless. It’s shy, spooks easily, eats like I am going take his food bowl away and fails to amuse guests. Pisses wherever too but it did that before. I mean if I wanted a dog with issues I would have gone to a shelter instead of a reputable breeder. Hell, I’ve rundown homeless PEOPLE the hell I care if a few dogs get put down? Point is doggy has to go.

But I can’t just abandon him or leave him at a shelter. I know too many people in this town and how would it look if my dog is in a shelter? Worse, Princess could use this as a reason for her recent trysts. I soon discovered I am not alone – many young professionals have pets they no longer want/can afford. One consultant trained his kids to torture his wife’s cats, another lawyer told his son the dog was dead and has had him living in his secretary’s cubicle.

Puppy Poker was my idea. You essentially bet with other people’s pets. The more Chips you have the less pets you take home. I played all week and in addition to almost getting rid of the dog I saved about $300 which is my normal loss after an average week playing online poker.

I did have to dispose of one animal. His crime was soiling the supple leather of a brand new BMW 5 series. I put the dog in the trunk and after the shelter started saying “paperwork this” and “identification that” I took him to the crappy vet filled out some paperwork under a false name (actually the Princess’ brother’s name since I was paying with an expired state issued disability card in his name).  I better unload this dog next week. I am not buying another giant bag of food and I figure the lil bastard does a better chance of finding a new home if he doesn’t have ribs sticking out. You can’t be dumb and ugly- a truism for women and dogs alike.

At the risk of offending Alpha Man I have decided to take issue with a recent article written by the illustrious Elie Mystal of Above the Law.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/10/bullying-shouldnt-be-a-crime-no-matter-how-many-people-kill-themselves-because-of-it/

As a blogger myself I recognize an article titled simply to get hits and draw commentary.  Normally I think touche and go on about my business.  This article pulled me in with it’s Karate Kid analogy.  I happen to have an encylopedic knowledge of that movie.  Now if one recalls, the Karate Kid is about a kid named Daniel who moves across the country from NJ to LA.  There he accidentally offends a group of Martial Arts students after hitting on one of their ex-girlfriends.  After several run-ins four or five of them chase Daniel through a field and beat him until he is unable to stand.  The bullies argue briefly about whether to leave him or keep going, and they decide collectively to continue.  But for the intervention of Mr. Miyagi while Johnny was in-flight, Daniel almost certainly would have died from the next strike.

It has nothing to do with being fragile, Elie.  A beaten and broken human-being cannot survive a flying sidekick to the sternum.  Let’s break this down a little further…

Lawyer to lawyer, you know as well as I do that 98% of the conduct we broadly refer to as “bullying” are actual crimes or at the very least torts for which there is recognized liability.  If a bully threatens someone that’s assault.   If a bully hit someone that’s assault and battery.  Even your sarcastic example with the girl making fun of another girl’s backpack can rise to the level of harassment. 

Next, let’s return to our Karate Kid example (you really messed up picking that movie) the near-fatal encounter Daniel had with the Cobra-Kai came after Daniel actually did stand up for himself by spraying Johnny with water at the Halloween party.  This was partially motivated by the girl he liked (so yes, Daniel realizes that if he wants a chance to “mate” as you put it he has to stand up for himself).  Next, Daniel is only able to learn the requisite skillset to defend himself in the several months where the bullies were forbidden BY A TEACHER from bullying him.

Now I’m not a parent and given my debtload and lot in life it’s unlikely I will never have the pleasure of reproducing…but if I DID I certainly would do whatever I could to protect my child using whatever resources were at my disposal including litigation.  Protecting your child is the primary role of a parent. 

Also, have you noticed it’s only “bullying” if a stronger more socially acceptable individual is hurting a weaker less socially acceptable person simply because of who they are?  I mean if a “nerd” hits a random “jock” with a bat it’s not “bullying” it’s assault.  The reason we have a nonchalant attidude about bullying is that a bully is simply shouting what we’re all whispering.  A bully is simply society’s megaphone.  That’s why even if you yourself have been bullied, you stand up for the bully because even you have been socially conditioned to approve of the bully’s behavior.

Finally, defending yourself from bullies isn’t as simple cut and dry as one might think.  As near as I can tell Gerald Ung defended himself from a bully named Eddie Didonato…but he’s in jail charged with attempted murder.  If you stand-up to a bully and a fight breaks out does it matter that he was the aggressor or do both students get suspended?  Who REALLY suffers then? The bully who likely already has poor grades and a tarnished record or the victim who is probably doing well with a clean record? 

It seems you don’t care about students who kill themselves.  Do you care about students who instead of turning their despair inwards instead blanket the surrounding area in their pain in the form of a multiple-murder suicide? Is it worth aggressively dealing with bulling to stop school shootings?

Accepting bullying as an inevitability is to deny the better angels of mankind.  Some children not only refrain from bullying but defend weaker children from bullies.  It’s called character and it does exist but we do not cultivate it by perpetuating the belief that the worst things in our nature are unavoidable. 

Finally that was a bitch move running from the bullies and leaving the girl you were escorting.  What if Lewis had less than honorable intentions as far as she was concerned? Before Daniel had even one ounce of training, he at least defended his new lady friend.

There’s nothing like creeping up on 30, barely out of school and making less than a janitor (they have unions) with mounds of debt, turning on the TV for your 15 minutes of television a week and seeing a teenage barely literate deadbeat high school dropout dad running for mayor. Anger. Then I listened a little closer and realized that this fool was being asked the same damn questions that his almost mother-in-law was asked in 2008. So basically this idiot was at the plate in a Major League Gsme a d he’s allowed to use a tee like in tee-ball (what you play before little league).  The fool answered “I don’t know” to about half the questions. And you know what? He still outperformed a woman who could have been President of the United States. Believe me, I know how to read McCain’s health chart.

So during another brief monthly break I mentor young girls at the Sadie Alexander School.  I asked her what she wanted to do/be when she grew up and she said she wanted to have Lil’ Wayne’s baby. I won’t tell you how old the child was because it will make you cry. I won’t tell you the race either (it’s not the one you think) because you won’t believe me. Now this girl isn’t dumb so I just assumed she was a slut, furthering my argument that sluts are born not made. But now I can see how a student could come to the following conclusion: why spend an additional 10+ years in school working hard to distinguish myself when the chance you have worked so hard for will be given to some idiot who had a child with a famous person? Why graduate high school when you can simply conceive a child with someone you plan to use for personal gain? The child will understand of course and if not they will be rich enough to afford whatever necessary therapy is required.

Look people it’s one thing to have an idiot President if he’s the first-born son and namesake of another President. But W at least graduated from high school.  And he had the equivalent of a royal bloodline connection. You know what Levi would be if he screwed the teenage daughter of a potential Queen back in the Middle Ages? Tortured to death.

Speaking of which Alaskans, the Palins included, love and brag about their guns and yet they let this ignorant, scraggly, lazy good-for-nothing back stabber waltz in, canoodle your daughter on the kitchen table and then eat dinner at that same table before the sweaty ass print has even had time to dry? If you didn’t shoot HIM who or what the hell ARE you going to shoot?

Oh that’s right. Guns are for moose and minorities that are minding their own business.

A question was posed in the New York Times recently

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=10&hpw

asking whether the collective failure of “twenty somethings” to 1) finish school 2) move out 3) become financially stable 4) marry and 5) have a child by age 30 and hence achieve adulthood is so rampant that perhaps we are witnessing some kind of collective devolution such that a new category in addition to adolescence is needed between childhood and adulthood called “emerging adulthood.”  This article is more than just another slap in the face to young people who have never had the opportunity to start a career mixed with some struggling, debt-ridden academic’s sad attempt to make a name for himself.  This article is the very antithesis of what this blog is all about and as such merits a response.  As I peel back the layers of lies and hypocrisy I ask that you the reader not lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day life is not about 1-5. 1-5 simply has to do with a society perpetuating its own existence.  Your LIFE is measured by how you advance an organized movement designed to benefit others well beyond your few years on the planet.
 
First, let me say this: ouch.  I don’t say ouch lightly.  This was not a bee sting or a splinter.  This was a sledgehammer to the ankles.  This is like getting a test back from a teacher that you failed so badly the teacher actually begins to wonder if whether you have some unknown mental deficiency.  I mean, the article is saying someone in my situation is so hopelessly pathetic that SOCIETY NEEDS TO MAKE SPECIAL LAWS TO ACCOMMODATE MY EXISTENCE.  I have a friend who completed 1-5 by age 23.  I was 0-5 then.  Now I’m 28, 1-5, with nothing on the horizon.  This article suggests that when we rent cars, purchase alcohol or engage in other activities that the law treat us differently…kind of like insurance companies do when evaluating what kind of risk you are or mortgage companies do when deciding whether or not to give you a loan.  According to this article pursuing a graduate degree and not being able to get a job right away could eventually make you a protected class under the Constitution!

 
Now, let’s take a big step back, and point out the lunacy in this assertion.  At the root of this article is an assertion that the inter-generational transfer of wealth needs to have a strict cut-off and it is unnerving that it seemingly is being pushed out further and further.  To sum it up, parents are paying for things too long, get a job and a haircut you lazy bums!  Actually, since time began the inter-generational transfer of wealth has ALWAYS OCCURRED until the parents either died or ran out of money.  That’s why so much of the law focuses on property and inheritance.  The only difference is that the visible spectrum used to be wider.   If your parents were poor or absent you were on your own from the gitgo, no education and manual labor was your lot in life should you be lucky to live long enough to feed and clothe yourself.  Slightly better off parents could send their kids to gradeschool (if they were not needed on the farms) richer parents saw their kids graduate gradeschool and maybe become apprenticed, richer still got to go to college, richer still got to study in Europe and eventually take care over the family business/plantation/government post etc.  There was none of this lifestage crap, you just were somebody’s son or daughter and that was how your life was defined unless you married up or down.  Today, in America, the visible spectrum is simply marginalized with the poor ignored and the wealthy clamoring to make us think that there position is mostly merit based.
 
Let’s also take a step back and talk about the shame.  Here at Debtor’s Prison we talk mostly about the dehumanizing shame we experience being looked at as children in adult bodies, never given the chance to work or feel productive.  I do now acknowledge and accept the shame parents (particularly parents who see their children primarily as extensions of themselves and carriers of their DNA and hence a direct reflection upon them) feel when after a lifetime of sacrifice and resource child is in the same place with the same level of dependence as if he had never learned to read.  We acknowledge and admit that but for you we would be homeless or dead.  We were given every tool to stand and we stumbled and despite how comfortable we look on the couch or content we seem playing videogames that fact will eat at us until we die – even if our circumstances change, even drastically, for the better.
 
But let’s also look at this a little more closely.  Don’t pat yourselves too heartily on the back those of you who sneer at twenty-somethings.  Many of the behaviors of my generation can be directly related to things we observed in yours.  You hate your jobs.  You divorce early and often with little regard to how it will affect your kids so long as they are taken care of financially.  Your consumerism is an embarassment to us when we leave this country’s borders and your callous disregard for the environment is disgusting.  So please, if we switch jobs, live with a significant other, aren’t willing to work 20 hours a week of overtime to afford a new BMW or spend a few years working in a “non-career orientated” internship for Green Peace keep your commentary to yourselves.
 
Our generation did not invent screw-ups.  I’ll be the first to admit we have had more than our fair share, but the normal pitfalls of young adulthood, particularly accruing too much debt too fast is not an altogether new phenomenon.  But the most salient point is this: if you’re measuring life based on completing 1-5, then you’ve missed life entirely.  Look at Civil Rights.  You have students who dropped out of school, worked out of their parent’s basements, were unpaid and didn’t have the time or the means to start a family because they were staging sit-ins, registering people to vote, etc.  Many of them didn’t even LIVE until 30.  But looked what they accomplished.  Others chose to let their neighbor fight on their behalf so they could finish school, get a nice job, and start a family.  But my question is this: who did their kids look up to?  Who REALLY did the most for the up and coming generation?
 
In a strange way, maybe student debt is a blessing.  When the conventional and easy road is off the table, when faced with a materially poor life that means something versus a materially poor life that means nothing, perhaps more people will choose the former.  Like anyone I would like to have a comfortable life with nice things.  But at the end of the day I think choosing the former is the only real way out of Debtor’s Prison.

Several months ago Erin (I think) wrote an article called why I don’t care about the national debt. Maybe someone else stole the by line but I remember the conversation that spurned the entry. About a week and a half ago the President reminded us how in a generation we had plummetted from 1 to 12 in terms of countries with the highest percentage of citizens with a college degree. And of course this is Debtors’ Prison so you know how we get down. Let’s explore how the three are interconnected.

Student Debt and National Debt. It’s really hard to care about the latter when entrenched in the former, particularly when the latter is used as an excuse for why the govt can’t help you but they need another fleet of 100 million aircraft to hunt the 50 Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. But let’s look deeper. We as students behaved alot like our country, borrowing a ton for a questionable large investment and assuming everything would just work out because hey, it’s us.

Student Debt and the Education Gap seem to be at odds with each other, particularly our take which on it’s surface can seem to be advocating not pursuing higher education at all a la Kanye West. But really are they? Students today are presented with a choice: take on crippling debt or don’t go to college. Here at Debtor’s Prison we focus on the former but we can never forget that the latter gets screwed as well. Also there is education and then there is education. Saudi Arabia is a highly educated country but 90% of the degrees are in religion. That’s not helping the economy but they are oil rich so who cares? Similarly Mike Triforce majored in theater. This is both unusual for a straight/in the closet guy and useless to the American Economy. What there needs to be are financial incentives for majoring in things that are helpful to the economy, requirements that are less focused on “being well rounded” and more focused on longterm national goals ( this along with a full semester of research should be required at national universities- don’t like it go to Williams. Amherst or Oberlin). So less Theater majors in six figure debt and kids who couldn’t afford an engineering or a chem degree can now get one.

So how do we reconcile the National Debt and the Education Gap? It’s no mystery that I am at odds with Mike Triforce but he did make a good point: audacity goes a long way. Two industries that come to mind are the defense industry and the for-profit college/accreditation programs that survive on student loans from the government. These industries don’t make a profit being market savy, they simply ask for it on the backs of taxpayers and future generations. The government needs to say “no.” If you ask me a defense contractor needs to have their profits capped at 10%.

So I am no pep-talk guru. But let’s get out of debt, get our country out of debt and take back the #1 spot. “USA! USA! Why? Cuz it’s a New Day.”

As I prepare for the start of class in a few weeks and take a much needed break from my ongoing feud with Mike Triforce I would like to, hopefully for the last time, explain why I am borrowing excessive amounts to go to what is commonly referred to as a TTT law school, particularly after taking 7 years and over $100k to complete my undergraduate education and writing for a blog called “Debtor’s Prison.”  After all, isn’t the point of “Debtor’s Prison” that borrowing large amounts of money for a fancy degree, particularly a law degree is foolhardy?  I would argue no, and here is why.
 
At the risk of being mercilessly mocked by Mike Triforce I will once again open up.  Yes, I’ve read Benito’s posts.  But here’s what I noticed: Benito was going through school borrowing money, eyes closed, on the blind faith that the conventional wisdom of the time was correct and that so long as he “did everything right” he was all but guaranteed a positive outcome.  That didn’t happen because conventional wisdom is based on a series of assumptions that are no longer true.  Alpha Man expands on this by stating that the real purpose of Debtor’s Prison is to make people aware so that conventional wisdom more accurately reflects what happens to most people. So my reading of all this is that there is a general lag between conventional wisdom, like the advice you’d get from a previous generation and what is ACTUALLY best for you, something you can only discover through research and a critical eye towards what someone’s motivation for telling you something might be (aka how do THEY benefit from what they are telling you?)
 
In my humble opinion conventional wisdom is changing.  There are dozens of blogs like this one.  The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post have all covered this topic thoroughly.  In three years when I graduate law school I could easily be facing a situation where firms are starved for lawyers because the great recession drove so many out of the market and their dismissal sob stories mixed with the skyrocketing tuition of law school made the pursuit of law as a career undesirable.  Therefore if the point of Debtor’s Prison is don’t trust conventional wisdom I will be doing that by actually GOING to Law School and BORROWING to get there.
 
Others may ask, well, why go to a Third Tier when it costs as much as a Harvard or Yale?  Obviously I didn’t get into Harvard or Yale.  Second, I could transfer to Harvard or Yale if I do extremely well my first year.  Third, grades, not the school you are attending/attended, seem to be the highest indicator of future legal success. It’s easier to get good grades at a school that does not attract top scholars.  It’s also easier to argue for better grades from specific professors or across the board grade inflation.
 
But what about my already sizable debt?  Well, my only other option besides law school was to go BACK TO SCHOOL and get a teaching license.  Yeah, there is no way I could pay off my debt making $30,000 a year.  I’d rather stay home and collect unemployment.  I know alot of attorneys make that or less, but I also know there are zero teachers pulling down $160k.  Worst case scenario in three years I am back where I started after having three more years of college-esque fun with the only difference that the specific payment notice that I crumble up and toss away has a much higher amount on it.  I would also hope that with a legal education I’d have the ability to move to and work in Korea for a few years and then settle my debt for a fraction of the price.
 
So that’s the plan.  Sometimes Conservatives gamblers lose big and sometimes Aggressive gamblers make a come back and end up in the black.  We know the former already describes Benito. Let’s hope the latter describes KF Li.

What do student debtors and the unemployed have in common? No, not Benito (or the millions of others who are in the same boat). Selfishness. That’s not a criticism. I’m not judgmental. It’s certainly not praise. I am not Mike Triforce. It’s not even a challenge because I am not President Kennedy.

But I would be remissed if I didn’t point out two trends and suggest that perhaps one should rethink which hole their particular cog in the machine fills.

Regular people with nothing but defaultable debt and good jobs neglect their neighbors because they are wrapped up in providing for their family. We know the folly of this because we know the fragility of employment. What if nobody ever looked past their own immediate family? A layoff to a breadwinner would mean a virtual death sentence to the family. Sadly there is some truth to this because as it turns out it is a self-fulfilling prophecy and the news highlights every extreme case, most often a good samaritan whose exploits went awry and he was left to die. Usually in New York city.

Now that’s regular people. Neighbor after family duties. But for us it’s either a) I am the neighbor that needs help or b) neighbor after I have found a job. If you’re in group A my thoughts and prayers are with you. If you’re in group B here’s why I might suggest a priority shift.

First, there are no jobs. The difference between searching five and ten hours a day is negligable. Second you will feel better about yourself if you surround yourself with people who need your help. Third, for what’s it’s worth it is the right thing to do.

Now some of you might be wondering which group you’re in. Yeah you know where your next meal is coming from and yeah you know where you’re sleeping next week but you haven’t a dime to your name and hey they are threatening to shut off your cellphone. Yeah if you have to wonder even for a second you’re in group B.  Oh, and if you’re working and you have no dependent children there is no excuse.

Now some of you have come to this conclusion already. Yeah you’re not a Saint. You’re just human. Aaaand you’re probably going down to your volunteer org. of choice and then you’re shocked to discover you are more of a hindrance than a help and that the people who decided to make this their life before the economy tanked resent you. Yes you have to earn their respect and prove yourself just like you would anywhere else. And hey if you don’t like it start your own organization.

So what can you do for your neighbor? Not much. At least not at first. Your life up to this point has been about you. So if you want to make a change you need to start at the beginning.