“…Oh, gosh I’m sure you remember what happened, Bob, the tortoise bit clean through the Chief of Medicine’s calf muscle, dragged him to the ground, where he and all the other turtles devoured him alive right there on the racetrack. It’s a disturbing children’s book, Bob, I know, but it’s one that stuck with me nonetheless.”
-Dr. Cox, Scrubs
This is a story of a man (You read the title? Pretend you didn’t.). A man who worked his way up from nothing to become a great man. He defeated a corrupt political machine that used…err….corrupt tactics …to attack him using only his common-people, down-to-earth approach (not as in they attacked him with his own approach (Although they actually sort of did. And also, I’m really awful at good sentence formation.)) . Well, okay, that “nothing” is more like “rich adoptive parents”, but still, the point stands. Sort of. Yes, before you ask (or don’t ask, because you think I’m talking about myself or Martin Luther KingJ (it being today and all that)(minus the rich, adoptive, parents), I’ve been watching the Cory Booker documentary. Now, I realize that that film is completely biased towards Booker, and that he must have a bad side (although his Wikipedia article seems to completely adore him), but I’m going to completely ignore that in favor of bias and only show his good side. Just kidding, I’m actually going to write about welfare (and you thought the tangents were bad. Watch me completely drop the Blog Post Train onto different tracks five or six miles away (Although at least you, the unfortunate passenger, saw it coming, and are able to depart in a curiously ethereal way. Right this way, Ghostly Internet Browser.) (With godlike powers of psychokineticism, and train schedule coordination, since I’d rather the train didn’t hit another one.)). Welfare is…well..there’s not really one succinct word to describe it (evil? Lovely? Overemployed? Autistic? Cabbage?) . Simply put, the government can’t pay for everyone. I have no problem with disability payments to those too crippled, for whatever reason, to find a job. However, if someone has two legs, two arms, and a liver (to stop those pesky toxins (like high fructose corn syrup)), they can get by in the world, at least if they live in an urban area (I have no idea about the employment conditions in rural areas, as the only time I willingly go somewhere with a population of less than 100 grand is when I’m already being paid to do so. But I feel like you could probably find hand work at a farm (admittedly probably for $100-150 a week, but possibly also including (shitty) room and board.)). Anyhoo, you can eat nutritiously for something like $20 a day. Find MREs at a military surplus store. Shelter is provided by many places. 24-hour store’s bathrooms, under bridges, and inside construction vehicles are good. (Yes, I have done this before. Don’t question what you don’t unnerstand. (Yes, I do see that red squiggly line, before you ask.) ). If you can find a blanket, so much the better (in cold places, it’s more like a necessity). Bathrooms are free, water is free (in small quantities). But my point is that, in my state, $20 is a little over two hours of work at minimum wage. Certainly not eight. You could work at Walmart. Since there’s three or four in every major city in the US, there’s a very good chance one of them will hire you, short of you being a convicted murderer or rapist. Um…looking back on this, its turning into a tutorial on how to be homeless. That’s not really how I envisioned this (then again, I envisioned this as a post on Cory Booker). By the way, I’m not homeless, and I’m not writing this on a Public Library computer (Hate those. They block all the porn. (And they’re as fast as a feasting American (That was a pun. Think. Don’t get it? You’re stupid.))). Welfare has its uses within the structure of government, but it should be a function provided by the states, not the incredibly debt-burdened federal government.
TL;DR: A completely useless rant, and the tutorial on being homeless you’ve always wanted. I need to stop combining coffee, loads of sugar, and meds (Obviously not Ritalin), since this shit is the result. And yet I’m posting it, mainly since WordPress just sent me a reminder email that I hadn’t logged on in two months, and I felt slightly guilty.
Hobbes 