You’re requiring way too much thinking. I’d rather just make fun of people.

Signed,

The Conservative 28% of America

I had no idea some people were so stupid and out of touch with the current state of poverty and homelessness to think that homeless people shouldn’t have cellphones… why, because cellphones are some kind of luxury you choose to get “instead” of housing? What? Haven’t people even heard of pre-paid minutes?

More proof that the thing that pisses off conservatives more than anything else (unless it’s the rich having to pay taxes) is the thought that the poor in America just aren’t poor enough.  Anything less than Dickensian squalor is unacceptable.

And they accuse us of class warfare.

Good Lord. This is even worse than the “Poor people aren’t really poor - they have TVs” meme. I was raised in a world of privilege and this writer’s privilege makes me physically ill.

Seriously, they are running out of things to be outraged about. The midget says that she “knows” what she’s talking about when she’s talking about the homeless/poor. For some reason, I don’t believe her.

Ruben Bolling had a good take on this whole “They aren’t poor because they have…” bullshit.

This guy has apparently never seen any actual homeless people and expects them to be like cartoon hobos from the 1930s.  Here in San Francisco, I see homeless people with cell phones pretty frequently.  Yes, it looks a little ridiculous, but the truth is that cell phones are really cheap nowadays and getting a roof over your head is really expensive.  You can easily be living on the streets and still have a cell phone.

Guys like Andrew Malcolm are sick, ignorant people. That’s all there is to it, really. These are the people we’re fighting against at every election.

Man, I would love to be Andrew Malcom’s vendor and clean the fuck up. “33.6 Baud Modem for connecting to CompuServ, Andrew? That will be $328. Your EGA videocard is backordered, but we’ve gotten you a sweet deal on a Tandy Monitor for only $800. If you want the cell phone with the camera, that’s going to be an even grand, I’m afraid. You get 100 anytime minutes per month, other than that you’ve got to deal with peak hour charges, and don’t forget roaming.”

Andrew Malcon’s thoughts: “Why isn’t this drunken tatooed negro in Gitmo ? Socialism!!!”

I hate guys like this Andrew Malcolm character. I give money to the homeless people from time to time. I’m sure that some of that money goes to buy booze or drugs. But, frankly, if homeless people want to spend their few dollars on cell phones or fancy shoes or booze or drugs or whatever, who the hell am I to say no to that? Who am I to demand that they give up their few remaining pleasures so that they can be more ‘seemly’?

More proof that the thing that pisses off conservatives more than anything else (unless it’s the rich having to pay taxes) is the thought that the poor in America just aren’t poor enough.  Anything less than Dickensian squalor is unacceptable.

If people were living in dung and straw huts and pissing in the street, wingnuts would whine that they were doing it to spite the rich, and say that it proves something about self-reliance, especially when Those People are concerned.

Andrew Malcolm, Laura Bush’s ex-flack, can kiss my arse.

The comments over there are something else.  Seventy percent are pretty sane (the first one raises the issue of prepaid cell phones, natch), but at least thirty percent have been posted by people who either (a) can’t read or (b) are mean and stupid.  Or both.

Golly. Its as off my monthly cell phone bill wasn’t 5% of my monthly rent. Not counting utilities, of course. Though, I do live with someone, so that brings the costs down. So, if I give up the phone for 20 months, I could pay a month of rent. Yeah, that’ll solve homelessness right there.

A lot of shelters and charities actually give prepaid phones to the homeless so they can call services, etc. Also you can get a prepaid phone from ATT for $30…and refill it at walgreens.

I looked up “risotto” on Wikipedia. It’s rice. The complaint is that homeless people are eating rice and broccoli.

I suppose she’s lobbying for a return to hardtack ‘n’ swill, plus a gulp of onion porridge a month to stave off the ol’ scurvy. I mean, if you ask her really nicely. Shucking and/or jiving may be required.

atheist—I agree in principle, but as someone who’s lived in a block with more than a few crackhouses I do generally hope that if I give a homeless person some cash, they’re not going to spend it on something that could be harmful or destructive to my community. But I don’t NOT GIVE because OMG they could use that money to buy crack.

It would be better phrased: why is a guy with a cellphone homeless? Because then the question answers itself.

He spends all his (our) money on cellphones and, most likely, tattoos and drugs and booze and other crap, and has no money left for a home and food. And why should he bother? We pay for his shelter and food anyhow.

Ah yes.  The old “Slippery Slope” Argument.  Sure, you’re spending $30 on a pre-paid cell phone today.  That’s how it starts.  But pretty soon you’re picking up hookers and blow out of the back of a truck full of illegal immigrant terrorists and from there its just a hop, skip, and a jump till you’re an undercover communist operative in line to become the Democratic Nominee for President.

Oh hahaha.  A cell phone can be had for as little as—let me see, about $15 per month.  Why, for that he could be renting—a cardboard box?  Probably not a very nice one though.

By the way, was Mrs Obama offended?  She seems to be smiling in that photo.

Mighty Ponygirl, that makes sense. Yes, drug sellers aren’t really the people I want to to be giving my bucks to.

Obviously the homeless aren’t going to need a cellphone. I’m sure prospective employers are just lining up to hire people that have no fixed address and they have no method of contacting except to show up in person at different shelters hoping to find the right guy or gal…

Maybe the guy is trying to get himself out of homelessness and got himself a cellphone to have a shot at getting a job, erm, mb? Isn’t that this ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstrap’ shit that Republicans really go crazy over? Or maybe conservatives think people who end up homeless should just starve and die out and stay in poverty for ever and ever without any chance of ever making things better for themselves? Oh, look at me, I must be talking crazy…

I dunno, Michelle Obama acts so… classy in that photo. It’s kind of a lighthearted moment in a really grueling existance. And all people like Andrew Malcolm can think to do is take a huge steaming shit all over the story because it bothers him on some unnameable level. What a douche.

“The complaint is that homeless people are eating rice and broccoli.”

...but it’s hoity toity rice and broccoli.  And therefore unacceptable.  I bet they’re the same people that make that fancy-ass glazed chicken for those terrorists in Gitmo…

“I dunno, Michelle Obama acts so… classy in that photo. It’s kind of a lighthearted moment in a really grueling existance.”

See, that’s what is wrong with those Obama people.  The Bushes would have a pre-screened group of “homeless”, with a couple of token minorities just for appearances.  And if they couldn’t find good ones in the area, they’d ship some in from somewhere else.  Just as long as the optics are right.

That angry, mean, and too athletic Obama woman is messing things all up…

ugh just when you think that they can’t get any lower, more hateful or racist.

What, you mean conservatives might be mean, hateful people who look for any reason to smear anyone less fortunate than their rich, lily-white, stupid, bloated, ignorant asses?

NO WAI

Considering that your average cell phone these days functions as not just a phone but also an address book, calculator, alarm clock, and watch AND that there are both prepaid phones and cheap monthly plans available AND that pay phones are getting harder and harder to find and potential employers need some way to contact people… some kind of cell phone is extremely useful, if not a necessity even for homeless people.

I think this may be connected to the “homeless people are only homeless because they’re too lazy to work” meme.

Also, Michelle Obama’s smile in that picture is adorable.

I am not surprised that homeless people have cellphones. I am wondering what Michelle was doing over there.

Or he could be a reporter, you know, reporting on the event. Not there for the food at all. But assuming he is homeless, what the cons are asking is how dare he try NOT to be homeless anymore. Yeah, that would make sense to them.

And did you notice that the woman behind him has a belly?  A belly?!  How dare she be slightly overweight when she’s homeless!  The nerve.

Another possibility is that this guy recently lost his home due to the economy and/or the subprime mess and he still hasn’t lost all of his old consumer goods.

“Republicans moan and Republicans bitch: ‘Our rich are too poor, and our poor are too rich!’”

I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but a fair percentage of the homeless have always been people who have jobs, but don’t make enough to have a place to live for whatever reason, and it’s not always because of drug or alcohol abuse. For a person in that situation, a cell phone is perhaps the only thing standing between employment and unemployment.

Or he could be a reporter

No!

No!

There are no black reporters!

No!

Not only that, but did you see the lavish motherfucking *hat* that dude’s wearing!?!?!? Sheesh.

Ah yes.  The old “Slippery Slope” Argument.  Sure, you’re spending $30 on a pre-paid cell phone today.  That’s how it starts.  But pretty soon you’re picking up hookers and blow out of the back of a truck full of illegal immigrant terrorists and from there its just a hop, skip, and a jump till you’re an undercover communist operative in line to become the Democratic Nominee for President.

Sounds good to me, actually.

Buy a cell phone, get into the Department of the Interior, then maybe the CIA, then the Presidency. Where do I sign up?

So, when is a person sufficiently poor for these assholes? I mean do homeless people have to be standing around with cut up tractor tires tied to their feet, their real shoes boiling on a pot somewhere to be soft enough to eat? What do they want, bloated stomachs, open sores, flies? And what then? It’s not like there’s a misery threshold after which wingnuts will actually pity you. What a bunch of mean, stupid asswipes these people are.

Tattoos? The hell that come from? The homeless have to budget in new ink on top of everything else now?

And what’s this about spending ALL one’s money on their cell phone? Does the person who wrote that ignorant shit even have a fucking cell phone? It’s not 1997, the cost of operating a cellular telephone is generally not prohibitive, even for lower income folks, which I know, is just, just infuriating. Unless this guy is calling Turkey from his cell phone for literally hours a day, I really doubt his bill would be very impressive.

I really fucking hope that the dude who snapped the picture turns out to be a reporter, or just a passerby, just to see this thing blow up in the faces of all these assholes. I mean do they get mad whenever they see a black person with a cell phone, or a tattoo?

Actually, Michelle Obama was just winding up for one of her Angry! Black! Woman! all-out assaults on the WHITE AP reporter who snapped the photo of the dude snapping the photo.

It looks suspiciously like a candid smile.

:D

But in all earnestness, I love that photo—Michelle mugging for the camera, not caring that the dude who is snapping the pic is what many would consider an “undesirable.”

I still have moments where I have to remind myself that Obama is president, and how cool is that?

Totally off-topic, but oh jeez, does it need to be spread around: Rush Limpballs Essentially Wishes Ted Kennedy Would Die

“Suppose you are actually homeless in America.  The public pay phone has essentially gone the way of the dodo in most of the country.  If you have any desire - at all - to not be homeless anymore, one of the basic things you’re going to need is a way for people to communicate with you.  People call you for jobs and for housing and for food and for any number of things.  On the one hand, you could be an idiot and consider this an indicator of how great the homeless have it in America, because they have anything to sort of call their own.  On the other hand, you could consider that poor people throughout history have often had things to call their own, and poverty isn’t made any less cripplingly shitty because you have 120 minutes of airtime a month.  “

Look, if Michelle Malkin wanted to stop and think about anything for two entire seconds before popping off about it, she wouldn’t be Michelle Malkin.

“Republicans moan and Republicans bitch: ‘Our rich are too poor, and our poor are too rich!’”

Haha. Brilliant.

Jee-zus.

There are a million potential explanations for that cell phone, but I would guess just off the top of my head that this guy could be a day-laborer. A lot of those guys carry cell phones with pre-paid phone cards so they can keep up with job postings and family. They also use the phones as alarm clocks.

You can get a phone card for five bucks. Rent, damage deposit, and utilities…uhhh, not so much.

I wonder when we’ll see a picture of Rush (or Malcom) working in a food line getting his picture snapped?

Nevermind.

I looked up “risotto” on Wikipedia. It’s rice.

Yeah, I was all “whoa, soup kitchens are gettin’ fancy…” at the risotto.  And then I remembered that I make risotto for dinner at least once every few weeks, and that it’s basically just rice, stock, and an onion.  It’s the best posh-sounding cheapo dinner EVER.  Kudos to whoever designs this soup kitchen’s menu!

I mean do they get mad whenever they see a black person with a cell phone, or a tattoo?

Yes.  They do.  Every time I go down south I have to listen to at least one relative bitch and moan about some black person they see with something nice.  Or “nice”.  Or even not that nice.  And if there are no black people on hand driving newish-looking cars or talking on cell phones or wearing name-brand clothes, they will find a black person and mock them for their obvious poverty. 

I swear this is half the reason Teh Heartland refuses to embrace public transit and walkable cities.  Because it’s much harder to spew racist shit outside the relative privacy of your car.

I had to shower after reading some of their comments.  The only missing one was “Are there no work houses?”

Can’t we clear out a big part of North Dakota, build a big fence around it, rename it Rand-Land and start dropping some of these selfish dickbags in the middle to create their own little libertarian/conservative paradise?

one of the biggest obstacles to getting a job when you don’t have an address is the fact that nobody can get back to you.

Now that cel phones are cheap if not free and prepaid cards reload them when you do have a bit of cash, it seems like having a phone might be your ticket to a ... JOB?

Remember, these are also the people who mocked the $200K gang-tattoo-removal item in the federal budget and who do their best to prevent prison inmates from calling home or from having visitors. Anything that might help “undesirables” stay in touch with their families and their friends in the non-homeless, non-imprisoned world is to be fought at all costs.

This “conservative” class warfare is really rotten, because if anything homeless people need cellphones and other modern communication gadgets probably more than the rest of us. Not just to get and keep jobs, but to stay in contact with people, to build communities, all the things that more fortunate people take for granted. And the cost: diddly.

BTW, our company participates in a gift buy for homeless kids every Christmas ... one of the things on the list for several teens was ... PREPAID CEL PHONE with a minutes card.

Guys like Andrew Malcolm are sick, ignorant people. That’s all there is to it, really. These are the people we’re fighting against at every election.

A-fucking-men! Remember pricks like these in 2010, it will inspire you to volunteer for your local Democratic candidate.

Wait I thought that The Poor were Real Americans™, unlike latte-sipping homosexual elistists. But just today some latte-sipping elitist says that rich conservatives are the Real Americans and the rest of us can go suck an egg, and now poor people with cellphones are parasites who should be wearin barrels with suspenders and moaning for alms by the side of the road and stuff.

I find it very confusing. It’s as though the arguments of the right about, well, EVERYTHING, are half-witted, ever-shifting goalposts of breathtaking dipshittery.

Mir:

These aren’t the Deserving Poor, who live in the Heartland and vote republican. These are the Lazy Poor, who live on a coast and vote democrat. There, does that make it all clear?

@Paul: But where does that leave the wealthy risotto-eatin going-Galters? Must they withdraw to their torturous golfy enclaves and let the deserving Heartland Repubs run the show? Who will make their lattes? Who will, for the love of god, pick their broccoli? The poor brokers!

Won’t someone think of the stockbrokers?!

What’s really funny is that a lot of cons (as in religious fundie cons) go to “third World” countries to uhm…. help the heathen poor who are more likely to have (at least within the village) a cell phone because land lines are too expensive (infrastructure) and too unreliable due to sabotage vulnerability.  But you won’t hear a fundie con screaming about a Bangladeshi having a cellphone.

Don’t worry, mir, they think of themselves all the time. And their thoughts are much more important, insightful and deserving than those of lower-bracket earners. They’ll withdraw until such time as we come crawling on our knees asking them to come back, at which point they’ll laugh patrician laughs and refuse. Only after the entire country is prostrate for lack of high-priced dentistry, wealth management and contract-drafting will they stride out from their enclaves and lead us like the conquerors they are.

(And their broccoli will be picked by illegal aliens who will be forcibly deported to either mexico or rigel at the end of the growing season, as it always has and should be. Except that Galters don’t eat broccoli, because it’s either too plebeian or too healthy or some other good reason.)

This “conservative” class warfare is really rotten, because if anything homeless people need cellphones and other modern communication gadgets probably more than the rest of us. Not just to get and keep jobs, but to stay in contact with people, to build communities, all the things that more fortunate people take for granted. And the cost: diddly.

I daresay they don’t want *that* many people’s lives to get all that better. After all, desperate people are easier to take advantage of, be it through religion or employment conditions….

Here’s a possibility: the guy isn’t even homeless!  He might be employed, hard-working, diligent, conscientious, and still so fucking poor he will risk the indignity of standing in a line to get food served by the First Lady of the United States of America.  Or he just heard Michelle Obama was there and wanted a picture.  Or all sorts of other possibilities.

We’re questioning the assumptions based on an assumption without actually finding out if the original assumption was in any way close to being correct.  Sure, it says a lot about the Wingnut A-hole and his class warfare aspirations, but it also shows a naivete on many’s part regarding the assumption that a black man in a feeding line is homeless.

He could be an illegal alien using a stolen cell phone, for all we know.  Or he could be a reporter trying to surprise his wife with a quick photo.  Maybe he’s a Republican plant wanting Michelle to say “Get whitebread” so he can splice it into a midterm campaign ad targeting rural whites.  All I know for certain is that I don’t know much for certain.

A cell phone can be had for as little as—let me see, about $15 per month.

Less than that, even, if you’re only using it for a few minutes a week (i.e. not chatting up your peeps).  I pay Virgin Mobile $25 every 90 days to keep my kids’ numbers and give them minutes.  They’re only allowed to use the phones to call home or my or hubby’s cells, or their emergency contact people if they can’t get hubby or me.

I don’t get the outrage over homeless folks having cellies.  You can mosey into Target and buy a VM phone for less than $20, and only need to throw $20 at it every 90 days to keep it active.  How the hell are you supposed to become Not Homeless if no one can get to you for a job offer?

“The complaint is that homeless people are eating rice and broccoli.
“

It’s a rice dish not rice itself. It’s actually something served in a lot of fancy restaurants along with bread and professional chefs screw it up a lot.

It’s a rice dish not rice itself. It’s actually something served in a lot of fancy restaurants along with bread and professional chefs screw it up a lot.

Uhhh, yes.  It’s composed of rice, stock, and a few additional ingredients which can be as cheap or fancy as you like.  It’s actually not difficult to make at all, you just have to be precise and pay attention. 

The basic ingredients for risotto are actually very cheap; it’s one of my favorite things to cook because it sounds so impressive and you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Risotto isn’t particularly fancy. My mother made it when I was in my teens as a “quick” dish when she was working on her masters.

Amen, 3letterjon.  This dude could be a number of things.  We don’t know.  If the wingnuts ever went down to a homeless shelter, they’d be surprised at how many of the people have jobs. There are tons of things that can happen that can make you homeless that aren’t related to how hard you work.

Risotto is actually one of the easiest things to make, provided you’re not one to wander away from the kitchen (if you can stand in one place for 30 minutes and move a stick in your hand in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, you can make risotto). Get some arborio rice or some of the other types of rice used to make risotto (use about 2 cups).  Saute some onions and garlic in butter and/or olive oil.  Throw the rice on top and stir for a minute.  Pour the chicken stock a cup at a time (about four cups total), letting the rice soak it up before you add more stock.  And stir and stir. I usually wait towards the end to stir in vegetables/meat (I like spinach and cooked chicken).  There you go.  Once you find the way you like to make it, risotto is so great because it’s so versatile.  I can’t believe I wasted my college years on crap like spaghetti.

In a lot of ways risotto would be almost ideally suited to a shelter/soup kitchen that has substantial volunteer labor available. Cost is low, and it takes about five minutes to teach someone how to stir and add liquid. You feed people and give the cooks a sense of accomplishment at the same time.

Risotto is just shot-grained rice, aromatics, and stock. The ingredients don’t have to be expensive.

Not all homeless people are jobless, or live on the street or in shelters. A lot are living in their cars. Some have jobs and can stay in a cheap Motel room, or rent one for a day or two in order to take a shower and so on. They may go to the shelters just to eat and be warm, or have some companionship.

When I was homeless, the mother of a friend let me sleep on her couch for a month, and another friend let me stay at her place for a month, while I searched for and got a job.

  I was lucky enough to get a studio apartment in a not-too-good part of Oakland, helped with references and deposit paid for with loans from two friends and one brother, and I was SO happy.  I had no furniture, slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, but I KNEW how lucky I was. It never entered my mind to complain or whine. I was offered overtime at my Gov’t job, and worked 10 hours a day 6 days a week for 2 years. 

So I feel I have a right to say I’d like to knock Malcom down and spit in his face. Hopefully, when I have a bad cold.

PS:  I’m fine now, in fact I (and husband) own 2 houses. My unemployed sister lives in one (we don’t ask for rent, but she pays utilities and takes good care of it): she’s looking hard for a job, but at 55, even with a Masters, its hard.  Her dream is to be a museum docent. She’d be a good one.

I suspect they think “risotto” sounds fancy because it’s a word borrowed from another language.  They’d probably complain about homeless people being served crepes for breakfast, for the same reason.

The only thing elitist about risotto is the skill it takes to cook it without turning it into a globby, glutinous mess.  Besides, why can’t the homeless eat well?  I used to volunteer for an organization that delivered meals to people suffering from HIV/AIDS, and they prided themselves on providing nutritious and tasty food.

I am a therapist working exclusively with people who have been homeless for years (living on the street, in shelters, or in transient hotels when they can afford it). I’ve been on the job for 8 years and have seen homeless people who own gold jewelry, new leather shoes, dress shirts, iPods, designer colognes, and gym memberships. I would say about half my clients own cell phones. And yes—all of them are poor. Their average monthly income is about $650.

The truth is that many clients have occasional extra income (such as from Social Security payment corrections or seasonal labor); they find great stuff that rich folks donate to thrift shops or put in Dumpsters; they buy look-alike items at Wal-Mart and Dollar Bills; and if there is something they really want, they may live on oatmeal for a week to afford it. Poor people in this country don’t have to look poor to be poor—in fact, the romantic stereotype of the emaciated beggar in rags has given way to the person whose relatively “mainstream” looks belie their lack of decent food and healthcare, the stress of dirty and unsafe living conditions, a sixth-grade education, a chaotic family history, and a very limited set of opportunities in general. The perceived trappings of privilege are not a stand-in for privilege itself, especially when some of them can be purchased for $60 at Target.

And then, of course, there is the excellent point that in order for a homeless person to get a job, they need a phone number (and a new shirt, and a haircut).

I’m lower income single mom. I’m not homeless, but I don’t have enough money for a cell phone right now. Almost every time I go out, a friend lets me borrow hers. That is another possibility that people don’t think about.

Also, I remember several years ago, I lived on $368/mo. I went to the housing authority to apply for section 8. I had a used Coach purse I got at Goodwill. Rich people throw out a ton of nice stuff, and sometimes you are lucky to get it. Very rich people with very nice stuff rarely bother to sell stuff at garage sales or on ebay or whatever. They don’t need the money and don’t want to take the time. Anyway, this woman who worked there was absolutely appalled that I had a coach bag. She went off on how she couldn’t even afford one and if I would stop buying designer I could pay my rent. I told her it cost me about a dollar fifty and she shut up. But gosh, don’t people ever think a little?

“She went off on how she couldn’t even afford one and if I would stop buying designer I could pay my rent. I told her it cost me about a dollar fifty and she shut up. But gosh, don’t people ever think a little? “

Nope but a lot of poor people get their stuff from rent to own places rather then the thrift store making them pay five to six times minium over retail. They believe that going to the thrift store makes them look poor rather then the reality that the rent to own center is making them even more poor.

Mind you depending upon where you are the thrift centers could be garbage or gold due to what goes in them. One I saw had tons of broken stuff and old computer printers.

The homeless person in rags is usually mentally ill to boot. Most people who don’t want to be homeless can usally get in a shelter or find a friend to crash out for a month then move to another place repeating the process.

Plus Motel Sixes or other hotels if you ask if they have a monthly rate can often get you an incredibly decent place to stay for six months or more. So a lot of the homeless actually stay in a place with a roof over their heads and where they can shower.

The response we really should be having is hysterical laughter.  These people are less than 30% of the population and we can disprove their crap in five seconds.  We give them entirely too much credit and this story is proof.

Who am I to demand that they give up their few remaining pleasures so that they can be more ‘seemly’?

agreed

re: this “poor people with cell phones must be faking being poor”, ten years ago when the only people I knew who could afford cell phones were quite a bit richer than me, that sounded plausible to me. Now that I’ve been extremely underemployed for a year and a half and have ended up having to live with friends, and still have a cell phone because during one of my temp jobs I was able to take $40 and pick up a phone at the grocery store—I’d really like to smack the people making such stupid, classist, racist assumptions.

(And I knew this argument was going to happen, as soon as I saw the photo. Part of me went, “Awww, so cute! I wish I had a chance to get a picture of Michelle Obama in person!” and the other half went, “Oh damn, we’re going to hear this crap again, aren’t we.”)

This is much ado about nothing.  A few dumbasses make uninformed comments about a subject of which they have no idea (and no inclination to learn about).  Full stop.

The stupidity of those who are trying to find fault with the photo above, or are trying to raise the same, tired, recycled rant about how the poor in America are really “not that poor” does not at all diminish the importance of soup kitchens or how First Lady Michelle Obama is leading by example of how some of us can pitch in and help out others who are in need.

In a lame tempest in a rusty teapot.

Which is why it’s laughable (and very predictable) how liberals are trying to amplify said dumb comments into yet another value judgment against the Republican party and conservatives in general.  Just like with the Rush Limbaugh sideshow, the desperation of liberals to find one jackalope after another to distract from the parasitical Porkulus plans advanced by the President continues to both amuse and disgust.  It’s all kabuki theater with leftists, day after day after day.

I’m just content that not everyone is falling for this dishonest shell game.

-A

We’re simply pointing out how odd and frankly stupid Mr. Malcolm’s assumptions about this guy with the cell phone are. The way he asks how the guy could be homeless, yet have a cell phone reveals that he doesn’t know much about homeless people. And the way he assumes the guy must be homeless is also telling, he apparently doesn’t know much about homeless shelters.

Michelle Malkin and her commenters are, of course, much crazier.

That’s all that’s going on here.

It’s pretty simple. It’s all about the rl-peen.

Cell phones and designer clothes and so on are seen by the complainers here as a symbol of success. If the poor can have these things too, then they are no longer exclusive, thusly no longer a symbol of success.

However, assuming that there’s a problem with people buying cell phones rather than paying rent (which is a joke), the problem is created almost entirely by this attitude in the first place!! People want to be successful. They want to fit in and be admired in society. So if they can, they do take steps toward this, even if they are self-damaging in the long run.

Which is why rent-to-own is so successful, even though it makes little economic sense. It makes a ton of social sense however. Same thing with credit card debt.

Changing our culture from seeing material goods as a symbol of success towards seeing them as functional tools, is a much needed change on all levels. Not just for the poor, but for the very rich as well.

Wow, Atanar, don’t give yourself cramps trying to pretzel out a “poor Repugs” argument from this.

In a lot of ways risotto would be almost ideally suited to a shelter/soup kitchen that has substantial volunteer labor available.

In addition to what you already said, it’s also very, very tasty and due to the associations with Tuscan haute cuisine, feels special.  Mushroom risotto is a million times more enjoyable to eat on a variety of intangible aesthetic levels than plain rice with sauteed mushrooms on top would be.

“Just like with the Rush Limbaugh sideshow, the desperation of liberals to find one jackalope after another to distract from the parasitical Porkulus plans advanced by the President continues to both amuse and disgust.”

Wow.  And you say it as if you really believe it’s true, when you know you’re as full of shit as we think you are. 

It’s the Republicans who are desperately looking for a distraction, any distraction, to take American’s minds off the sobering devastation left in the wake of 30-years of Republican rape-‘n-pillage economic and social policy.

Now virtually leaderless, the Republicans have finally been weakened to the point where a huge bloviating anal cyst in the form of a man can pretend to be the awesome leader — who inspires fear in both his enemies and his allies — he always believed himself to be.

You have embraced Limbaugh and his audience of unthinking, pitchfork-wielding, reactionary red-state villagers for a very long time.  And when he’s feeling his oats and decides to claim what he believes is his birthright, you blame the negative reaction on the part of reasonable people on Teh Libruls, as usual.

Republicans/Conservatives (there’s no longer any distinction between them) claim to believe in personal responsibility.  But when Limbaugh/Shit (there’s no longer any distinction between them) happens, it’s our fault.

Limbaugh is entirely a monster of your own creation.  He was the inevitable end result of many years of the devolution of Republican philosophy and politics, from the highpoint of Big Business’s long needed reckoning at the hands of Teddy Roosevelt, through the disaster of Hoover, to finally becoming a party whose prime directive is to automatically oppose anything suggested by the Left, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.  Add in the politics of race hatred, class hatred, irrational love for war, irrational hatred of intellect, and worship of wealth and power at the expense of everything else, and in the end you get the modern Republican Party.

You built the lab, you collected the parts, you sewed them together, you provided the spark to animate this Republican golem, and you kept him well fed for a couple of decades, so you can’t get upset now when the monster starts wreaking havoc.  Actions, meet Consequences…

“It’s all kabuki theater with leftists, day after day after day.”

...apparently projection is not just something that occurs in a movie theater…

Poor people in this country don’t have to look poor to be poor

I think this is at the heart of Conservatives’ fear.  They want to keep their po’ folks where they can see ‘em.  If the lines are blurred by the person being clean, well-dressed, and having a few “nice” personal items, then how will they know who they can dehumanize, and who they have to pay lip service to?  The right is all about maintaining precise hierarchies.

risotto probably isn’t that difficult, but it isn’t generally on offer in the places I eat

I rarely see it on restaurant menus around here.  My take is that it’s not as trendy a food as it was 10-15 years ago, and yet somehow never trickled down to the “red sauce” Italian joints.

>Which is why it’s laughable (and very predictable) how liberals are trying to amplify said dumb comments into yet another value judgment against the Republican party and conservatives in general. </blockquote>

Sorry, but liberals didn’t write that essay or publish it.  The First Amendment doesn’t preclude criticism.  You put fact-free stupid out there; you get mocked.

Aww, Atanarjuat has a new sandbox to play in!

- Tunch First

Interesting aside about the DC non-profit where Michelle Obama served lunch. It’s called Miriam’s Place and all the food is freshly prepared, local, and organic.

Many homeless people work temporary day labor. With no phone, the labor services have no way to reach you, which means you don’t work or you have to show up at the agency every single day and take the scraps. For about $20 buck a month, you can get a bit of a leg up on the better temp assignments (better is relative of course).
I know a fair number of homeless people and many of them are seeking to do what the Republicans supposedly preach, which is pulling themselves up out of homelessness through their own efforts.
It’s a tough road, made a lot tougher by idiots who would probably still bitch if all the homeless were stripped of everything and left nude and starving.

The problem with not being able to tell the poor from from their rags and filth, is that a rich person might actually start conversing with them as if they were human.

Heaven forfend that they have their pretty little bubble burst and learn that cell phones aren’t a high status item and are actually a necessity for the homeless.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people that they don’t bother to learn a little or Google a little before they publish an article?  Are there no copy editors?  Are there no standards?

I have a BlackBerry, with an unlimited dataplan, 130 minutes free anywhere in the country, which serves (as people mentioned) as an address book, alarm clock, scheduler, email service, camera, voice recorder, music player, emergency beacon, map and GPS, and, when I can’t get to a computer, internet browser.  The monthly costs is well below what I’d pay for food, even if I lived someplace cheaper than I do now.  It’s dirt cheap to maintain and, if I lost my job and my home, it would probably be the last possession I would sacrifice.  Actually, you’d be prying it out of my cold, dead hands.  I could use it to stay in contact, monitor job postings, find out how to get to the nearest hospital or police station, call for help if I needed it…

The problem with Malkin and her enablers is that they are, at any moment, utterly incapable of mentally putting themselves into another situation and then wondering what they’d do.  They don’t have any sense of empathy at all.

“The problem with not being able to tell the poor from from their rags and filth, is that a rich person might actually start conversing with them as if they were human.”

...in a capitalist society, the purpose of homeless people is to serve as living examples of failure in order to keep most of the proles sufficiently frightened to prevent serious action against the overclass. 

For the overclass, the existence homelessness is one level of proof demonstrating they are successful, and reinforces their delusional belief they are inherently superior and therefore incapable of ever being in the same state.

If the line delineating the differences between our “untouchables” and other classes is not bright and sharp, who knows what will result?  It could shake the very foundations of American society…

I have given every former cell phone of mine to a charity at my neurologist’s office that donates them, with free minutes, to the homeless and women in shelters.  I find it hard to believe that this is the only program like this in the country.

I was going to point this out—my husband and I do this, too. And since he needs high-end pda and email services for his job, his old cell phones are niiiiiice.

Also, several stores around here sell cheap and/or used unlocked, non-activated cell phones as a mobile 911 service: providers can’t refuse a 911 call, even if it’s from a phone that they don’t provide services for. And what’s really cool is that the camera on a camera phone works whether you have cell phone service or not.

This is much ado about nothing. 
-A

Concern troll is concerned.

“And what’s really cool is that the camera on a camera phone works whether you have cell phone service or not.”

Of course being able to send the photos is another matter as well as print them.

Concern troll is concerned.

Well, obviously. I mean, we’re not discussing the fact that the insanely wealthy aren’t getting the tax cuts they need because of all those greedy shits that want to have health care, shelter, and food.

(btw, the reason you don’t see risotto at that many restaurants is that it’s very hard to do right in a restaurant kitchen. In addition to figuring out what to do with the diner in the 35 minutes from odering till the dish is ready, you would be tying up a large chunk of a line cook’s attention for those 35 minutes, which costs you a bundle (partly in wages, mostly in all the other dishes the line cook can’t beshoving out the door at the same time). Many places that have it on the menu do it ahead for most of the cooking time, then finish with a little cream instead of stirring, which doesn’t really do it compared to the real thing.)

In serious urban areas like Manhattan of SF, the Rich People’s Thrift Stores can be a great deal because they’re easily accessible to poor people (albeit much of their stuff gets snapped up by lower-middle-income types trying to project a successful image on a temp or adjunct or assistant’s pay). But a lot of the mind-boggling bargains in the suburbs (anecdotally speaking) go to the ne’er-do-well kids and friends of the rich, because not a lot of other people can get there or even know the places exist.

“She went off on how she couldn’t even afford one and if I would stop buying designer I could pay my rent. I told her it cost me about a dollar fifty and she shut up. But gosh, don’t people ever think a little?”

For a lot of people, real thrift stores either don’t exist, or they have a very off idea about how much stuff in them costs.  You might as well be talking about the weather on Mars.

But was there a salad bar?

Maybe the guy owns the 7/11 across the street and when he heard the First Lady was at the soup kitchen he ran over to take her picture.

I have my mother-in-law on my family plan and the cell phone itself cost me nothing and I pay $10 per month for her.  Maybe this guy has a family member who loves him and is willing to spend $10 per month on him.  I think its possible that even homeless people are loved by someone.

“And what’s really cool is that the camera on a camera phone works whether you have cell phone service or not.”

“Of course being able to send the photos is another matter as well as print them. “

And if you have access to a library (or a friend or relative), they can either hook up the phone directly to a PC or take the memory card out and put in a PC.  Then they can print out as many copies as you like.

Can’t we clear out a big part of North Dakota, build a big fence around it, rename it Rand-Land and start dropping some of these selfish dickbags in the middle to create their own little libertarian/conservative paradise?

Only if Fargo can be adopted into Minnesota, first.  67% of us voted for Obama here.

On topic, these are the same people who call the police to report fraud when they discover that the homeless woman they gave money to lives in a tent in the park.  (Yeah, this happened here.)  These are the same people who think that a homeless person doesn’t deserve to use his cash to buy a soda or a coffee or the other small luxuries that make life more bearable.  They apparently have never met someone who was down on their luck and crashing on various people’s sofas until s/he found work.  They apparently also lack a sense of imagination or empathy.

I am so disgusted at how socially acceptable it is to hate poor people in our society I don’t even know where to start. I wish these cruel, hateful people could see things from the other side.

Sort of OT, but on topic with the thread:

You all talked me into it.  I made risotto for the first time last night.  It was orgasmically good.  I put spinach and mushrooms and shrimp in it.  God.  I couldn’t stop myself stuffing my face.

So they noticed this guy but not the homeless Vietnam veteran that Mrs. O talked to? Didn’t see the shame and disgrace in a man who served his country in time of war living on the streets, but did see the guy with the cell phone. I guess that’s what happens when you’re looking for just what you want to see and nothing else.

Risotto isn’t so much difficult as it requires attention and a saucepan (or warming plate, if you’re cafetaria) of hot stock handy. We don’t make it often because if only one person is making dinner, and you’re trying to get other dishes prepared at the same time, it’s really easy to ruin the risotto.

Looking at the picture again…

Look how happy Michelle Obama looks.  Can you imagine Laura Bush being that happy working at a soup kitchen?  Can you imagine happiness on her Stepford wife face at all?

I can see W’s smirk clear as day, and his bored pout, and his looking around to see how soon he could get out of there.  He would tell inappropriate jokes until someone whisked him away, if they could get him there at all.

I can imagine B. Hussein helping out Michelle with the same kind of smile she has.

They are just orders of magnitude classier than the Bushes.

  “Oh, I didn’t get you anything…” Laura Bush upon receiving a housewarming gift from Michelle Obama. 

” it’s really easy to ruin the risotto.
“

Hence why Gordon Ramsay has it on Hell’s Kitchen all the time to test the aspiring chefs. Plus it in addition to Beef Wellington, John Dory and several other items aren’t served in the vast majority of American restaurants so people do want to go eat there when they film there.

Risotto should be something easy with thousands of variations but to keep it restaurant quality is very difficult.

Add in the politics of race hatred, class hatred, irrational love for war, irrational hatred of intellect, and worship of wealth and power at the expense of everything else, and in the end you get the modern Republican Party.

You forgot sexism and anti-gay bigotry.

I am so disgusted at how socially acceptable it is to hate poor people in our society I don’t even know where to start.

Here’s one place to start: those wingnuts would quite happily spend their Hard Earned Tax Dollars if Those People were in jail, out of sight and out of mind. So it’s clearly the fault of the non-criminal poor.

You all talked me into it.  I made risotto for the first time last night.  It was orgasmically good.  I put spinach and mushrooms and shrimp in it.

Try asparagus next time. Not the thick white ones, but the small green fresh ones. It’s the ultimate gourmet experience.

Mitchforth, there is no Obama/Gordon Brown gift fiasco. The dailymail exists for the purpose of rubbing the clitoris of the British perpetually outraged public, and they’re trying to now export that desire to be outraged over to the USA.

The 1990s Republican outrage machine called and they want their shtick back.

Here’s one place to start: those wingnuts would quite happily spend their Hard Earned Tax Dollars if Those People were in jail, out of sight and out of mind. So it’s clearly the fault of the non-criminal poor.

Oh, Christ yes.  Here in Dallas people bitch constantly about the placement of bus stops.  “There’s all these stinky poor people sitting around outside my store so nobody comes in to buy my ninety dollar t-shirts!”

Atlas shrugged and all I got was this stupid tee-shirt…

Be thankfull the movie has been in development hell in for 35 years. For some weird reason the novel keeps coming up in lists of the best American novels along with Battlefield Earth.

I have loved Michelle Obama since her tv interview before the election. At the time, I thought “I would so love to have such a classy, intelligent, compassionate, and beautiful person as First Lady.” I knew Senator Obama’s win was a given for Cali, but it was a nail-biter as far as the national election. I am not crazy about Democrats (I generally only vote Dem in effort to keep the Rethugs out of office), but Michelle Obama helped sell me on the idea that President Obama will actually be a good thing for our country, and not merely the (far) lesser of two evils. I don’t expect him to walk on water or turn water into wine; it will be enough for him to just change the tone of the national discourse considering the toilet that Bunnypants and company put us in for the last 8 years.

This picture is beautiful! All we saw of Laura Bush was her vapid smile in Good Housekeeping, People, and Ladies Home Journal over the last 8 years. *GAG* In contrast, the brilliant, compassionate, and beautiful woman that is Michelle Obama doesn’t just talk the talk, but actually gets hands on in helping those less fortunate than she. Brava, Michelle!

If the guy is homeless, he’s simply being logical to plan for his future.  If I lost my job, I’d sell my furniture before I got rid of a phone and internet access.  It’s almost impossible to find a new job without some means of communication.  Also, many homeless and needy people actually have jobs.  Maybe it’s a company phone.  Maybe he’s not actually homeless at all, and is one of the volunteers as mentioned earlier.  Or, there’s a small chance that he’s not actually needy and is just taking advantage of the soup kitchen for some free mediocre food.  But if that’s the case, it doesn’t say anything about the rest of the people there.

I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen.  Someone once asked me, “don’t you think at least some of them are taking advantage of you?”  Well, even if some of them were (which I doubt because it’s not like it was wonderful gourmet food), I would not refuse food to the many people who need it just to punish a few who don’t.  I think that’s the main difference between liberals and conservatives.  They want to give bad people what they deserve, even if it means hurting innocent people in the process.  We want to give good people what they deserve, even if it means helping some people who don’t deserve it.  It’s hate vs. compassion.  It’s ironic that the people who follow Jesus’s command to love your neighbor are the ones who are most likely to be called evil.

“Can’t we clear out a big part of North Dakota, build a big fence around it, rename it Rand-Land and start dropping some of these selfish dickbags in the middle to create their own little libertarian/conservative paradise?”

I don’t think the Lakota and the farmers are two groups that really need screwing. North Dakotans do elect nominally Democrat senators, too.

I don’t think the Lakota and the farmers are two groups that really need screwing. North Dakotans do elect nominally Democrat senators, too.

Alaska, then.  Way up near the Arctic Circle.  Or maybe carve them out a chunk of the Great American Desert.  Surely such geniuses can find a way to turn such hostile environments into pleasure resorts, even without the kind of mass labor that non-Galts usually require to accomplish such a thing.  They are the source of all growth, stability, and innovation in our society after all.

Um…. I would like to mention that just because the camera on his phone works doesn’t mean he has a phone bill. Cell phones can still dial 911 while having a plan suspended, which is why they’re worth carrying around. Furthermore, the guy could’ve been given a phone by his employer…. many manual labor jobs do so for their employees so that they can get in touch with them on the job, etc.

Not to mention, this homeless shelter could be church-funded… maybe these faith voters should stop giving extra cash to their churches so their churches can’t cater to the homeless… I mean, if they’re that worried about the homeless having secret retirement funds in Switzerland, etc.
If it comes down to it, we can hope more of the churches these people belong to go under for lack of tithing.

I’m not surprised, though… I still get flack from people occasionally when they discover how cheap my rent is because I am “lucky enough to receive section 8 housing” (irony is I’m not being all that sarcastic, it’s really difficult to find cheaply rented gov assist housing, especially such housing with reliable basic ammenities, bug-free, etc) and can still afford to go to school or buy decent clothes (even though about 60% of my clothes are thrift-store bargains, clearance rack items, or mart buys), or even have a healthy diet.
I’d hear the same argument all the time in school from idiot fundies about how food stamp moms are irresponsible, lazy sluts… while my food stamp mom was a responsible, frugal, type A, hard-working divorcee of a middle class union laborer who cheated us out of tens of thousands of dollars in child support because “she (mom) uses the money to buy clothes at dept stores” (these supposed “fancy” clothes were clearance items and sometimes cheaper and often far outlasted wal-mart clothes).

Idiots….

And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

One of the primary recipients of outreach money and efforts at the church where I work is a place called St. Martin’s.  St. Martin’s isn’t a homeless shelter, per say.  Instead, it provides meals, clothing, job training, and .... mailboxes (i.e. an address) for its homeless “clients.”

Having an address (and probably also a phone) are a big help when you are trying to get back on your feet financially and off the streets.

So, yeah.  A homeless person can have an address.

I’ve been homeless, and the reason why I had a cell phone was because my (rich) family paid for it for me. They also bought me a TomTom and a lot of marijuana; none of these made me any less homeless. When you don’t have a home, you don’t have a home phone number, or a home to put that home phone in, so a cell phone is basically the only way an employer or potential employer could contact you. So having a cell phone could be a sign of responsibility and trying to get back on your feet.

If a homeless person uses money to buy drugs, alcohol, etc, chances are they are doing drugs because their life sucks, and/or they have painful memories they want to forget. Seeking out a bright spot when your life is filled with darkness does not mean you are a worthless pleasure-seeking harlot.