OK—Flunked That Test….

Yeah?

That seems to be my reaction to everything, today, since the news, guys, is anything but great. True—no category five hurricanes are barreling down on us, and the murder rate is actually down in the little town of Loíza, traditionally a very hot-in-every-sense place. Internationally, the news from Syria is good. Oh, and in Florida, this hovel got sold….

Yes, I bring you this in the spirit of compare and contrast, which was dear to the hearts of all of my high school teachers. So here it is:

1. Compare and contrast the lives of the 1% versus the 99%

(‘Shit, I hate these questions—hey, can I use the Internet? There’s gotta be something there….)

To start, the top 1% in terms of wealth own one third of the net worth of the United States. And that’s why, dear Reader, somebody was able to shell out 41.1 million greenbacks to live in the current mansion of the former Gianni Versace in Miami.

In the meantime, we have this:

Meet Deirdre Cunningham, who, according to today’s The New York Times, is working two jobs and living in a homeless shelter. Nor is that unusual—apparently over 20% of people in New York’s homeless population—estimated at 50,000—are working. An apartment costs at least 1,000 bucks in New York, and Cunningham doesn’t have a good credit rating: she was evicted.

Consider this curious sentence, from the Times:

The average monthly cost for the government to shelter a family is more than $3,000; the cost for a single person is more than $2,300.

Ummm—is anybody seeing what I’m seeing? Such as if there are apartments for $1,000, why aren’t we renting them and putting homeless people in them and saving 1,300 or 2,000 bucks monthly?

This idea, apparently, would be anathema to New York’s mayor Michael R. Bloomberg—who if he’s not part of the 1%, by the way, we’re really fucked—since he feels that the homeless like to be homeless and like to live in shelters. Or something like that—that’s how I interpret this sentence from the Times:

To make the shelter system less inviting, the city also stopped giving homeless families priority for public housing, and made it harder for those who left the system to return.

Pretty clear, hunh? A few details from Cunningham’s life:

1. she gets four hours of sleep from 7AM to 11AM
2. She can’t keep sharp objects of razor blades with her
3. She has to take her laundry to a laundromat, since the washing machines at the shelter are either broken or being used
4. Oh—there’s a curfew, so even if she had the money to go out, she couldn’t

I’ll come clean—that wasn’t all Deidre: it was a composite of three women mentioned in the article.

But there is something perversely wrong about American culture today. Do we really think anybody would want to live in a shelter? Listen to another sentence:

But in an interview, Ms. Gibbs reiterated the Bloomberg administration’s long-held position that more benefits only attract more people to shelters. “That drives more demand,” she said. “It’s a Catch-22.”

Guys—we’re talking about people here, not widgets. People whose alternative is the streets at 3AM. People who have daughters—Deirdre’s is eight, and wants to take ballet.

I remember when my family went to New York, for my brother’s wedding. We saw a man pawing through the trash can.

“What’s he doing,” asked my father.

“Looking for food,” said Jeanne.

“In AMERICA?” cried my father.

What have we become?