Post by lunaria on Aug 17, 2006 10:24:18 GMT -5
Perspective!!
There's a story told about an elderly lady in
Arkansas. The state voted to increase
welfare payments to indigents. Hoping for a
tear-jerker story, a television interviewer went into
the back hills where many welfare recipients lived.
The old woman he chose to interview lived in a one-
room shack: draughty in winter; stifling in summer.
Her bed was a few rough planks
nailed together, with a pine-needle mattress.
A couple of thin blankets, and a fireplace,
did little to protect her from the cold.
Her furniture, a table and two chairs, were fashioned
from the same rough wood as her bed. Some
shelves held a few cans of food from the
general store, a three mile walk down the road.
Several jars of preserves and a few squash
completed her larder.
She had no fridge or freezer. The fireplace provided
heat for cooking. With no phone or television her only connection
with the outside world
was an old radio that pulled in two or three local
stations on a good day.
The old woman had one convenience, running water.
A crystal clear stream gurgled a short distance
behind her home.
A small garden near her back door provided
fresh vegetables during the summer, and some squash
and turnips for the winter. A tidy flower
garden brightened the front of her house.
The television crew arrived and set up their
big expensive cameras.
Their mobile station broadcast pictures of
the woman and the place she
called home.
Eventually the interviewer asked the old woman,
"If the government gave you $200 more each month,
what would you do with it?"
Without hesitation the woman replied,
"I'd give it to the poor."
There's a story told about an elderly lady in
Arkansas. The state voted to increase
welfare payments to indigents. Hoping for a
tear-jerker story, a television interviewer went into
the back hills where many welfare recipients lived.
The old woman he chose to interview lived in a one-
room shack: draughty in winter; stifling in summer.
Her bed was a few rough planks
nailed together, with a pine-needle mattress.
A couple of thin blankets, and a fireplace,
did little to protect her from the cold.
Her furniture, a table and two chairs, were fashioned
from the same rough wood as her bed. Some
shelves held a few cans of food from the
general store, a three mile walk down the road.
Several jars of preserves and a few squash
completed her larder.
She had no fridge or freezer. The fireplace provided
heat for cooking. With no phone or television her only connection
with the outside world
was an old radio that pulled in two or three local
stations on a good day.
The old woman had one convenience, running water.
A crystal clear stream gurgled a short distance
behind her home.
A small garden near her back door provided
fresh vegetables during the summer, and some squash
and turnips for the winter. A tidy flower
garden brightened the front of her house.
The television crew arrived and set up their
big expensive cameras.
Their mobile station broadcast pictures of
the woman and the place she
called home.
Eventually the interviewer asked the old woman,
"If the government gave you $200 more each month,
what would you do with it?"
Without hesitation the woman replied,
"I'd give it to the poor."