Author: Darlene Mitchell

Open Hearts and Closed Gates

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OPEN HEARTS AND CLOSED GATES

By Trevor K. McNeil

Every Human Heart

Humans are complex creatures. What we say, and what we want, do not always dovetail with our actions. I think that we, for the most part want to do good and are essentially empathetic. Which is why I was so crushed to see what has gone on in recent days and weeks at our southern border. Quite aside from the President of the United States apparently thinking that dignity can be bought, something he is not even honest enough to admit, which is bad enough in itself, what is going on at the border, just for a moment, made me question my faith in humanity.

Not in Our Back Yard

We are all familiar with the images by now. Makeshift tents row upon row, people just trying to get through the day, children playing in spite of it all. Pretty typical in terms of refugee camps. Long panning camera shots and concerned looking correspondents being fixtures of cable television. Still, whoever would have thought that such camps would be constructed at the border of the United States? It is a mental disconnect I don’t think most of us are able to cope with, refugee camps being something that happens “over there.”

It’s Sad….But

Exactly where “over there” is I am not sure, but certainly not here. It is a similar case with terrorism. Up until 2001, regularly occurring, high-casualty terrorist attacks while sad, were things that happened to other people who weren’t like us, in other countries very different from ours. Which explains our surprise when a team of foreign actors, operating completely under the radar managed to murder 3,000 Americans on American soil with very non-conventional weapons. Which is probably why there were people at the time who said it was the only time America had been directly attacked. Apparently forgetting about Pearl Harbor. We simply didn’t see it coming. Sort of like how the indigenous Natives of the Americas literally could not visualize the future result of those first landings by European galleons. It was a sight so far outside their experience that their brains simply could not process it.

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Universal Basic Income: A New Future

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Universal Basic Income: A Stepping Stone to the Future

By Ross Turner

 

Not a New Idea

How often it is that in times of turbulence and upheaval, ideas once thought fantastical suddenly seem quite rational.  Such is the case of Universal Basic Income (UBI), also called a “basic income guarantee” or “Social Security-for-all.”  The concept was first introduced in the  16th century, with notable advocates such as Thomas Paine and then revived in the early 20th century by Bertrand Russell, but only in the modern age has there been a true necessity and demand for it.

UBI May Be an Idea Who’s Time Has Come

The idea, at its core, is to give every citizen a regular, untaxed sum of money regardless of employment status or income.  The thought is that this will raise the poorest recipients out of poverty and help the overall economy by boosting consumers’ purchasing power and economic mobility.  Many people, however, have a negative visceral reaction to “handing out” free money, worrying that people will stop working, or worrying about how to pay for such a program in the first place.  First, let’s look at why something like Universal Basic Income will be needed in the very-near future.

A Robot Took My Job

Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has displaced workers. Machines were capable of higher productivity than their human counterparts, forcing some to take up work in these new “factories” that housed them. As industrialization spread, businesses, consumers, and workers became dependent on these machines for their livelihoods.  Though this technological boom disrupted many traditional professions, it often created new ones, shifting more and more workers from farm to factory, country to city.

Technology Today and Tomorrow

Over time, technology became even more productive, efficient, and cost-effective, shifting workers yet again from manufacturing to retail, from city to suburb.  Many economists believed that technology would continue to create enough new jobs to replace the ones it destroyed, but few predicted just how efficient technology would become.  Automation has simply become too productive and cost-efficient for businesses to not embrace.  And the more businesses automate, the more others do so to stay competitive.

An Economic Shot in the Arm

The result is the rapid and economically incentivized displacement of workers, a shrinking job market, and growing income inequality.  Technology is doing more and more of the work, while workers and consumers are less and less able to afford the goods produced.  This also hurts businesses, as too few people have money to spend on what they’re selling. A Universal Basic Income is a shot in the arm of the economy, seeking to better circulate the vast wealth captured by a small handful of big businesses and super-wealthy.

With Whose Money?

Aside from the perceived “moral” questions, the foremost concern people usually raise is the cost: how does one pay for such a massive program?  The short answer is: it depends.  The funding and need itself for a UBI depends on each individual country.  For one, it need not be fully universal, though this often helps “sell” it.  There are different payout schemes where high-earners receive less or not at all.

Income Inequality Growing

One proposal is to end current welfare programs and use that money for a Universal Basic Income.  This would free up that cash, but also eliminate many government agencies and bureaucracy.  Another, obvious way is to raise taxes on the super-rich, which is similar in effect to cutting their payouts.  Income inequality has grown steadily for 30 years, with America’s top 10% now averaging more than nine times the bottom 90%.

The Projected Price Tag

A combination of cutting redundant government programs, shifting funds from others, and taxing the rich in varying degrees could cover a large part of the roughly $3 trillion annual cost of a UBI, (assuming a $1,000 monthly payment for every adult.)  Many might still balk at that price tag, but it’s important to remember that a Universal Basic Income will actually grow the economy, by some estimates as much as $2.5 trillion over 8 years.

Good for Growth

One of the most basic principles of economics is that businesses need consumers to survive, and consumers can’t consume if they’re broke.  Giving everybody a monthly income would simply allow people to spend more.  According to the Institute for Policy Studies, every extra dollar given to low-wage workers adds about $1.21 to the national economy, while every dollar going toward high-income earners adds only 39 cents. Put another way with a UBI every poor person will spend $1,210 of the $1,000, while the wealthy will only spend $390.

Many Voice Concern

Experimental Universal Basic Income programs have found that many spent their extra money on furthering education, finding a better job, or starting their own business, all of which help the individual and society at large.  Still, many are concerned that giving free money will make people lazy, or that they’ll just spend it on drugs or alcohol.  On the contrary, drug and alcohol usage went down when people were given a UBI, likely due to reduction of stress and gaining of opportunity.

What Studies Tell Us

As far as laziness, a Canadian UBI study in the 1970’s found that less than 1 percent of recipients stopped working, mainly to take care of children.  In the same study, recipients reduced their working hours on average by less than 10 percent.  This is in part because Universal Basic Income doesn’t discourage work in the way that welfare programs can.  In many cases, earning even a penny over the welfare cap – say, $1,000 –  results in a loss of benefits.

 A Better Way?

Combined with taxes, bills, and transport expenses, someone earning $1,200 may only come home with $800.  For many, it becomes financially rational to stay on welfare and not work.  With a Universal Basic Income, working can only improve one’s money situation.  Furthermore, welfare often forces people to take poorly paying jobs, keeping them in poverty.  A UBI gives people the money and time to search for better opportunities.

No Silver Bullets

Of course, some people will have a moral or ideological opposition to the idea of handing out “free” anything, and the idea of people not necessarily having to work.  Yet, this is money that in many ways the working classes have earned many, many times over and have been denied through decades of wage suppression, tax evasion, and countless types of financial trickery on part of the wealthy.  People who make their living solely through and inheritance and financial manipulation can hardly be said to work for a living, either. At any rate, a Universal Basic Income is not even an attempted fix to income inequality.

A Financial Floor For the Most Vulnerable

In an economy such as ours, inequality is a feature.  A UBI rather is trying to provide a financial floor for the most vulnerable citizens and even the playing field, giving workers leverage for better pay, better representation, and better benefits.  However, a UBI won’t address the problem of infinite growth on a finite planet and the unsustainable strain that capitalism puts on the environment.  It could, in fact, exacerbate it, with increased demand resulting in increased pollution and resource overshoot.  A Universal Basic Income, in this sense, is not a total fix or permanent solution.

Check, Please

In any society, there will always be a small number of people who simply hitch a free ride if they can.  But anyone who has been unemployed for long can attest that doing nothing gets boring fast.  The majority of people are driven by accomplishment, whether through a job or own their own, and a UBI empowers people to better their situations in the ways that make sense for them.  For some, this will just mean getting a better job.  For others, it will mean starting a business.  And yet others, who may be financially secure already, can pool and invest their UBI into non-profits, political organizations, or charities.  It’s a program that can help people survive, thrive, and organize the transition to the next socioeconomic phase of civilization.  It’s an acknowledgment, for the first time in a long time, that we are in fact a society, that we have contributed to this wealth over generations, and that we are entitled to a fair and reasonable slice of that wealth by birth.  Indeed, that realization itself may be the catalyst for change and the true legacy of a universal basic income.

 

 

https://archive.intereconomics.eu/year/2017/2/on-the-economics-of-a-universal-basic-income/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/32/2/155/4098285
https://buildthefloor.org/
https://ips-dc.org/wall_street_bonuses_and_the_minimum_wage/
https://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/20/world/dauphin
https://web.archive.org/web/20080621140909/http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMO78A7YJU

Introducing Ross Turner

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Introducing Ross Turner

Ross Turner is a writer, artist, and sustainability activist. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Ross received a BFA in Illustration from Massachusetts College of Art and Design before relocating to the magical land of Oregon. Now 31, he lives in Portland with a very special cat, and enjoys drawing, running, learning languages, retro games, and of course, writing.

Mr. Turner’s first piece for Calamity Politics is “Universal Basic Income: A Stepping Stone To The Future” and will be available 12/16/18

Russell Means: Native American Warrior

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Russell Means-Native American Warrior

by D.S. Mitchell

Russell Means & Dennis Banks Prominent Militant Native American Activists Talk to Press

Champion of Native American Rights

Russell Means was a champion of Native American civil rights. Means drew public attention to the mistreatment of native people “with audacious and controversial actions that were equal parts protest and theater,” said biographer Michael Ray.

Charismatic Leader 

From the 1970’s thru the early 2000’s Russell Means was as famous as Sitting Bull. Means, tall and ruggedly  handsome with long traditional braids was a charismatic Native American actor, activist, painter, politician, musician and writer. Means was born in 1939 on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. His Lakota name “Wanbli Ohitika” means “Brave Eagle.” His mother was a Yankton Dakota Sioux and his father an Oglala Lakota Sioux.

A Harsh Life

His parents left the reservation in 1942 at the beginning of WWII to escape the poverty and depression of the reservation. They settled in the San Francisco Bay Area where his father worked in the shipyards. In his 1995 autobiography Russell Means described a harsh life with his alcoholic father and abused mother. He himself describes how he fell into “years of truancy, crime and drugs”, before finding purpose in the American Indian Movement.

In 1964 Means Joined His Father And Other Indians To Occupy Alcatraz for 24 hours

1964 Alcatraz Occupation

Means and his father joined a protest occupation of Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, CA. in 1964. The protest lasted a mere 24 hours. Native Americans were protesting against the U.S. government for treaty violations. In his autobiography Russell Means remembered the 1964 Alcatraz event as the catalyst for a life time of activism for protecting the rights of Native Americans.

The American Indian Movement

In 1968 Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, and George Mitchell came together to form the American Indian Movement. AIM was a militant American Indian civil rights organization.  The goals expanded quickly, broadening to “turn the attention of Indian people toward a renewal of spirituality which would impart the strength of resolve needed to reverse the ruinous policies of the United States, Canada, and other colonialist governments of Central and South America.” AIM’s goals were economic independence, revitalization of traditional culture, protection of legal rights, and most especially, autonomy over tribal areas and the restoration of lands that they believed had been seized illegally.

Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and Clyde Bellecourt in 1971 the Heart of AIM

Dennis Banks, Russell Means, and Clyde Bellecourt in 1971 the Heart of AIM

A New Voice
Into a violent and turbulent times Russell Means emerged as the voice of AIM. In 1970 he became the first National Director of the American Indian Movement. Aim became involved in many violent and highly publicized protests in reaction to abhorrent government policies toward American Indians during this time.

Modern Day Warriors

Means’ and other AIM members cultivated a tough persona which they felt was necessary to face the “dark violence of police brutality and the voiceless despair of Indian people.” The view of these activists as “warriors” was essential to the movement.

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The Long, Hard Fall Of Julian Assange

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The Long, Hard Fall of Julian Assange

by T.K. McNeil

 

Julian Assange Has Been Living At The Ecuadorian Embassy In London

Rogue Hacker Julian Assange Has Been Living At The Ecuadorian Embassy in London

It Is All In The Perspective

The difference between a “terrorist” and a “freedom-fighter” is essentially one of goals. One area where terms make a difference is the world of hacking. Used freely, and inclusively by the mainstream news media, “hacker” is little more than a general descriptor. All it really means, is someone who uses non-standard means to enhance their experience with technology.

They Wear Hats

If you have ever used a video-game cheat code or made non-factory improvements to your computer, congratulations, you are a hacker. The hacker world is diverse. The simplest distinction is between so-called “Black Hat” and “White Hat” hackers. Also known as “the criminal minority and the rest of us.” Though just as very few in the hacker community are nefarious, shadowy criminal types, equally few are virtuous, “White Hat” “Hacktivists.”

I Said It Was All Relative

Julian Assange Computer Programmer, Hacker, Activist and Wikileaks Founder

Computer Programmer, Hacker, & Founder of Wikileaks

As with the rest of humanity most are somewhere in-between. For most, hacking is surfing. Experimenting and testing to see what can be done with no particular goal in mind. Julian Assange is a “White Hat”. At least until recently. “Recently” being 2016 but like I said, everything is relative. Rather than being “done” as many have suggested Julian Assange and his notorious info-dumps are back in the news and not in a way many could have imagined.

Gray Hat

Assange is a lightning rod for controversy. Can you truly be controversial and popular?  Assange has never achieved popularity, but he has reached world-wide fame. I’d wager that even the most news ignorant of the populace have at least heard his name. His closest associates have said he is barely tolerable, and they continue to engage with him only because they believe in the importance of the work. Bringing truth to the world and bringing light to the dark places. Apparently forgetting that Lucifer was the bearer of light before the Fall.

Before The Fall

Julian Assange Was Accused Of Espionage And Theft In His Native Australia

Personal failings aside, Julian Assange was, and likely still is, a brilliant hacker. One of the best. This is after-all, the guy who figured out how to use and decode government data wires while still in his teens. He was however, “ratted out” and was charged with espionage (originally treason) and was tried in 1996 in a Melbourne, Australia.

Intellectual Inquisitiveness

He was convicted of 24 counts of “hacking” for crimes dating back nearly a decade. He received  leniency. The judge speaking to the matter said Assange’s “intellectual inquisitiveness” was extremely dangerous, however he “did not seek personal gain” and that was given weight. Assange was unique. He was a kid who had attended 37 different schools, lived in a cult with his restless mother and faced daily unpredictable circumstances growing up. But by the age of 15 he was sophisticated and expert enough to attack military computers, at a time before most Americans didn’t even have a personal computer.

Dr. Alina Polyakova Believes The Russian Government Is In Fact Using Wikileaks

Dr. Alina Polyakova

Motive

Another thing that was never at question was Julian Assange’s motives. The biography website Biography.com lists him as a “Computer Programmer, Hacker and Activist”. This was not to last long however, his uncompromising drive and near-pathological hatred of government (nearly being charged with treason will do that), shaded that white hat a distinctive shade of gray. Alina Polyakova, Director of the Eurasia Center volunteered this, “In his attempt to bring ‘transparency’, he ends up siding with the very regimes that deny transparency and human rights. That’s the irony of my enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

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Trust In Government In Trump’s America

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Trust in Government in Trump’s America 

Just My Opinion: By Brett Kondratiew

From The Outside Looking In

At the outset, I am not an American, instead I live in Australia but I have an interest in American Politics. Pretty much because its brutality is unlike anything I have ever seen. However under Donald Trump, it has reached unprecedented ferocity. Is trust in government a victim of Trump intention and rhetoric? Or, a reaction to five decades of government disregard for a growing disgruntled and distrustful electorate?

Controversy And Division

To witness a presidential candidate, openly condone the physical and often violent behavior by his supporters, certainly piqued my interest. Yes, the battlegrounds of immigration and race will always cause controversy and division but when used as an explicit, electoral “plan of attack”, was extraordinary to watch. So here we sit, some two years into the Trump Administration and the question is, “Has Trump’s America altered our trust in government”?

Statistics May Have The Answer

As an observer I would say yes, America has lost faith and trust in her government. Statisticians examining and correlating their numbers all have reached a somewhat different conclusion. Fewer than three-in-ten Americans express faith that their government will do the “right thing.” This distrust in government has been consistent in survey after survey since 2007. So, increased distrust in government is not just a phenomenon of Trump. Perhaps Trump’s election was more about the lack of trust in government than we will ever understand.

How Low Can We Go

Confidence and trust in Trump, the man, is also staggeringly low. Eugene Scott, a writer for The Fix and the Washington Post, presents the following figures.  In Sept 2018, only 36% of people approved of Trump’s job performance. When questioned further, less than 30% believed that Trump would do the “right thing”.  This is the lowest figure seen over the earlier 10 months. Factor in the following stats; more than 50% of men believe that the media have more credibility than the government. It is significant that only 8% of African-Americans  trust Trump. His trust numbers among women are dropping so fast it is hard to get an exact number. Taking all groups together the average of expressed trust in government is at an all time low of 19%.

Is Trust in Trump a Ship that has already sailed?

I like to have a bet on horses but there is no way that I would put any of my hard-earned on someone with so little support. When I decided to write this editorial, I was given a copy of Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear- Trump in the White House.” I did not expect that so early into the read, I would find a man so ill-informed and totally unsuitable to be the “world’s most powerful individual”. Bob Woodward is a highly respected journalist and his book is based on many hours of interviews with multiple firsthand sources. The material presented doesn’t surprise me. Nor, does it surprise me that Trump has refused to comment, other than to call Woodward a “liar” and his book a pack of “lies.”

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Hi, I’m Brett Kondratiew

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Hi, I’m Brett Kondratiew

Calamity Politics is happy to welcome a new contributor, Brett Kondratiew.  Brett was lucky enough to grow up on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. I so envy the beach life. Brett now 58, lives on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Brett obtained his BA at the University of Technology in Education; with a dual major, English & Physical Education. Brett is married and has 2 boys, ages 18 and 21.  Of course, there is 7-year-old English Staffy dog. In his time off, Brett fishes and kayaks. Watch for Mr. Kondratiew’s article entitled, “Trust in Government In Trump’s America,” scheduled for release 12/5/2018.

Affordable Housing: When?

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Affordable Housing: When?

By Jones William and D.S. Mitchell

Struggling Families

HUD is one of the most important departments of the federal government.  A primary function of HUD is to provide subsidized housing for the nation’s poorest citizens. One-in-four poor Americans receive a housing subsidy. Through rent subsidies HUD turns “un-affordable housing” into “affordable housing”. Most people receiving housing subsidies are the elderly and/or disabled. Without government help low-income people are in danger of eviction, and homelessness.

Affordable Housing Under Ben Carson

HUD Secretary Ben Carson will  through budget requests and accompanying legislation, increase rent burdens for everyone in HUD subsidized housing. The timing for this action is difficult to understand. “As homelessness increases and affordable housing and the housing crisis intensifies in communities across the country, the administration is focusing its efforts on increasing rents and other burdens for the lowest income and most vulnerable households,” said Diane Yentel, president & CEO NLIHC (National Low Income Housing Coalition) in a Feb. 5, 2018 editorial.

An Uncomfortable bed

Affordable housing in America has become both a social and economic crisis, with those on the lower socio-economic strata being forced to bear the brunt of the suffering. The most recent estimate of homelessness in the United States is 553, 000. That’s about the size of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Location, Location

Cities such as New York, Seattle, and San Francisco have higher than average living costs. In Seattle the minimum wage is $13.00 per hour.  Despite such a high minimum wage it would still require $26.00 per hour just to keep up a modest one bedroom apartment under the 30% established affordable housing threshold.

The New Minimum Wage

An American worker must earn no less than $20.30 per hour to afford even a modest two bedroom apartment and not pay more than 30% of his income on rent and utilities. Take note, that is triple the federal minimum wage. It means the worker earning the current minimum wage “would need to work 16 hours a day, every day of the year to be able to afford a basic two bedroom apartment. If someone is sleeping eight hours a night, they would only have time to work or sleep-and that would be it” says Andrew Aurand, V-P for research at the National Low Income Housing Coalition which is responsible for the study. This may be just one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders found such a devoted coalition among voters old and young.

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Donations Accepted

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Donations Accepted

by James Moore

The nation has survived the one two punch of ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ and is set to tackle the next big event…..after-Christmas sales.  However, somewhere between, we now have to manage ‘Giving Tuesday’. Excuse me for not caring, about a day designed for companies to profit from; blindly donating my hard-earned cash.

We already have Thanksgiving, a day where we all say thank you without having to take out our wallets and give. Why do we need another giving day? I mean, I get it. If we buy more crap, the people we do business with will give some paltry amount to charities. Amazon, are you listening? Why should they get the credit for donating my money to others?  What a load of capitalistic garbage.

Speaking of garbage, we give away plenty this time of year to our local landfills. Donations are up because we have to clear out our house of all the old stuff we no longer want.  When I was a kid, our TV, like our car, lasted for decades. Now, if your flat screen is two years old, it’s time to part ways with it and buy a bigger, flatter, and more expensive one.

I feel bad for all the people in this country who are in need of the basics.  I would love nothing more than to donate to their cause, but frankly, I’m tapped out. I got kids of my own who need more new crap because they don’t want to face the shame of taking my two-year old TV off my hands.  They want a new one just like me, and dammit, they’re entitled to one.

Sure, I could always donate it, along with some old video games, an unused, unopened X-box from a few years back, and my CD collection to a church or organization who is collecting them. I just don’t have that kind of time. I’d have to call them up and make arrangements for them to pick the stuff up. Worse, they might expect me to take it down to them.  If I had that kind of time, I would just hold a yard sale. The trash bin is more convenient.

I also don’t get why I am asked if I want to give money to some cause a store promotes every time I go through a check-out line. Every store has its own charity it promotes and when I tell the clerk I don’t want to donate to theirs, I end up getting stink-eye from some gal with magic marker eyebrows.

To make my life more miserable, when I step out of the store, there’s some dude in a funny looking hat ringing a bell with one hand while his other is palm up seeking my money.  When I refuse to acknowledge his request, I get more stink-eye. When did it become legal to hold up someone in the name of donating to a cause?

I’d love nothing more than to burn rubber as I pull out of the parking lot, but I can’t since it looks more like the 405 freeway during rush hour.  Great.  Now I am stuck in a line of cars looking to make a left turn out of the lot while some guy covered in filth sits at the exit with a bucket in one hand and a sign in the other. His sign reads, “Woondid, humless, vet who has no fude to eet.” In the seven minutes it takes me to get out of the mall parking lot, he pulls in eighty bucks from people who just want him to stop looking their way. I’m thinking, “Your donations are making him rich and you poor, you fools.” Guilt costs money I realize.

And the pain continues. When I stop by the PO box I am overwhelmed with a box stuffed to capacity with, you guessed it, requests for money. OMG, didn’t they get my note; the one where I begged them to stop sending me requests for money, because I have a lifetime supply of address labels, note pads, all occasion cards and calendars. What I am missing is enough money to make it to the end of the month.

I figure I do plenty of donating all year round. It’s called paying taxes. It’s suppose to feel good when you give money. All I know is the entity I donate to is pretty slick because no matter how much I give them, they want more while I get nothing.  The IRS doesn’t even send me those return address labels  as a thank you for the donation they are asking me to mail to them.

Do you know why the average American is so much better than me at giving their money to causes? It’s because it is easier than donating their time.  Some people have more money than time. Other people would rather look away with a fiver in their extended hand than volunteer their time. The last thing they want is to feel uncomfortable seeing first hand a bad situation.  So my explanation is that most Americans would rather toss a few bucks at a cause, any cause, so they can feel they have done their part.  Hell, the average American won’t donate blood unless they are promised snacks and a gift bag.

I know what you are thinking. Go ahead and call me whatever negative name comes to mind. Tell me you feel sorry for me for having such a horrible outlook on the world. Convince me how wrong I am. Convince me that the average person truly cares and feels the pain of others which is why they donate to causes.

You know what?  Put up or shut up.  If you feel that sorry for me, then donate to me.  I’ll open a GoFundMe page. Save me while you still can. I promise you, the money you send me will be put to excellent use. I can get the mental health treatment I sorely need. I can get my teeth fixed. I will be able to turn my life around and with it gain a fresh and more positive perspective.  I will no longer feel like all I am is another guy to take money from. Instead, I will be that guy who receives it in large sums.

Who knows, if enough money rolls in, I can quit one of my three jobs and travel the world. This will allow me to see just how much I have to be thankful for and to feel bad for others who are less fortunate. Maybe then I will feel like giving to worthy causes. However, until that time, I will accept your donations in the form of cash, gift cards, money orders, and direct deposit. Just don’t donate an old flat screen. I will accept nothing less than a new 72 inch sucker with surround sound and wi-fi connect.

Happy Holidays,

Jim