The Humanity app

In referring to the instant gratification that comes with smartphone apps; could it work for humans to access a Humanity app to become more humane?

"Hard Times Hard Times Come Again No More..." (Stephen C. Foster)

Anecdotes:

Michigan’s financial crisis is long from being over. I know where of I speak. I know of very productive folk who have been without a decent paying job going on for five years. I know a first-time homeless person who became ill subsequent to losing a job they had loyally worked at for thirty years. The company had gone out of business and leaving this person without insurance. The illness resulted in losing everything. Then they became homeless. I have a friend who ran to Florida in the hopes of finding work – he found a part-time job after two and half years. He is on the outskirts of homelessness. I have a family member- a professional - who has been out of work for over a year in Georgia pushing the family to bankruptcy. I know a woman who ate nothing but potato chips last night for dinner and a class of pop – it was free. She’s on the verge of losing her place to live because she can only get a near full time job at minimum wage driving a medical transport van. Her passengers love her but that doesn’t pay her rent, utilities, food, insurance, repairs, etc. Recently she was given a van and the State welfare told her she would be losing her food stamps because she has this “new” to her van. She needs the van to get to work. She closed her checking account because it was too expensive to try and maintain. However, when she went to pay for her “new” to her van insurance she was told that she would have to pay 30% more money for her insurance due to her not have an ACH debit-able account. Every way she turns there is another impediment. She has no health insurance….

The synopsis headline of Vermont Senator Bernie Sander’s statement to his fellow legislators, “Is poverty a death sentence?” https://www.commondreams.org/ view/2011/09/14-6.  The answer to this question is talk to the family of a friend who died of breast cancer and left behind two teenagers and an ailing father. She could not afford a mammogram until she had insurance but it was too late – the diagnosis nay verdict was stage 4 metastasized cancers. She was among the working poor…poverty’s death sentence victim.

State Issues:

Mr. Michigan Governor what are you and your cronies thinking when you lay the burden for budget cuts on those who can least afford it? You are treating the citizens of Michigan not unlike those employees you left behind in your deal to sell the sick Gateway computer out to a Chinese computer manufacturer. The egotistical ethical position of “If it doesn’t hurt me and my buddies it is ok” to do what we want. I believe many or most of the well-to-do in Michigan would be willing to pay an extra few percent in taxes to bolster the state coffers. Hence, as Shakespeare asked, “If you prick us cut do we not [all] bleed?” We are a brother/sisterhood reliant on each other for this society of mutual support. How many families will suffer the trauma of homelessness, causing children in poverty to experience more than the average 6 meals missed a week – raising angry children as a result? I will say another truism - we will reap the whirlwind by subjugating the poor to the whims of a governor and legislative men and women who know from where their next meals for a lifetime are coming.

National issues:

Poverty is a national issue that encompasses Michigan. Juan Williams, regardless of your political bias, attempted a musical metaphorical opinion piece in The Hill: http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/ juan-williams/182221-poverty-met-with-deafening-silence. The cacophony of self interest of the last several months which has risen from the discordant legislators of Washington and elsewhere is stunning: Worthy of double takes, for their blatantly inhumane disregard about the collateral damage their actions have wreaked. There is no harmony emanating from these bastions of power and control with few spirituals being sung except as prayers for relief by the poor.

Stephen C. Foster’s chorus from “Hard Times Come Again No More” addressed hardship passionately in 1854:

Chorus:
Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Full lyrics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Times_Come_Again_No_More. 23 Sept. 2011

Edison cylinder recording:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/2000/2874/cusb-cyl2874d.mp3. 23 Sept. 2011

Universal Solution:

Churches – how about the church of one – which we all are if one reads the book? Point of order to consider is well put in a recent facebook message:

                       

                        Deborah Jane Choate Shepherd via Andrew Kronenwetter 23 Sept. 2011

What we should be saying is that it doesn't matter whether the Church could do a better job caring for the poor or not because the Church isn't doing it. We wouldn't need Section 8 housing if we had enough Habitat homes. We wouldn't need food stamps or school lunches if we had enough soup kitchens. The way to ensure better care for the poor than government can provide is not to hobble government programs but for the Church to make those programs unnecessary.

Stand up and advocate for change – let’s hear your voice.

Sense of Accomplishment and Leadership

This writer recently earned a Master of Science Degree in Organizational Leadership and Administration (MSc OLA) from Concordia University Ann Arbor. Its and excellent degree program providing leadership perspectives that can be used on a daily basis. I refer to it as the leadership side of an MBA with the understanding that there are no cliched solutions, rather the leader's challenge is to think critically.

Independent thinking and intellectual honesty demands a critical examination of the available facts  - not of here say: Culminating in an opinion that has a foundation upon which to build an argument. Leaders must consider, when possible, all facets of an issue in order to address it adequately. Resulting in a cogent expression of relevance that can be understood by other critical thinking people.

Listeners must set aside personal bias to find common ground upon which to work. Holding to one's agenda and filtering the view of the world through it is a degradation of the thought process leaving compromise and potential solutions as unattainable myths.

Leaders can lead through the storms of hysteria and fact-fabrication by abiding with the concept of what is right for the good of the whole and escaping the pigeon hole of prejudice. Leaders must maintain their focus and commitment to objectives which will benefit the greatest good for all followers.

Civil Discourse

The poor are once again to feel the brunt of the proposed cuts from the Dems or Reps; however, there is a better way to look at the current "impasse" and move on to a workable solution that supports the ingenuity and positiveness of the American spirit.

We are better than the what current budget morass indicates. The link below is from online Dissent magazine. I encourage a thoughtful read of its explanations of why we got here fiscally and how we can improve the system without destroying it and plunging the poor into deeper poverty.

  http://dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=510

I am outraged by the behavior of the Republicans. I can see no good excuse for walking away. This attitude of "... if you don't agree with me I will walk away" is childish and selfish. It is this very sort of action that is destructive to relationships - it is a form of black mail -  and inexcusable. This Republican challenge to civility is not constructive leadership - it is the antithesis - illuminating the threshold to chaos.

Everyone step back - take a deep breath - consider what is good for ALL of us - reconvene and solve this conundrum. Mayhem is unacceptable. 

Advocacy is part of the process of expressing your voice in the market place.

I support challenging the status quo of homelessness. Here is a link for you to peruse: http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/4045

Speak out for your voice wants to be heard.

One voice....

The purpose for this blog is to express ideas about beliefs and magnanimity.

Life is an adventure...express it.