The young man in question uses every, or almost every, face to face opportunity he has with me to ask me for money. He has not repaid any money I have lent him. Last time I dropped him off at the subway he would not leave my vehicle until I gave him some.
I don't like having a movie over at my place and pizza (when I am trying to entertain a Christian brother) repeatedly used as an opportunity to solicit funds. No one else has ever done that to me.
The bikini Christianity thing was written by one Abdullah Smith. The other one, 9/11 is the Biggest Lie in History, has no author name. I wonder why.
I meant....
1. I am glad to see someone from another monotheistic religion praise Christians when they dare to leave a comfortable place to serve others
2. I have to agree with Abdullah Smith on current fashion trends on the beach going too far for Christians and Muslims alike. I think we have forgotten to respect who she is, not what she looks like.
GuessWho, I detect hateful thoughts in the way you write about this Ghanaian student. Since the state helped you on your way with your education, why can't you show a little generosity of spirit and help this young man without continually whinging?
You're on a good wicket financially so you can afford to be kind to him. The way you speak of this man suggests that you are a modern day pharisee and do you really want to be thought of as one?
Then again, it's often the poorest people who are most willing to share what they have with others.
I have, actually. A couple of hundred USD over two years.
I just think sometimes several people should work together to help one foreign student.
And I have advised him not to trust in me personally, and that Americans do not like being solicited for money at every face to face meeting. And that going to the Chinese buffet with your last $5 is a really really bad idea.
If I was in Sydney, and someone said don't touch the funnel web spider, I'd listen.
If I was in the Amazon rain forest and someone said don't touch the poison tree frog, I'd listen.
I don't think he's listening when I tell him what not to do in the tough environment of the American economy. I've lived in it all my life, and my mom, like many mothers human and higher animal (cat, dog) teach their young to survive in that environment, for example, stressing delayed gratification, saving, and not pay off a credit card balance in full only as a last resort, like maybe once or twice in a lifetime.
His last five dollars, CJ.
After he told me he had enough money to eat out, he is hoping I'd buy his meal anyway.
I hate surprises, especially face to face appeals for help. They are the hardest to turn down, refusing to leave my car until given money is even harder.
That is why I have forced myself to postpone recreation on his behalf indefinitely. I don't suppose he has many friends and I don't suppose they like that kind of friendship either. I don't mind boosting his spirits with a movie and pizza now and again, it's one brother to another.
But when he starts introducing his pantry situation and his need to commute to U.MD (why is he commuting from Seat Pleasant 8 or 9 miles to UMD on the subway anyway, when he might live closer to campus, that's a no brainer, I did that in college and grad school, didn't have a car, and even when I was forced to get a flat after graduation I lived close enough to walk (9 blocks).
My mom once said, "Give [people in far away countries] a radio and immediately they ask for batteries."
I encouraged him to get low-cost canned chicken or fish, a lot of rice, and some megavitamins (and have bought him the same). If he has to rely on rice for the majority of his calories at least his teeth won't fall out from vitamin C deficiency, scurvy). I gave him enough vitamins to keep scurvy away till next March or April.
Even I have limits.
Good point. I don't know why I would leave the United States, even though I think we have a poor concept of civilization compared to our peers in the democratic industrialized world.
America's fascination with sending elderly parents somewhere where busy yuppies don't have to look at them..... Mom only spent six weeks in a facility, Dad died at home.
What would my mom have done? I think my problem is that I think he thinks he is entitled to certain support. He was no child of my mother, no kin of mine. It is a miracle I did help him (Jesus miracle), because usually I think we should care for international people over there not over here. Education is not even mentioned on Jesus' list of "I was such and such and you did such and such for me". It is food, medical attention, social inclusion, but not an American college education for every promising young person outside the United States.
I am thinking immediate family, you are thinking world family, which is probably closer to Christianity.
Are we going to educate a lot of other people too?
It is not as though education is of life and death importance. Lots of people are lucky to know how to read, and they manage in many places in the world. Many others can't read around the world.
It reminds me of a cartoon we read in Spanish III, Mafaldas and Susanitas. Malfadas is the educated woman interested in world affairs, Susanitas the more family-oriented one. One cartoon:
M. Did you know that the UNESCO says there are 700 million illiterate adults?
S. To have children, it is the only little thing one wants out of life.
(The cartoon might have the least bit of cheek to it, to lampoon Susanitas for thinking about nothing more than motherhood)
In another cartoon, S. is dreaming about her wedding, when it comes when she is older
Bear in mind that Jesus did not mention worldly education as a thing that [when I was downcast and without] [you gave it to me]
We are injecting Western values into Gideon's needs (I guess I can say the first name)
Given that he is here already, but with the kind of loans and pathetic grants and work study a permanent resident or citizen is eligible for, yes, he would need an education to rise out of poverty as we know it.
What is the worst that would happen to Gideon if he had to put off school for a few years and then struggle like millions of Americans (most of whom were nothing but Americans)? We have already decided as a country and a society that college education is not as important as food or water.
Usually when parents die, and do not fully exhaust their retirement savings (we are instructed by our leaders to save between 10% and 15% for starters for retirement, unlike Social Security at the beginning and retirement as other Western democracies know it now), they do not think about someone else's kids from another continent, they are thinking about their own children, and how they will rise up to the level they did earlier. To wit, maybe buy a home, send kids to college if kids are otherwise in the plan, and retire, especially if the parents did it from scratch, they want their kids to have it a little easier. Maybe worry about a ring for a daughter in law?
Why does the United States let foreign students come to the United States but deny them any financial aid at all unless they make green card (permanent resident)? Do our leaders expect they will beg from our citizens? Is that why colleges like Shepherd University harshly advise international students (not permanent residents or refugees who are financial aid eligible) to make their own arrangements at home? Or stay the hell home? without actually coming out and saying it.
And why would an international student be entitled to our private assistance from individuals?
Many in the United States wish to deprive unauthorized immigrants from getting jobs (at least legally) and government assistance, to discourage them from coming at our expense.
Myself included, if we regulate immigration and welfare, maybe American employers will be forced to deal with American employees, some with disabilities, at competitive wages. That seems to be what puts marginalized elements of Americans already living here to work, giving the employer no alternative, like the airplane factories in WWII in the United States and Rosie the Riveter. I hate to say give the leftovers to immigrants, but yes,
a. employers need to be forced to work with people they would rather not work with, at wages they might not like, cut off the immigration, they will have no choice
b. American citizens need to consider work a natural part of life in America, cut off the welfare, they will have no choice, but under conditions of scarcity, employers may pay them better than usual
I don't think Gideon is as entitled to education as he is bread, water, medical attention, and social acceptance. It was his decision to come here and he knew it would not be easy. Would life in Ghana really be bad, though not as good as life here?
Indeed, we do not want one immigrant encouraging four more to come if they have no choice but to beg.
In fact, Gideon needs to know that Americans do not have endless generosity for college education, even if the vast majority of Americans (at least around Washington) are fantastically educated, 80% graduating college and what not. Yes, we are the wealthy if education is considered currency. But education does not sustain life.
And if anything, Gideon is luckier than most. We stand an excellent chance of sealing the Mexican border, requiring computerized checks of authorization to work, state driver's licenses that function as national ID cards denoting residency status, denying employment and social benefits to unauthorized persons, and maybe eliminating birth on United States territory (or ships and planes) as an automatic guarantee of citizenship. The 14th amendment was intended to give newly-freed American slaves the right to citizenship after the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Higher education, I am sorry to say, is just short of a profit-making system in America. No, private and public universities are not for profit, although there are for-profit postsecondary educational facilities in America.
But any institution must have a source of funding, and in the United States, the primary burden of funding colleges and universities falls on the student (or students' parents if they wish to pay or borrow PLUS, parent loans for undergraduate students, can you believe that?)
An American college will generally recruit as many students as it needs to pay their faculty and staff. Citizens, permanent residents, and a few others qualify for Federal student aid, some grants and part time work, but increasingly loans. If a college has more applicants than it needs, it often takes the best it can find.
That is what my faculty advisor told me in grad school (Marshall) based on a conversation I had with him near graduation.
CM: Shepherd College has a selective admissions policy, it says
FA: Where do its students come from?
CM: Some from the West Virginia interior (Spencer, Parkersburg, Wheeling, or Glenville for example) but very very many from suburban Maryland (Montgomery County, a very wealthy county, friends from Rockville area) or northern Virginia (last roommate from Vienna, for example, Arlington and Loudon Counties being very wealthy too).
FA: Are these wealthy areas?
CM: Yes.
FA: Wealthier than the interior of WV or the four WV counties and one OH county around Marshall University (where most MU students come from)?
CM: Yes
FA: The college admissions policy indirectly reflects the socioeconomic status of the area where its students come from. Montgomery County, killer schools, maybe one of the best in America, perhaps having something to do with the wealth of its residents and property taxes they pay, based on home prices.
Interior of West Virginia, forget it. Though the Eastern Panhandle and a few other places fare better (the Panhandle because it is two hours from Washington by commuter train).
A college will always get the best students it can.
Shepherd College (University) does not enforce a firm minimum standard for applicants based on SAT or ACT scores. Neither does Marshall.
But Shepherd can afford to throw away applicants who have lower ACT and SAT scores because Maryland and Virginia parents reason that Shepherd is as good or better than Maryland or Virginia colleges for an equal or lesser price. (My dad told me I was going to Shepherd College two years before we moved to WV, so I studied my *** off). Marshall does not have that choice. It is not what the admissions office decides, it is who is available, and who can be accepted and who can be thrown away.
That puts Gideon and other international students at a firm disadvantage especially as the Federal government will not spend one penny for a student on a student visa to attend a U.S. college.
Why do some employers pay people so badly?
Because they can.
The legal five or six something an hour does not begin to cover things like rent (because landlords/landladies charge so much because they can, too)
Employers can always count on teenagers living with Mom and/or Dad.
On a related note, if you are educated, forget trying to work little jobs. They know you're out the door when you have a chance. Or perhaps some employers don't know how to understand a person who deserves a good income not getting one, being so used to hiring people who they don't think deserve a good income.
There is something seriously wrong with an economy where you need a degree to get a job where you get paid enough to live on.
Having read the Oxfam post in #67, I come away with the following responses
1. Why do our leaders scream "market economy" when we subsidize our farmers and cause such an unfair advantage?
2. At a time when we have severe national debt
3. Hunger is about power. I can understand. No wonder the rest of the world seems to have a problem with America.
4. Non-violent population control is important. Last night on MegaDisasters (History Channel), world maximum carrying capacity is 8 billion, expected to be reached in 2012.
Toss in a climatic upheaval on par with The Day After Tomorrow, that is two billion, and the only question is how six billion people are going to die, most slowly by starvation, a little quicker by disease exacerbated by hunger, or war over what resources are left (maybe the war is the most merciful way to die if it can't be avoided, Stephen Falken, War Games, "I have it planned out... we are three miles from a primary target... a millisecond of bright light.. we'll be spared the horror of survival", or the scientists who say, if a six mile comet hits us, I want to be underneath it, so I won't be on the other side of the planet fighting over the food and water that is left)
5. Mom, Dad at their best only were concerned with American, local poverty, primarily in how they voted, Carter Democrats. They never mentioned or fought world poverty. I am not at all aware how they gave charitably, though if I wanted to, I could read their credit card statements or check registers.
It just hurts my feelings that God willed my mother to die so I could distribute her assets to people I barely know, but care something about.
We had Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
Hurricane Isabel scored a hit on us in 2003. That was only a Category 2 hurricane. I think the lights almost went out, and the water was not safe to drink for a day: downtown Alexandria near the waterfront got flooded. The bank and McDonalds were offline for a while. Good thing I was some distance out from downtown.
May I suggest that living like Mother Teresa might be hard?
I read about the rich young ruler too... sell all you have give it to the poor and follow Me.
No, I am not ready to live like Mother Teresa. If that makes me a hypocrite, so then I am.
It is no affair of mine how consenting adults like their lives. I'm too concerned about finding a consenting woman really.
If I am not ready to live like a monk, and that makes me a hypocrite, then I plead guilty.
And if feeling like Gideon's ATM machine makes me a hypocrite, then so I am.
It's a damn good thing to be saved, because obviously we would never make it on our own would we?
But there is always hope that I might grow into such a Christian.
My apology for the premarital sex rant.
I haven't got the balls to ignore the little voice in my head, and I don't want some woman to walk off with my heart. But I guess a lot of women can understand that, they don't want the same happening to them.
I'm less scared of parenthood now than I might have been 20 years ago, maybe because of my job, maybe because men my age usually are fathers, but NOT a risk I'd like to give to a woman. I'm still kind of phobic about disease, and frankly, any virgin is going to think sex is the least bit gross the first time.
With regard to dating I know I practice what I preach
1. Date the woman within, do not care what she looks like, carefully assess who she is
2. Wait until marriage
3. Do not date non-Christians
4. Do not date current co-workers
5. Any ethnicity acceptable
6. No upper age limit, but older women set their age limits above my age