Comments on: Going Meta for a Moment

By: lizap

lizap — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:09:32 +0000

Being poor is having clothes made out of old blankets from the salvation army. Cloth is cheaper than clothes.

Being poor is stealing from the salvation army when they won’t give clothes to ‘unwedded mothers’

being poor is being terrified of money, even after you have plenty.

being poor means being told that hoping for better will just get you hurt.

being poor means when you grow up and do better for yourself, your parents will not understand that there are still things that make you sad.

being poor means getting very comfortable in the cold.

being poor means hiding in commuter train toilets to snag a free ride.

being poor means you will always feel poor. Forever.

being poor means your parents will tell you not to go to college, because they are so afraid you will have debt. They will suggest Air Conditioning Repair as the best career option.

being poor means having cats, not dogs, because cats they will find their own food when you can’t feed them.

being poor means marrying someone unpoor and always fighting about money.

being poor means being afraid to dream.

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 00:30:27 +0000

Mountain Infantry:

“Wow John, you’ve somehow made it hip to be poor.”

And you’ve made it hip to be a jackass. Many congratulations.

By: Mountain Infantry

Mountain Infantry — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 23:32:46 +0000

Wow John, you’ve somehow made it hip to be poor. Now thousands of Americans in poverty emerge to tell it like it is, with hard hitting comments and replies. I can’t wait for the next big wave to post, and tug my heartstrings about the woes of getting embarassed at grocery stores, and un-imaginable destruction being done to teeth and gums everywhere.

Hey poor people, the Army is always hiring.

By: a person

a person — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:26:37 +0000

Being poor is having everything served to you, without satisfaction.
Being poor is putting on an act, just so people will like you.
Being poor is never being happy or satsified.
Being poor is trying so hard to figure out who you are, that you can’t see anything around you.
Being poor is not being able to understand other people and their choices.
Being poor is in your eyes.

By: a person

a person — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:18:19 +0000

The best part about being poor is being able to see what is important in life; what is needed, over what is wanted, and to see all that is real. I am rich because in the sense that I am satisfied; I know that people with a lot of money are never satisfied with an amount.
If I was to give you millions of dollars today, you may appreciate it, but your children and children’s children would be corrupt. People can’t seem to appreciate anything, unless it has been taken from them. So, think about a rich CEO of a large company working his life away, playing a board game with people’s lives, and then his family dies. What was his purpose? Was it to just solely ruin the lives of others?
Then there is the flip side to this. There is a Greek story about a man who burned down an entire city, everything that was built by man, so people could see and learn to understand what is real…
Will man ever be satisfied with the true meaning of life?

By: Blanca

Blanca — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:05:42 +0000

I don’t have a TypeKey nor have gotten any comments or advices from anyone yet. Am I looking in the wrong place or would it come via email?

By: Mimi

Mimi — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:29:09 +0000

After reading your being poor column I thought “I guess I am poor” there was only one item on your list that I had and that was a computer with internet access, I pay the access, but the computer is an old one that my company gave to me when they bought new ones. I don’t see myself as being poor, and I guess I wouldn’t even be poor if I made the decision to not enroll my children in a private school. The schools here are not good, and I know the only way to escape poverty is to have an education, along with the will to work hard.
I do not blame any of the victims for being victims, what I do blame them for is accepting thier fate.
I used to live in New Orleans and I can attest to the fact that not one of the people that couldn’t evacuate had a color TV and stereo along with many CD’s. I do have a TV but it is a hand me down 19 inch that we seldom watch because reception is so bad. We cannot afford cable but we spend hours at the library, we read, picnic in the park, work in our community garden and WE HAVE A VERY GOOD LIFE. I really think poverty is a state of mind and a lot of very poor decisions. It is not something that has to be. I also think that “being poor” can make you into a better person. You learn how to fix things yourself, how to improvise when you need to and you learn how to stretch a dollar to make it work like five. I may not have much money, but I certainly am not poor!!!!!

By: Daniel W.

Daniel W. — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 02:45:20 +0000

I spent a summer working a grocery store in Pennsylvania in the “boonies” so I could help pay for college. And it was heartbreaking… Something from experience seeing what people buy (or try to)…is that when you are destitute…that poorest of poor…

Being Poor is taking your kid to the grocery store to get a free cookie there for their birthday, and then telling him or her that that is all they will get, and the cakes aren’t something you can get this year.

By: patricia

patricia — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 18:52:22 +0000

i said whati have to say in my comments to your Being poor… i can only express one thing, my mom was very poor, but she gave me everything i need it and that is by strenght, faith, hope and with a touch of GO GET IT… i am the same way, in a different not i lost everything by marriage by trusting, but i gain so much back because i looked at being poor not as a sickness but a passage in my life that had a purpose, a content of personal growth, and by the way you write it seems like you have a lot of issues, and New Orleans just opened a tiny crack on you heavy duty door! god bless and it was nice to know that an 800.00 car in some other country is a luxury to have we are blessed it this country, just the way it is… we need to spread a bit of the wealth around that is the problem…

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 01:54:43 +0000

Teacher writes:

“15-year-old text books and no air conditioning are the norm in schools, poor or not.”

Hmmmm. Not in the suburban Southern California schools I was educated in for elementary school and middle school (I exempt my high school from this, because it was a private boarding school). I distinctly remember new textbooks and air conditioning. I allow it’s entirely possible that old text books are the norm now, but it would be incredibly sad to have kids today using the same textbooks that were in service in the same era I graduated from school.

“Don’t assume that I am the enemy, or that I think I know how many books you have in your home.”

Speaking as someone who has a child in a small and poor rural school district, I can say with a reasonable amount of comfort that the teachers often do make the assumption that children of the poor don’t have books in their home — not out of malice but from prior experience talking to lower-income parents and working with them to prepare the children for school.

I don’t think the teachers here think negatively of any of the parents because of their economic class, but I do think that if they know something about the parents’ background, they also make assumptions based on what’s come before in their career.

Does this means good teachers don’t immediately discard their assumptions when their assumptions are different from reality? No. As you intimate, teachers are always delighted when parents prove to be allies in their children’s educations, and even parents who have not had books in their homes can turn out to be so, for the sake of their kids.