I'd like to take the opportunity that Lizzy has given me to periodically talk about some things that I have addressed on my blog in the past; especially from the earlier days when my readership was near zero and I was talking to myself a lot. We live in a fast paced, hurry-up world of convenience and instant gratification these days where everyone's life seems SUBJECTIVELY to be so busy that they have no free time, so sometimes I try to "force their hand" to look back and at least pause for a short time to consider what's going on around them.

The U.S. Census Bureau released a report on August 26, 2004 that DOESN'T LIE:

"The number of Americans living in poverty jumped to 35.9 million in 2003, up by 1.3 million, while the number of those without health care insurance rose to 45 million from 43.6 million in 2002, the U.S. government said..."

There are nearly 13 MILLION CHILDREN living in poverty in our country!

It is speculated (according to The National Coalition For The Homeless), that there may be as many as 7 MILLION HOMELESS PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES! What is even worse is that an estimated 36% of the homeless population are FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN! And furthermore, a survey conducted by a U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that 88 percent of the cities queried regularly turn away homeless families because of a LACK OF RESOURCES!

And what about our elderly? These people have paid their dues damn it!

LIFE EXPECTANCY CONTINUES TO GROW.

To clarify: that is, for now. With bush as our "president", we expect that number to start dropping. The money needed to take care of our senior citizens will have to go for endless war, pocket-lining for the upwardly mobile and control of the US population.

Senior citizens are the fastest growing segment of our population. The first wave of baby boomers are reaching retirement age and a huge and growing number of our "elderly" cannot afford the basics of living in their "golden years"- nutrition, housing, health care, hunger, mis-treatment and more- they're all issues and they need to be addressed and acted upon positively.

Our government wastes BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

An elderly lady should be afforded a well balanced lunch in the comfort of her own home and receive any attention (medical or otherwise) that she needs for comfort of the remainder of her life. She shouldn't have to choose between an overpriced pill and a sandwich. And the thought that this is happening on a wide scale while the fatcat neo-cons play with each others asses, robbing the tax funded entitlement programs, pisses me off to no end!

I live in the heart of Appalachia and widespread poverty is evident here. A while back I created a ficticious character on my blog named JANE. While Jane isn't real, she is a character that I created from a combination of real people I know living right here in my hometown, so the story isn't real, YET IT IS!