Cooking in a Coffee Pot
Posted by: taggles on: June 17, 2009
- In: Human Rights
- Comment!
Came across this heartbreaking, yet brave and courageous post written by a homeless man at Open Salon. I know there is a lot going on in the world right now, but this puts some things in perspective. How America has become so grotesque in so many ways is beyond me. I’ll let David Glenn Cox, a homeless man give his take. Please take a moment to click this link and read the entire blog post:
Cooking in a Coffee Pot
and Other Useful Tips for the HomelessBy David Glenn Cox
I write this for the millions who, like myself, are holed up in basements, garages, empty houses, fields, culverts and what have you. Guilty of being Americans and homeless, trying to make it through just one more day in the land of Fuck You and the home of the slave. I am at the top of the homeless pyramid; I still have internet access and a toilet.
The one thing to remember about the homeless is that they never have a day off. They are homeless every day; it’s easy to forget and difficult to understand, but the homeless face the world without a buttress. They are toe-to-toe with the heat and the humidity, the rain, the mud, and the bugs.
They have lost their basic building block of society, a home, a place to lay down their heads. A place to lie in comfort, a simple retreat from the world. I consider myself among the lucky; I have a leaking air mattress and a roof to keep myself dry and a box fan to keep me cool. I don’t sleep in a bed but on a floor, and eat on a table salvaged from a dumpster. But it is not a home, it is a garage. It is a refuge and I am a refugee in modern America.
Brought up in another place, I feel myself an alien in this land. This is not the land of my birth. Where did it all go? How can we get back there? Our goals, motives and principles become polluted and reverse reclamated, blurred and obscured by the lack of a home. We live like cave men and women, targeted and dodging the monsters in squad cars or just avoiding the looks of disgust from those who believe themselves invincible.
31 Responses to "Cooking in a Coffee Pot"
June 17, 2009 at 12:13 PM
sounds great Gary!
Also, I know there’s lots of stuff to discuss, but wanted to give some attention to that blog post for Mr. Cox.
June 17, 2009 at 12:19 PM
(I get the feeling they might want to bury it at this point)
********
The time of the signing is very suggestive…
June 17, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Just finished watching that 20 minute John Harwood interview with Obama from yesterday. They talk about financial regulation, healthreform, Iran. After watching, that saying came to mind, “…is the opiate of the masses.” Many are already living the Grapes of Wrath as David Cox writes about above. But you wouldn’t know it watching TV. You certainly wouldn’t know it watching Obama speak. He talks in a way that lulls people, maybe even suffering people, into a false sense of security, satisfaction, even optimism. That’s the opium kicking in. The reality is things are getting much worse for everyone outside the top 1%. But Obama is good at dulling people’s pain, though it’s utterly clear he does not feel their pain. As he says at the end (the only real thing he says in the interview), what matters is results. He has no results five months in, except breaking every campaign promise he ever made.
The country is levitating on hopium right now, not much else. Obama’s creeping, incremental, rhetoric based approach to our crises, particularly at home, will not keep us from going over the edge. The man blows bubbles. Would much prefer a realist in his position for the uncertain months we have ahead of us.
June 17, 2009 at 12:53 PM
You know when you do business with someone and they make you all kinds of promises, you draw up signed contract. I wonder why we don’t do that with our elected officials who we pay taxes to.
June 17, 2009 at 1:02 PM
I think I just heard lindsey graham say that president obama assured him the torture photo’s “would never see the light of day”.
June 17, 2009 at 1:20 PM
O/T If I am reading it correctly, it looks as though the “benefits” will include health care. WH issued a “fact sheet”. If it is really true, you all won’t believe this: The WH is giving credit to Secretary of State. And I suppose, if it isn’t true, that will mean the blame will fall on the Secretary of State. I am so skeptical.
http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid91133.asp
June 17, 2009 at 1:21 PM
Hi everyone,
Taggles, thanks for this post. It has hit me pretty hard. The other night I attended an interfaith gathering. Our topic for the evening was wealth/poverty. Each of us offered our particular religion’s response to the poor and the homeless. One of the participants in the discussion was a holocaust survivor who early in her life had some exceedingly cruel first-hand experience of doing without.
The topic was appropriate for a time of global recession. I remembered also that charity without love is meaningless. Seems like we need to be in relationship with people like Mr. Cox who are suffering so much – shaking our heads and sighing from a distance is not enough.
June 17, 2009 at 1:37 PM
O/T Gary, you should go check out the comments at the Advocate. No one gives a crap even today whether the Fed benefits offer health care or not. It is so encouraging to be getting our community back.
June 17, 2009 at 1:40 PM
la-t-da> I think the key phrase in that article is “within the confines of existing federal laws and statutes.”
June 17, 2009 at 1:53 PM
What a fucking con job. The language at the State Department website is very clear about DOMA and health benefits. Fucking white wash by the WH. Then when people catch on and continue to scream, he will turn around and blame the State Department. Fuck you, you fucking fuck.
“Under the definitions outlined in the Defense of Marriage Act, domestic partners are not entitled to the same federal benefits as “spouses” of employees. Federal government benefits, such as health insurance and pension benefits, provided to spouses, as defined in the Defense of Marriage Act, are not available to domestic partners.”
http://www.state.gov/m/dghr/flo/c23137.htm
June 17, 2009 at 1:53 PM
OT…These are the benefits?????? You have to know if there were any good benefits they could give, they would be listed. As Gary said, this just re-emphasizes how bad DOMA is and the full court defense that Obama used to defend it.
“For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children. For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations.”
That is pathetic.
June 17, 2009 at 1:56 PM
I don’t know if the long-term care insurance program is health insurance. I looked it up and it looks like supplemental insurance like Aflac or something. The link is here, can someone smarter than me go look and find out?
Long term care insurance is an insurance product which pays for long term care services in many settings, such as at home, a nursing home, assisted living facility, and adult day care facility.
Many people elect to buy long term care insurance so they will not need to deplete their savings should they need long term care services. Long term care insurance can help ensure that financial resources and support are in place when you need them.
June 17, 2009 at 1:57 PM
and I imagine you have to pay for it. it’s not a benefit provided by the govt. they’re “allowing” them to buy it, right?
June 17, 2009 at 1:58 PM
here is the “real” health plan:
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/index.asp
June 17, 2009 at 2:01 PM
I suspect that they are able to offer these benefits because they are not specifically guaranteed to only married partners of employees. They can be extended to parents, in-laws, ect.
Parents, parents-in-law, and stepparents of living employees listed above
http://www.ltcfeds.com/eligibility/index.html
they are trying to pull a fast one on us!
June 17, 2009 at 2:05 PM
these are the eligibility requirements for the actual health plan
Family members eligible for coverage under your Self and Family enrollment are your spouse (including a valid common law marriage) and unmarried dependent children under age 22, including legally adopted children and recognized natural (born out of wedlock) children who meet certain dependency requirements. Your stepchildren and foster children are included if they live with you in a regular parent-child relationship. An unmarried dependent child age 22 or over who is incapable of self-support because of a mental or physical disability that existed before age 22 is also an eligible family member. In determining whether the child is a covered family member, your employing office will look at the child’s relationship to you as the enrollee.
and get this…even some former spouses are eligible. but no gays..
Under the Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984, certain former spouses of Federal employees, former employees, and annuitants may qualify to enroll in a health benefits plan under the FEHB Program.
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/eligibility/index.asp
June 17, 2009 at 2:07 PM
This is definitely smoke-and-mirrors. Bringing the “Secretary of State” into it will make it look like it’s Hillary’s fault! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Fucking lying liars!
June 17, 2009 at 2:12 PM
SHV, from the quote you posted:
…”can be added”
You’re right, gary. That means if you pay for it. You’re right longterm care is different than health insurance.
“supervisors can also be required”
Required by whom?
“non-biological, non-adopted children.”
WTF does that mean?
June 17, 2009 at 2:15 PM
““non-biological, non-adopted children.”
WTF does that mean?”
I think that means gay couples that are raising children where one of the parents isn’t able to legally adopt a child that’s not his/her biological child.
June 17, 2009 at 2:17 PM
I guess if you marry someone with kids, but don’t “legally” adopt their children.
June 17, 2009 at 2:18 PM
exactly DYB, the children of gays aren’t covered because the parents aern’t married.
June 17, 2009 at 2:20 PM
This whole thing was a desperate attempt to try an prevent “blow-back” from the DOMA brief, turning the June 25 fund raiser into a PR disaster. I think Obama just rubbed salt into an open wound.
June 17, 2009 at 2:39 PM
Wonder if they’ll require partners in good faith interviews, like they do with hetero marriages sometimes.
June 17, 2009 at 2:47 PM
The gay DNC fundraiser will be a watershed moment – inside and out
Hopefully the protesters will out number the attendee, The only thing that a sociopath like Obama fears is ridicule and rejection…Looks like June 25 would be a good time to start.
June 17, 2009 at 3:03 PM
She prints a letter by doofus Mitchell Gold who says he’ll attend the fundraiser…in protest. I mean, what?! Idiot! I loved this part of his letter:
‘Of course(!) they are far better than George Bush or McCain/Pallin.’
Hold on. Bush – okay, I understand. But last I checked McCain/Palin were never in the White House. So how is Obama better than they? And can this idiot point to me how Obama is even better than Bush? Frankly, Obama is behind Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin on gay rights. (The former supports gay marriage, the latter vetoed Republican legislation in her state that would have taken health benefits away from partners of gay employees.) This Gold fellow can go to hell as he eats his fancy dinner in protest.
June 18, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Me and the family took a night tour of D.C last weekend. piled into a trolly car to see the city lit up at night. Very pretty. But what I didn’t expect is the number of homeless. It was staggering. When I think of that trip its not the monuments and the lights i remember. Its the people living under the underpasses and the park.
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June 17, 2009 at 12:01 PM
I shudder to think how many people are one paycheck away from Cox’s position. I know that I am seeing more and more people seeking spare change at intersections here in the chapel hill, durham, NC area. I always give them whatever I have in my pocket, although I rarely carry cash…just change, so it isn’t much.
OT, but at 5:45 Obama will be signing the memo about fed benefits for gays. I just want to give everyone a heads up that I intend to live blog and discuss the insulting gesture at that time. (if I can find out where they might be televising it–I get the feeling they might want to bury it at this point) I’ll post something shortly beforehand. Bring all your news and insight to discuss!