ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS

"We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics.
This is how we stay objective."

Dave Barry



Today, we're going to talk about the news business.

Andway, were going to talk about the news business as it relates to street puppies and homeless nation.

And today, the news is not good.

Today, well, actually, yesterday, one of the finest newspapers in this country went to press with a story that blackened the eyes of every street puppy who lives in the distribution area of the newspaper.

And they did this by printing a lop-sided, ill-sourced, largely anecdotal, sensationalized, scare mongering diatribe about panhandlers.

And then, today, reprinted that piece of rubbish, in their sister tabloid (tabloid here meaning format of the paper, not one of those papparazzi rags) complete with a reefer( no, the editors weren't smoking reefer, a reefer is newstalk for a headline on the front page with a reference to a page number inside where the story can be found) which included mug shots of two people who were outed in the story as having had "violent criminal records."

Now, that's some reefer!

And a lot of people who read both -or even just one of those - papers are going to believe that every homeless person who puts on a safety vest and goes to the street to ask for money, is a violent convicted felon who is going to push in the window of their car and yank them out by the throat, and probably steal their steering wheel, too.

And a lot of people who read both - or even just one of those - papers will believe that people who put on the same safety vests, and work very hard on Sundays to put together, and then sell newspapers -astonishingly, the very newspaper which printed the story - are probably also violent convicted felons who will push into the window of their car and yank them out by the throat...and probably steal their steering wheel, too.

See, this is really all about the two cities which we visited in a previous post here on Streetpuppy, and their continuing struggle to outdo each other in their haste to lay waste to street puppies for once and for all.

Eventually, that will happen.

City number two will bow to the pressure from city number one, and finally pass the required ordinance, banning anybody from selling anything on the street at all, or heaven forbid, asking for money.

And then both cities, and their politicians will root and crow about how they have found the divine measure to once and for all rid themselves of the unsightly, unwashed, homeless group of misfits who are growing in numbers by the day.

And the astonishing thing about all of this...and that eventual outcome, is that a fine newspaper is right on board with those rooting and crowing politicians,

A fine newspaper whose product is sold on the street every Sunday by all of those unsightly, unwashed, homeless group of misfits who work their fingers to the bone to sell that product for a few measly dollars.

Here's my advice to every panhandler who crosses the river from city number one to panhandle here in city number two. Stay home. Please.

And here's my advice to every person who dons that vest every Sunday and sells that newspaper here in city number two, on the street.

Get another gig. Something. Anything legal.

Don't waste your time with these people anymore.

Let them come over here...yeah, all the editors, and reporters and executives of that paper, let them come over here and put on those vests, and work for hours to put those papers together, and them sell them on the street, come rain or shine or wind or searing heat or biting cold.

Let's see how fast those ill-sourced, largely anecdotal, lop-sided, sensational stories about all the 'convicted, violent felons' knocking on windows disappear from their pages.

PLAN B vs MURPHY'S LAW

Every Street Puppy needs a plan B.

But, here in Homeless Nation, if you're not careful, the failure of Plan A can directly affect your ability to carry out Plan B, thus turning Plan B into Murphy's Law.

You remember Murphy's Law, right? It's the law which states that if anything can go wrong, it will...at the worst possible moment. And that law has a sinister way of mysteriously turning many a situation into one big world of hurt.

We're going to give you a few scenarios here which will further illustrate this amazing trick.

SCENARIO # 1.

You are relatively new to this homeless thing and haven't adjusted yet to street life, and you're , lonely, and you miss the friends you used to have, and the wife who left you when the money ran out, and then a nice person asks you if he could please use your food stamp card to go to the grocery street across the street and buy a few items for his sick mother.

In return for which, he will give you cash for the items, if you will just wait outside the store.

And you say, ok, but you need the card back real fast because you haven't eaten all day, and you need to have some dinner before you keel over.

PLAN A. you give the nice person your food stamp card, along with the pin number and you wait outside the grocery store while he buys a few items for his sick mother, and you think of what you will buy with the cash he will give you in return. Maybe a cold beer.

PLAN B The nice person does not return. You never see the nice person again, or your card. So of course you miss dinner. And you discover the nice person has used up every penny on the card for whatever . You starve for the next month, and maybe for good if the food stamp police find out you were dumb enough to do such a thing, and revoke your food stamp card.

SCENARIO # 2.

You have secured a 31-day bus pass through some nice charitible agency. It was given to you in the hope you could use it for transportation to find a job.

Another nice person asks you if he can borrow your bus pass. He, too, needs to visit his sick mother.

He will just run up to his mother's house, tuck her in and give her some vicodin for the awful pain she's suffering from the mugging and be right back with your bus pass.

PLAN A. You have some doubts because of what happened with your food stamp card, but, you haven't lost your faith in human nature yet, so you loan him the bus pass, and you wait at the bus station for him to return from his mission of mercy.

PLAB B. You stand at the bus station all night, until you are thrown out by the security guard. You have no bus pass, and no way to travel around to find a job. And the nice charitable agency who gave you the bus pass figures out what happened and never gives you another bus pass.

SCENARIO # 3.

You have a cell phone, given to you by yet another charitable agency in hopes you can use the phone to call your OWN sick mother, or maybe..find a job

But, hold on, another nice person is really needing a phone right now. He needs to call his wife who thinks he is cheating on her and smooth things out or she is going to throw him out of their sleeping spot, and throw all of his clothes into the river.

PLAN A. You don't want that to happen, you're homeless, too and you know how important sleeping spots are, and clothing...and wives. You give him the phone and of course, he needs privacy to make the call. So you walk a few feet away.

PLAN B. You turn around, and....he's gone. With your cell phone.

You don't get another phone out of that charitable agency because all of the phone calls placed on that phone over the next few days are made to drug dealers. Who were caught and then turned in the person who made the calls, and he was caught too, with your phone.

And so after you get out of jail you realize you have no cell phone, no bus pass ,and no food stamp card. And now you have a police sheet.

And while you were in jail, somebody took over your sleeping spot, and your clothes are all gone from the hiding place it took you a month to find, and none of the other puppies will talk to you because they think the police may be watching you...and that you might possibly, be a jinx.

And all you have left that means anything at all to you, or has any value, is the watch your late father gave to you. ...on his death bed.

You want to jump into the river.

But wait! Who is that...over there. It's a woman. Hmmm...kind of a good looking one, too.
She's motioning to you. She wants you to sit beside her on the bench.

And she has what looks like a bag of...soda. Yup, cans of cold soda. And some munchies.

PLAN A. You sit beside her. And hey, it's not soda in the bag...it's beer. Cold beer. And she hands you an open container of the cold beer. And she is admiring your watch, and she wants to take a closer look at the watch, and she smiles at you, and gee whiz......when she smiles, she looks so much like your ex wife.....

PLAN B. We probably do not need to go into detail here, do we?

HIGGLEDY, PIGGLEDY

We here in Homeless Nation are stunned to learn of the recent higgedly piggedly hijinks in the international diplomatic community

What were we thinking of? Or rather, what were our fearless leaders who roost at Foggy Bottom thinking?

Foggy Bottom being what the United States State Department is called by the Inside the Beltway crowd. Foggy Bottom because it is located in Washington D.C., where it is foggy a lot as it once was a swamp. Ahem.

We only heard about the situation because one of those diplomats who created part of the muddled higgledy piggledy mess generated by the release of supposedly encrypted cables between Foggy Bottom and U.S. Embassies around the world to the news media, is right here. In Homeless Nation.

Pendleton Stanford Heddington IV. And Pendleton Stanford Heddington IV is on the lam

And he wants what every diplomat who is on the lam wants. Political asylum. And diplomatic immunity.

Political asylum is granted by a nation to a person seeking shelter from another nation if he has a reasonable fear of persecution in that other nation. That's another way of saying, he isn't exactly flavor of the month there right now.

Diplomatic immunity is listed as the number one tool in the diplomacy toolbox the U.S. State Department gives to all of those mostly Ivy League people who are sent abroad to other nations to practice the art of conducting negotiations with representatives of other nations, and to employ tact in order to gain a strategic advantage in a calculated and polite manner.

In other words, when dealing with the other nation's representative, lie through your teeth..and don't tell him he has spinach in his.

Well, we didn't know what to think at first. Political asylum? Diplomatic Immunity? What a concept in Homeless Nation. We don't even have a State Department. Or a cable machine.

But, ole' PinHead Pupster....yeah, we had to change his name. He insisted. And substituting Pin for Pen was ok, but the preppy in him just couldn't get with Puppy. So Pupster it is.

Well, PinHead, poor dear, was right in the thick of it when a lot of those cables were flying back and forth between his overseas U.S. Embassy post and Foggy Bottom.

And when the Swedish person from Wiki dropped the dime on the United States State Department, well, ole' PinHead wasn't fired. He was evacuated by a bunch of U.S. Marines aided with close air support, right ahead of a death squad which was making straight for his office at the the U.S. Embassy.

Seems a lot of foreign nations were very put out by the things PinHead and people like him were putting into their cables about the people they were sent there to employ tact with in order to gain a strategic advantage. Especially the cable about the Important Russian Guy allegedly having an uh, inappropriate relationship with the Italian Important Guy. Whoa.

Well, during the debriefing -which we needed to conduct in order to decide if the PinHead could stay - we needed to determine exactly why he had decided to come to Homeless Nation for political asylum and the necessity of diplomatic immunity on top of it.

We don't have a lot of Ivy Leaguers here. Anyway not yet. And we were a wee bit suspicious. After all he had been paid before to employ tact to gain strategic advantages. What if he was actually going to covertly mount a military coup here? Take us over and do things US embassies sometimes do in other countries to uh, level the playing field.

And Pinhead knew he needed to convince us of his sincerety, so he came clean. Seems the State Department gave him a list of the countries he could be sent to after a reasonable length of time on sabbatical, and the healing of the identity changing face lift.

PinHead was given a choice of either, (and we are NOT making this up, it's in the CIA factbook!)
Akrotiri; Vanuatu; Dhekelia; Lesotho; Burkina Faso; Clipperton Island, or Djibouti.

Well, we were not surprised. Given those choices, any pupster would have opted for the relative comfort of Homeless Nation. For one thing, we don't require a passport.

But we were still suspicious. And worried. Who would be looking for him? Was he hiding something? Was this all a plot to see if we had spinach in our teeth?

But Pinhead had something to trade for our asylum, and diplomatic immunity.

His diplomatic skills and tradecraft. And PinHead had done his homework on Homeless Nation.

And, as he diplomatically pointed out to us, we do have diplomatic situations with other nations. Situations which need the finesse of a fine, calculating, tactful, polite diplomat like Pinhead.

For instance, he could successfully deal with the situations with all of the little rogue nations within Homeless Nation.

We do have a growing problem here. A lot of different colors, and languages and lifestyles and personalities and agendas mixing it up together. And all of us being in the same boat, too. Whew. Sometimes, we start throwing more than cables at each other.

PinHead's solution is to start up his own Department of the Interior. Well, for that, we have to give him head knocking privileges. And we are taking that under advisement.

And then, he very tactfully and politely pointed out the diplomatic situations with surrounding nations. You know, the citizens who live right along side us, and do not recognize us as a sovereign entity. (His words not ours.)

Pinhead is going to open back channels to those surrounding nations.

Back channels is diplomacy lingo for unofficial channels of communications between states or other political entities used to supplement official channels, often for the purposes of discussing highly sensitive policy issues, and all the while, calculating the strategic advantages.

Like when a street puppy falls off somebody's porch and they're not supposed to be there anyway, who gets sued?

Or a street puppy is way too energetic washing a motorist's windshield for spare change, and it needs to be detertimed who was at fault for the vehicle hitting the fire hydrant if the vehicle was still moving.

Or when a street puppy falls into the river, like who has jurisdiction to pull him out?

Or, the street puppy panhandling issue. Oh brother, are we glad Pinhead is here. Wait until he sees the councilmen and and the commissioners he has to deal with. That alleged thing between the Russian guy and the Italian guy will seem like a cake walk.

Talk abut highly sensitive policy issues and strategic advantages!

Well, Ok, so we're going to give him a try out. PinHead is our new diplomat sans portfolio. Complete with political asylum, diplomatic immunity, back channels and all the other bells and whistles that come with important diplomatic postings.

And, while we're at it. We're going to suggest to Pinhead that, maybe he could throw a little of that diplomatic finesse and tact and politeness into persuading the nation of Djibouti to throw some foreign aid our way.

And we're no slouches here in Homeless Nation when it comes to international strategies. We'll let him know, if Djibouti doesn't come through with the dough.....well, diplomatic immunity or not, it's the nation of Burkina Faso for Pinhead!

WE'RE ALL MAD HERE

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice
remarked.
"Oh you can't help that," said the cat: We're all
mad here. I'm mad, You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the cat, "Or you wouldn't
be here."


From "Alice in Wonderland"
by
Lewis Carroll


So, like Alice, you tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Except, you were not following a White Rabbit, and this is not Wonderland.

This is Homeless Nation, The first place on your journey to the adventure into the unknown, and things are getting , as they did for Alice, "curiouser and curiouser," one of the many famous phrases from the book, and used to describe an event with extraordinary wonder.

And the book, a delightful mix of humor, wisdom and satire, is chock full of events described with extraordinary wonder.

Personally, I think much of the book, while very entertaining and enlightening, was written while Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (that's Lewis Carroll's real name) was sitting around with that green caterpillar in one of the book's chapters.

The green caterpillar who was smoking the blue hookah.

But, yeah, you are down the rabbit hole , and, here in Homeless Nation, on an adventure into the unknown, and just about everything is getting curiouser and curiouser about this event of extraordinary wonder, including the glimmer of the thought that is forming in your mind.

The thought that you may have gone mad.

No home. Nobody covering your back. Little or no money. No job. You are homeless. You are a street puppy.

You don't look the same way you once looked. But you haven't seen a decent mirror in a while, since they were taken out of the Burger King restroom in order to dissuade street puppies from peering into them while taking that morning cat bath.

So you don't really know how you look, except for the occasional curious glances of alarm sent your way by citizens of that other nation, whenever you dare to venture outside homeless nation.

Yeah, you've either gone mad, or you're dreaming a very bad dream.

But if you're dreaming, why do your feet hurt so much? Why don't your clothes fit so well? Why are you hungry? Why do you have a constant, nagging ache in your upper back molar? Why do people tend to move away from you in the small queue at the bus stop?

Can't be a dream. Dreams end, and you don't remember much about them. But you remember all of this, day by day. One long blur of muffled sounds, and fuzzy visions and mysterious pains and stifled feelings you are remembering even as you live within them.

Yup, you've gone mad. And everybody around you is mad. Aren't they?

Well, doctors have a name for this particular madness. They call it the "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, " a disorienting neurological condition which affects human perception.

And the "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome comes with some hefty symptoms.

Distortions which recur several times a day and can last from a few minutes to a few weeks. And the sufferer can become alarmed, frightened, and even panic-stricken.

Hmmm...sounds like a typical day in the Homeless Naiton.

I mean, you wake up. You have no idea what time it is. It is dark, but you went to sleep when it was light. and now, everything looks distorted in the glare of the street lamps blazing near your sleeping spot.

But it was light out when you went to sleep, because you had nothing to do for the rest of the evening, except to lie down and try to remember to wake up very early, before the police find out that you are sleeping at a spot clearly marked, "No Trespassing," and stop by and wake you up, and ruin the rest of your whole day with the arrest, and the handcuffs, and the booking.

So, yeah, it's dark outside. And everything looks distorted in the glare of the street lights. Even your hands and feet look distorted. And occasionally you wander into forbidden territory because that "No Trespassing" sign looked like it said, "Just come on in and have a rest."

And now, another, and the most prominent symptom of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome...altered body image, makes an appearance.

And the sufferers of that sympton will find that they are confused as to the size and shape of parts of...or all of the body. Right, like when you go to sit up, when you first awaken, and your head hits the tree right behind you and you realize you forgot that your head is bigger when it's covered in five ski caps. And that you can't feel your hands because you slept on them.

Or when you get back from the store where you had a voucher to get some new used pants and you realize they are way too big, and then you realize you didn't know how much weight you had lost when you looked at the pants...only looked, because you are not allowed to try them on in the kind of places where you take the voucher to get them.

Sense of taste and smell and touch is also affected by this affliction. That uh, stew you ate at the "feed" last night, well, you couldn't really tell by tasting, or smelling, or even touching it...what it really was. But you know it wasn't cous cous.

One of the more alarming symptoms is actual intense and overt hallucinations. Either seeing things that are not there, or just misinterpreting events and situations.

Remember the twenty dollar bill you had in your hand, the one the generous person gave to you at the bus stop, without you even asking him for it?

Well, poof! It disappeared, right after you passed the corner bodega that sells beer.

And that gal you were supposed to meet after the church service where they serve the raspberry scones and coffee after the two hour service? Well, hard to remember, now what was her name? Was her hair black...no blonde ?

How old was she? Did she come on to you...or did you make a fool of yourself and ask for her phone number while maybe leering at the little bit of leg showing below her used Calvin Klein one size too small levis? And why would you ask for her number? You don't even have a phone.

Was she there at all? Or were you staring too long at the church's stain glass windows with the pretty angels, who, in your distorted, altered perception , may have been talking to you?

Relax. Don't panic. And don't tense up. You do that, and those pants that are too large will fall right off.

You are down the Rabbit Hole, and things are curiouser and curiouser,and they will stay that way, as long as you are in Homeless Nation.

It's nature's way of protecting you until you can navigate your way back up the Rabbit Hole.

And, hey, enjoy it while it lasts. It's not everyday when you can look at those big feet of yours and imagine them fitting into those slim, black leather Gucci ankle boots you once dreamed of buying if you could only have fit into them!

And take comfort in the fact that this "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome has been around a long time. And that Lewis Carroll, could possibly have written the book while he was sitting around the hookah with that green caterpillar.

And, in your altered state of perception, you can also believe that he wrote the following quote from the book just for street puppies.

MAD HATTER: There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger! Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter. Which luckily, I am!

BRANDS R US

Ever wonder about big time corporate name changes?

Like when a venerable and large accounting firm gets caught with their sticky fingers way too far into their clients' pockets and then whoo...openings for executives turn into windows, somebody goes to the clink, and the name of the firm, which probably belonged to a guy who died about a hundred years ago, becomes the punchline of the week on Letterman.

Then the venerable firm pulls the blinds, turns out the lights, for awhile, and then ,Shazam!

Blinds pulled back up, lights on, new parking spaces drawn, and a sign that once read "Abraham O'Riley & Sons Excellent Bean Counters," now reads "Whiz Mongrels & Sons, Sort of ExcellentBean Counters," and hey, we're back in business.

That's called "Brand Management," and it was invented by a guy from Procter and Gamble.

Brand Management is basically revising a corporate vision, and restating a corporate mission statement...or, when urgent circumstances alter the public perception of an organization so radically that something has to be done..... changing that letterhead, and fast.

And that urgent circustance could be anything. Like when somebody figures out that the once venerable name of the organization just doesn't fit the new 'vision' of the company, after a study is released by the Surgeon General saying smoking is a death sentence, and then a cigarette company, like Philip Morris, changes its name to "Altria. "

Or when (we won't mention the name) an airline loses one of it's jets when it nosedives into a swamp and knows nobody in his right mind is going to get on a flight to anywhere which bears the name of a jet that took a dive into a swamp, so it changes the name to "Fly Real High Over Swamps."

And we here in Homeless Nation, having experienced some urgent circumstances since, oh, forever, like the media knocking us about with too many homeless on the street; too many homeless on the sidewalk; too many homeless in the bathroom at the Burger King shaving and washing their socks, and then going out and wiping everybody's wind shield with the soap from the soap dispenser.

Well, we decided we needed some of that Brand Management.

So we called a caucus of our executive council of street puppies and sat around on a street corner, and in between scratching our heads a lot, and dodging pedestrians, we hammered out a new corporate vision statement.

First thing, the new name. We are no longer homeless. We are Domestically Challenged. Howzat sound?

Ok, then, that takes care of the corporate vision thing.

But now, we had to think up a mission statement to go along with the vision thing.

And that wasn't real hard. Seems we have a lot of new corporate suit street puppies around here who worked, until recently, at places that deal in mission statements and corporate vision.

That is until those visions and statements started coming to them in memos written in the language of Bangledesh, and telling them that the corporation they had worked for had just envisioned how much money they could save themselves by outsourcing everything but the distribution of postage stamps to their employees so they could put them on outgoing resumes.

These guys...and gals...are terrific. They're still in shock, ya know, dreaming of the day, not long ago when they could ride around in the back seat of a car without being cuffed, and had credit cards and Blackberries and stuff. But they can still do corporate think, and that's what we need.

First, we are forming an R & D department. That's research and development, not run and duck. And, these former corporate suit people have a terrific first project in mind.

Stealth technology. That's right. We will soon possess the technology to make ourselves invisible! And what a relief that will be to all of those people who will no longer have to pass us by and go "tsk, tsk," look what too many Budweisers on an empty stomach for ten years will do to ya."

Also, from R&D, and maybe even before Stealth....we will have Morphing! We can morph into any shape or vision we need to be. Means we can sleep anywhere and not be bothered because the guy who owns the lawn or porch we're sleeping on will think he's looking at a big ole' friendly, snoring bassett hound curled up there.

Then, and this is the one I really like. We will have our own Taser technology.

Think of it. No more "Can you spare some change for a bar of soap, sir?" We just whip out that taser thing. Don't even have to use it, just kind of twirl it around in our fingers, and before you know it, we'll have enough change to buy our own soap company. Look out Procter and Gamble.

And we haven't even started. These new corporate suit street puppies are going to come up with all kinds of things which will give our homeless nation, er, domestically challenged nation brand a whole new image. Yup, and a whole new restated vision , and a revised mission statement.

Why, we will have Human Resources. And Growth and Management. And Corporate Outreach. And our own mouthpiece, ta da....A Public Relations Maven.

Yeah, things are going to change around here. Now, with our whole new breed of corporate suit street puppies, out here working for us on Brand Management, we'll be in high cotton.

We might even get our own reality TV show with Donald Trump.

And what an irony. Just think. What would all of our new corporate suit brand managing street puppies have done, to spend a fortune for their clothing, if Ralph Lipschitz hadn't changed his name to Ralph Lauren!

MOMMY, MY LIFE HURTS

Now comes our next generation. The young ladies and gentlemen who will take us into the sunset of our lives.

We behold them, now, at the dawning of their lives.

And they are , indeed, a wondrous sight. All dolled up in comic and surreal and sometimes grotesque outfits of sequins and latex and glitter and satin glory. We hold our breath, and take their little hands in ours and shoo them through the door on a Halloween evening, for their annual trek in pursuit of the candy bars and other gooey, tasty treats which will last them one whole week.

And in that one whole week, Their dreams of their future roles in life will change as fast as they shed their zany costumes.

Zack, the kid in the Star Trek U.S.S.ENTERPRISE uniform is going to be an astronaut, but next week, he'll settle for a fireman. Makika, the cat with the yellow face paint and whiskers has decided it's law school for her, but then on Saturday, she will announce that, instead, she's going to become a hairdresser...for movie stars.

Mary, the shy one, dressed up as a ballerina, is going to to be a doctor. Period. Tyler is absolutely going to be a U.S. Marine, just like his late daddy, but that will change to a fighter pilot by Monday. Letisha, clad from head to toe in a sparkly leotard, wants the world to know that she will be the perfect circus performer in Cirque du Soleil. But a couple of days later, she decides it's safer to be a bus driver.

Christopher, the serious one, who started reading at three, and at seven is a whiz at math, knows for sure, he will design rocket trains. They don't have those yet, but Chris believes he knows how to put that together. Or, maybe, next week, he'll decide to put his talents to designing the next great solar powered sports car.

Michael wants to be the President of the United States. Failing that, he'd like to be a talk show host. His sister, Leah, has designs on politics, too. She wants to be the governor of Florida. Or a dolphin trainer.

The dreams these children have of their futures are as diverse as their ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds.

But the one thing they do have in common now, is a shattered life.

Shattered by events beyond their control, and for now, for most of them, beyond their understanding or comprehension.

Life changed for them recently. Something went terribly wrong and they went from living a secure and abundant life to, maybe sleeping in mommy's car, or in a dingy motel room for weeks on end, or, in some cases out there on the streets in homeless nation.

They're living in a shelter now. With other children and mommies and some daddies. And life is chaotic and noisy and filled with strangers and rules and other kids just like them. Just like them because kids don't see the differences in their social and cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

That will come later, when the age of innocence has passed. For now, their resilience and curiosity and love of all things unique and seemingly bizarre will help them to transcend their circumstances, and bear the realities and hardships of an environment charged with tension and doubt and so many fears.

Those realities and hardships which, for now, they are sometimes shielded from by the swift flicking of a tear wiped away by anxious parents, or loving shelter caregivers who tend to broken hearts and shattered lives with open hands and great, loving gestures of hope.

These children walk a thin and shaky line between the whimsy of the great Dr. Seuss's "Oh, The Places You Will Go", and the darkness of "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch."

And in their eyes, in those bright and curious and shining and hungry puppy eyes, you see the veil to their future, woven with the threads of mercy.

These children, these maybe future astronauts, and firemen, and rocket scientists and U.S. Marines and fighter pilots, and bus drivers and lawyers and doctors and hairdressers and circus acrobats and governors and dolphin trainers, and Presidents of the United States of America, are stuck now in survival mode here in homeless nation.

Some of them will make it through the survival mode and the chaos which now defines their lives, and not be the worse off for it. For those who make it through, there will once again be a secure and loving home, and the opportunity and means to prepare them for the roles they once dreamed of when they dreamed of how their lives would be.

But, some of them won't make it through this part of their life journey unscathed. The hurt that some of these children endure by having their life shattered by events out of their control will prove to be unshakeable, and their futures will be marred by so many of the awful events spawned by the damage done to a young, and innocent and tender ego.

And that is an outrage. And we should all be very angry about that. And do something.

And what we should do, is to love these children - our children -love them enough to make the strongest possible effort as families and as a society, to see that this ugly and searing blight of homelessness has - by the time our children are old enough to really begin their journey to be a fireman, a bus driver, an astronaut, a lawyer, a doctor, a rocket scientist, a U.S. Marine or a future President of the United States - been cleared away by the people of this great nation.

This great nation, which may well put people on Mars in our lifetime, needs a gut check on this present, shameful domestic situation which will, if nothing else, deprive us all of the intellects, the skills, the drive and the boundless energy of these children.

And our government needs to go to war for these children. And that war should be right up there with the War on Drugs, The War on Terrorism, and all of those other wars "over there."

We can do no less for our next generation. Our legacy.

In the meantime, hug them a lot, tend to their scrapes and boo boos, tell them bedtime stories, kiss away their tears, and listen to them when they talk about those dreams they have about their future. And, maybe, sing to them.

And I'd like to offer up part of a great Beach Boys song that I wish I could sing to every one of these kids I have met here, in homeless nation. Kind of a lullaby straight from the heart.

The song is "Disney Girl" and part of it goes like this

Clearin' skies and dryin' eyes now I see your smile

Darkness goes and softness shows

a changing style

Just in time, words that rhyme, well

bless your soul

Now I'll fill your hands with

kisses and a tootsie roll.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdon, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

That is the opening paragraph of English Author Charles Dickens acclaimed "Tale of Two Cities," which was published in 1859, and has sold more than 200 million copies to date.

That famous paragraph raises the curtain on Dickens' epic depiction of the plight of the French peasantary demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the French Revolution, and the many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period.
And those unflattering social parallels resonate through the ages right up to today, and the prevailing attitudes held, and actions taken, by most of our society and our government toward the citizens of homeless nation.

Now, the French and the English had different ways of dealing with their unflattering social parallels. In Paris, they had the guillotine. In London they had Old Bailey.

Here in homeless nation, we have two cities, that just like Paris and London are separated by a large body of water. And just like Paris and London, Both cities have social problems, and both exhibit unflattering social parallels in their attitudes and action toward those social problems.

Social problems like unemployment, poverty, and crime are rampant in our two cities, In addition to that, and perhaps, in part because of that, homelessness ranks right up there as another major social problem. And both cities in their way, have their own unflattering way to deal with their social problem of homelesslessness.

The French and English had their guilliotine and Old Bailey. We have County Commissions and City Councils and Workshops. And their attitude, and their action, and their and aim is the same. "Get rid of the problem." Not solve it. Get rid of it.

Now, These two cities have been wrestling with quite a dilemma for a long time. Homeless numbers going up, more street puppies pouring into homeless nation. Patience of the townpeople going down.

Patience of the townspeople going down, as in, they want street puppies off their lawns, out of their alleys and parks, off their benches, and heaven forbid, at least one hundred feet away from the front door of their favorite restaurant, or shoe store, or video arcade.

And the townspeople don't want us to ask them for money. Heck, they don't even want us to put on special colored vests and work real hard and sell a product to them for money.

For instance, we homeless nation street puppies are taking up way too much space on medians and corners, and interstate ramps trying to sell them a newspaper ...and on Sunday morning of all things, when they're all on their way to church!

And the townspeople of our two cities have an action ace up their collective sleeve. They vote.

They vote other prominent townspeople right on to, and off of, County Commissions and City Councils.

Which gives these so called prominent townspeople a social problem to hoot about, and then get their picture taken a lot, and maybe grovel enough to get enough voting townspeople snortin' mad enough to fortify some of the grimy lot of hooting, groveling , photogenic, prominent townpeople in a future election campaign for the top slot of the County Commission or the City Council.

Anyway, one of the cities' City Councils, buoyed up by the complaints of homeless people blocking their way into their favorite establishment, decided, enough is enough, time to make a hot potato, so they passed an ordinance which basically said "Off With Their Vests!"

Actually, the ordinance /potato basically said, "You homeless people can't panhandle or sell newspapers on our corners, medians, or off ramps anymore, hand over that vest! "

So, the clever homeless road dawgs in that other city, hid the vests and came across the bay, put the vests back on, and quadrupled the number of homeless people selling newspapers on our corners, and medians and off ramps.

Here is where it gets sticky. That other city. by passing that ordinance, had tossed their hot potato right into our hot potato pan.

Not even thinking about the social implications. Like, maybe not good to mix up road dawgs with street puppies.

So, yet another potential social problem lurked here. Chaos in the streets maybe. A real "West Side Story" adventure shaping up, you know, the "When yer a jet, yer a jet all your days..." kind of thing.

Then, the townspeople in our city became restive. And they thought, "Well, heck, the other city did it. Took back their streets and medians and off ramps. But, now those road dawgs are coming over here and blocking our way into our Wal-mart! Yikes! We gotta do something!"

So our townspeople called our groveling, photogenic, hooting City Council members...and County Commission members.

Ok, so our County Commission members met, Our City Council members met. And they tossed that hot potato around a little. But, no dice, couldn't up come up with anything.

Then, the other city even sent one of their helpful County Commission members over here to show our County Commission and City Council members how to do it. Still no dice. The whole thing was starting to look like Abbott and Costello'a famous "Who's on Third?" routine.

Anyway, our County Commission and City Council members finally did the right thing. They formed Workshops to study the hot potato, er, dilemma.

That's a way to give the hot potato some time to cool down.

And it worked, for the time being, that is.

And the County commission and City Council meetings in our city revealed something important, and meaningful....maybe even memorable. An ethic lurking there in the social dilemma.

There are actually ethical people in our hooting, groveling photogenic, lot who have a heart, and some common sense, and well....ethics.

Some of those people with a heart, and common sense, and ethics proclaimed they were not going to vote on an ordinance which would deprive homeless people of the meager income they had in this putrid economy by depriving them of the right to sell newspapers in this city. They were going to table that vote. Until the issue comes up again.

And it will. So long as there is one person who thinks it is offensive to have to pass, egads, a homeless person with a colorful vest on selling newspapers to people on their way to church, and one hooting, groveling, photogenic person lookin' for a vote.

In this ongoing tale of two cities, you can count on it.