Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
This is an annual thing at the NY Times, but the first paragraph is troubling and worthy of reporting in and of itself.
As New York City teems once more with a boom-time population of eight million, its signature Dickensian dichotomy brims before our eyes: poverty and homelessness are on the rise even as the streets hum with ambitious newcomers and the average price of a Manhattan apartment rockets toward the million-dollar mark. The city's clashing mix of opulence and opportunity, hard labor and raw daily indigence has rarely been so palpable. Neither has the need for some down-home charity. For all its resilience after the Sept. 11 disaster, the city finds 18 of 100 residents impoverished.
The time could not be riper for The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, the annual plea to concerned readers to extend some basic charity to the many New Yorkers caught in harsh straits. For 91 years, the fund has channeled millions of dollars to time-proven institutions facing the problems that hammer upon the poor.
Homelessness has become an endemic problem lately for city children; the statistical drop in welfare rolls is illusory for working mothers on minimum wages. Charities working with the Neediest Cases Fund find grandparents becoming primary caretakers in the most troubled families, where poor nutrition generates school failure and dangerous child obesity.
Every penny donated � The Times pays all administration costs � helps seven local charities bolster the neediest. These are the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service; the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York; the Catholic Charities, Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens; the Children's Aid Society; the Community Service Society of New York; the UJA-Federation of New York; and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.
Please send your checks to The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, 4 Chase Metrotech Center, 7th Floor East, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11245. You also may contribute using a credit card online at www.nytimes.com/neediest, or by telephone at (212) 556-5851, extension 7.
Posted by P6 at November 2, 2003 06:11 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2167...This is probably inappropriate, and it's gonna get me into trouble, as I have a tendency to criticize even good deeds..
No, I think you did a pretty good job there. Of course, I think you also expose the problem of relying on individual action to ameliorate poverty. Yes indeed, the union-busting activities of the dailies--it happened out here in SF too--is another tear in the safety net, and the guilty secret is that the economics of union busting tends to spread outward from the disintegration of the jobs base in the mature industrialized regions of the country.
Perhaps in another decade the word "whore" will denote a victim forced into desperate measures, rather than a soul-less hireling.
BTW, does it seem to you like the copy is reminiscent of the Gilded Age? I thought P6 was going to say at the end, "Gotcha! This was first published in 1910-something, and Sept 11 refers to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire..."
Yes, I looked it up & the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was 25 March 1911--146 killed, mostly women. Three weeks later--the Titanic sank.