The Neediest Cases

This stuff drives me nuts.

The New York Times has what’s called the “Neediest Cases Fund” for which they solicit donations from the public, and from which they give to needy families that come to their attention, especially in this apparently horrible time.

Debra, who did not want her last name to be published, bought a home in the East New York section of Brooklyn for more than $600,000 in 2006. The house has plenty of room for herself, for her son and for tenants. She thought that with the help of rental income and refinancing her mortgages that she could carry the load.
[...]
“People tell you that you can refinance and get a better deal,” Debra explained — an all too common assumption during the housing boom. After a few months, her tenants started to pay their rent late — and sometimes not at all. Without that income, she was stretched too thin.

Okay, someone bought way too much house, and didn’t factor in any margins so when she wasn’t fully rented she couldn’t make her bills. Some unwise choices led to a predictable end.

Here’s the “drives me nuts” part:

At Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, Debra found some relief. They gave her $1,650 from The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund for her mortgage and utility bills. But her payment plan is unsustainable. Catholic Charities referred her to a community group that helps modify mortgages. Debra is still waiting for a workout that she can afford, hoping to stay in her home.

A charity gave her money to make her mortage on a $600,000 house, and they are helping her modify the mortgage so she can keep it.

I could throw a rock from my driveway and hit 20 people more “needy”, and I live in an affluent suburb. For every one of those I could easily find 100 people more needy. And so on. And so on.

The media needs to stop reporting the loss of a palatial house, or no horseback riding lessons for the grandkids with the same level of gravity as they report death counts from Darfur, or starving kids in Sudan, or child soldiers in Rwanda, or slum kids in Nicaragua, or children on northern reserves, or teens on the streets in the inner city, or beaten children in the suburbs.

Does the lady with the $600,000 house need help? Most certainly. Is helping her keep her $600,000 house the best kind of help? Perhaps not. Is highlighting her in the “Neediest Cases” insulting to those who are truly needy? Definitely.

The American media needs a perspective transfusion. I was actually going to suggest that the tube went somewhere else rather than a vein, but decency prevails.

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Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. - Ellen Goodman

Dianna shares a review of Life After Church by Brian Sanders. I don’t really know much about the book or the conclusions it reaches, but this bit of the review was familiar:

God: You’ve been having an affair.
Me: What do you mean? I’m not. I’ve never been unfaithful to my husband. What an earth (or heaven) are you talking about?
God: You’ve been unfaithful to me.
Me: How? (knowing it to be true, but unsure of what act of unfaithfulness he’s calling me on)
God: You have loved the church more than you’ve loved me. You are so busy serving the church; you don’t realize when you’ve stopped serving me. You are so keen to do what you perceive the leaders want that you have no idea what I want.

Wisdom from C.J. Mahaney:

Busyness does not mean I am diligent.
Busyness does not mean I am faithful.
Busyness does not mean I am fruitful.

From Bloomberg.com

Goldman, the largest and most profitable U.S. securities firm in the world last year, paid Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein a record $67.9 million bonus for 2007 on top of his $600,000 salary. That was justified, he told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in April, because of Goldman’s superior financial results.

“We’re very much a performance-related firm,” he said. “If those results don’t come in, I assure you at Goldman Sachs you won’t see that compensation.”

Goldman’s profit is down 47 percent so far this year and five analysts expect the company to report its first loss as a public company in the fourth quarter that ends this month. The stock price has dropped 67 percent this year and Goldman received $10 billion from the U.S. government in the bailout last month.

Colour me completely unsurprised.

Money doesn’t just talk, money lies.

“I’m the best way to know your real value.”
“If you had enough of me, you’d never worry again.”
“If you were a better Christian, it’d never be hard to give me away.”
“In order to build a better ‘later,’ you have to sacrifice family time ‘now,’ but it will all work out.”
“Once you earn enough, you’ll be able to really start giving.”

Chatter, chatter, chatter. Squawk, squawk, squawk.

So, are you listening?

More specifically, it’s an Advent Conspiracy.

The concept is fourfold:

• Worship Fully
• Spend Less
• Give More
• Love All

This has been a big issue of ours for years. I’ve spoken at churches about this on three or four pre-Christmas Sundays. We as Christians are too much part of the mob at the mall.

Take a look at the site, then take a look at your Christmas and talk about it with your families. See if they feel as uncomfortable as we did.

If you know me at all, then you know why I had a hard time reading this with a straight face.

Left-handed people are more inhibited

I think “inhibited” is somewhere near “purple” on the list of words that describe me, left-handed Mrpages.

I agree with the typically left statements in the article like “I worry about making mistakes” and “Criticism or scolding hurts me quite a bit”. I also love colour coding things and writing lists.

But inhibited? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Amazon is quite a force in the world of product sales. So much so that they have actually been able to force companies to get rid of those horrendous plastic clamshell packages and the ever-present black twist ties.

Ever tried to open a kids toy while the child waits for you? There’s always one more twist tie, one more piece of tape, or one more finger to lop off while you hack away at the razor-sharp clamshell.

No longer!

One of the first products to launch with Frustration-Free Packaging is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship, which is now delivered in an easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard box. The new packaging eliminates 36 inches of plastic-coated wire ties, 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts and 36.1 square inches of printed folding carton materials. Also eliminated are 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners.

Yay Amazon!

Oh, yeah, good for the environment too… :)

John MacArthur writes a great piece about the politicizing of religion.

God is not calling us to wage a culture war that would seek to transform our countries into “Christian nations.” To devote all, or even most, of our time, energy, money, and strategy to putting a façade of morality on the world or over our governmental and political institutions is to badly misunderstand our roles as Christians in a spiritually lost world.

The point stands for many other things that distract the church too, not just politics.