Well-Said Well-Said

Michelle Obama Serves Soup, Nation Misses the Point

Yesterday, Michelle Obama became the first presidential spouse to volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen, a 26+ year free meals program located near the White House. Her gesture was meant to inspire volunteerism to help the less fortunate. Instead, it has turned our nation into a bunch of chatty Cathy's asking one question: Where did the homeless guy get the cell phone camera?

Here's the background from the LA Times:

The first lady served up mushroom risotto and broccoli to a long line of homeless men and women during part of her lunch hour and in these photos poses for a picture by one homeless diner obviously excited to be in the first lady's presence.

Obama said she hoped her service would cause other Americans to volunteer to help the less fortunate in their own communities.

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And here's a sampling of the blabbering blogosphere. First, the LA Times:

It doesn't detract from the first lady's generous gesture or the real needs she seeks to highlight to ask two bothersome journalistic questions about these news photos:

If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone? And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?

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Next, conservative Michelle Malkin:

Via Andrew Malcolm, here is one of the homeless cell phone owners snapping a pic of First Lady Michelle Obama - ruining what was supposed to be a sob story photo op of the compassionate Mrs. O catering to the downtrodden.

Some folks are wondering where the cell phone bills get sent. The answer is obvious: ACORN headquarters.

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I realize half the nation will lose sleep worrying about this issue unless these questions are addressed. So if I may...

First, let's point out the assumptions these critics are making. For one, they assume that every person seeking a meal at a soup kitchen is destitute or homeless. This is not always the case. Staffers may partake of the food line fare (especially with the first lady shows up to serve). It's also possible this man is "doubled up", recently unemployed, or working poor. In any of these situations, he could have a cell phone from a previous life when money wasn't so tight.

Where is his phone bill is being mailed? If he's not actually homeless or if he's doubled up, that's easy enough to figure out. It's also common for transitional shelters to accept mail for guests. Many homeless folks also use post office boxes for their personal mail.

But let's get down to the most important question: Assuming this man is homeless. why is it a big deal if he has a cell phone?

We expect way too much of poor people in this country. Let's face it, you'd have to be a magician with inpenatrable immune system to stretch a minimum-wage job to cover housing, transportation, food, healthcare, childcare and other incidental expenses. We expect homeless people to compete in the workforce without a cell phone, regular computer access, or proper interview attire while struggling to survive on the streets or in shelter. We hear so many amazing stories of people who have successfully fought their way out of homelessness that it becomes too easy to forget how challenging it actually is to beat the odds and get off the streets.

So yes, this guy has a cell phone. If this means he has an important job-searching tool, a way for him to keep in touch with loved ones, or a way to call for help if he becomes the next victim of a hate crime, then we should be grateful that programs exist to provide these invaluable services to folks who are struggling.

Finally, if that cell phone camera allows this man to snap a picture when he's starstruck by an unexpected encounter with the first lady, good for him. He'll have at least one inspiring memory from the difficult circumstances that led him to Miriam's Kitchen in the first place.

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WELL-SAID!!! people need to STFU about ACORN!!!!

very well said, indeed.

-this picture of two cats, one cat stood asking the other cat whos lying down" the cat stood says "honee?" the lying down cat says "not now, i has headache".


haha dont mind me. i have to read it first to know what's going on.

lol sorry jiro.

Ummm, hasn't anyone heard of a pre-paid cell phone? They can be had for as little as $20. The cell phone I have is a pre-paid phone that cost me $20 and whose plan costs $25/month for 100 minutes. It also has a camera on it. So?

Or he could have found it on the street...

I saw a homeless man yesterday in Baltimore...he was sleeping with his suitcase underneath him. I noticed that he had on very expensive jeans in good condition. I was like :jaw:

shel90 said:

I saw a homeless man yesterday in Baltimore...he was sleeping with his suitcase underneath him. I noticed that he had on very expensive jeans in good condition. I was like :jaw:

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In this case, this man could have been wearing the clothes he had when he used to be employed.

Alot of poor people have something that other poor people dont so...some are lucky while some arent.

It isnt very surprising when you see a homeless person having a cell phone anyway. It shouldnt even be surprising when a homeless person even own a car as well.

There are donations of cell phones to the poor for calling 911. Any might have a camera.

It is not a big deal.

Hear Again said:

Ummm, hasn't anyone heard of a pre-paid cell phone? They can be had for as little as $20. The cell phone I have is a pre-paid phone that cost me $20 and whose plan costs $25/month for 100 minutes. It also has a camera on it. So?

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exactly. Michelle Malkin distorted it and painted ACORN all over it. what a fool....

Jiro said:

exactly. Michelle Malkin distorted it and painted ACORN all over it. what a fool....

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Michelle Malkin...

What I find sad is that the author of this article chose to overshadow Michelle Obama's actions by a homeless person who has a cell phone.

Hear Again said:

What I find sad is that the author of this article chose to overshadow Michelle Obama's actions by a homeless person who has a cell phone.

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no no - the author was defending Michelle Obama because of twisted story about it.

shel90 said:

Or he could have found it on the street...

I saw a homeless man yesterday in Baltimore...he was sleeping with his suitcase underneath him. I noticed that he had on very expensive jeans in good condition. I was like :jaw:

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Sometimes, you can find good stuff in the trash.

I've seen some people throw away clothes after they've worn them once or twice because they don't believe in wearing things at least once or twice.

Some department stores will throw away boxes and not realize that there's 1 or 2 extra clothes in there. It happened with my mom once. The store gave her a few cardboard boxes that she could use for moving. When she went through the boxes, she found an extra pair of new expensive shoes.

I live in a rural area and its pretty bad around here. I see people practically living out of their cars in ragged beat up clothes and look like they havent bathed in days have a pre-paid cell phone. More times than not, it is their only phone number they can list as they are homeless or are extremely poor and cannot afford a landline phone.

There are also people who pose as a homeless person to get free food and beg for money on the street. You would be surprised at how much these pan handlers make in a day. The pick up their cardboard, walk around the block to their Corvette and drive to their house thats out in the country. Obviously for this to work effectively you would have to panhandle in a place your not known in which means driving far from where you live.

Yes this was meant to be a goodwill gesture by Michelle, and some cocky journalist has to turn this into an article about a damn cell phone because its good copy. Unfortunately this is good copy at another person's expense.

Dixie said:

Yes this was meant to be a goodwill gesture by Michelle, and some cocky journalist has to turn this into an article about a damn cell phone because its good copy. Unfortunately this is good copy at another person's expense.

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bingo. that's why people need to stop obsessing with ACORN

Hear Again said:

Ummm, hasn't anyone heard of a pre-paid cell phone? They can be had for as little as $20. The cell phone I have is a pre-paid phone that cost me $20 and whose plan costs $25/month for 100 minutes. It also has a camera on it. So?

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Exactly. I have a prepaid cell phone and it has a camera on it, too...not that I need the camera, it just came with the phone, but I needed the cell phone to keep in touch with my fiance and his family as well as my family for many important things, especially when I am out of the house at a doctor's appointment or doing errands and I often end up having to use my cell phone to make arrangements for most everything, I am on my cell phone more than I am on my computer. I have this specific cell phone because it allows me to email, text, and IM message everybody, thus allowing me to stay in touch with everybody and to get in touch with someone in case of an emergency. My fiance does not like me to NOT have the phone because if I didn't have it with me, he would worry about me and wonder where I am when I am doing errands that require me to be in many places in one day (this is a big city). It allows him to have peace of mind knowing that I am OK, and that if I ever need him, I can tell him I need him, and he will come get me. He does not have a car and nor do I, so he can't always drive me everywhere, as he has to work and the truck he uses is his grandfather's who has specific instructions on where he is allowed to use the truck (only in the Northeast area of San Antonio which is a very very large area, as this city is VERY huge) and I often end up all the way on the OTHER side of the city, and that's when he cannot drive me, but if I ever need him to come get me, he can find ways to come get me, be it a friend or a city bus or what have you. But it is what keep us linked together all the time so we know where each other are and so we know that each other is okay. It's also allowed me to report crimes and emergencies that I wouldn't have been able to do if I didn't have my cell phone to call 911 and that by the time I got home it would be too late to report (such as by that time, somebody would be dead or whatever) if I couldn't find somebody with a cell phone to make the 911 calls because I can't just run up to a pay phone because I am deaf and cannot understand speech nor speak very well. The relay program on my cell phone allows me to make critical calls. BOTH I and my fiance have cell phones, and so does his family as well as my sister and my aunt and my other family members that I still keep in touch with (not my dad, he's an asshole, and my mom died in 1990). It also allows me to know what is going on with everybody, so if needed be I can make arrangements to fly clear across the country in case of an emergency or if they need me or whatnot. It's also allowed me to keep tabs on everybody especially at night when I wake up to pee, it's easier to check the phone to see if I've got a text message or an email than it is to get on the computer and check, even though I do leave my computer on 24/7, but everybody has my cell phone email address, and only a few has my gmail email address which I would have to look on my computer in order to read. Looking at the cell phone is an instant thing for me rather than the computer. I can pick it up off my bed and look at it, and if there's an emergency I can jump out of bed and run out and go take care of whatever it is that is an emergency. With the computer, I do not think to check the computer when I wake up to pee or when I wake up from a nightmare or whatever...we're sort of in a "cell phone/text messaging era" where it's pretty much all about cell phones and texting, it used to be all about the internet, that was in the 1990s, yes the internet is still here, but it's now available on specific cell phones such as the sidekick and blackberries, which has made cell phones even more popular, along with the text messaging and the emails. It used to be that internet wasn't a necessity...now it is. The same thing is happening with cell phones now. This is the 2000s, cell phones are the main thing now, and I think it would be very good especially for homeless people looking for jobs. Many job companies ask for your phone number, and if they get the homeless shelter's number they are not always going to reach you, there are many people at the shelter. And if the cell phone has email features, that's even better for people searching for jobs. Cell phones and emails are important when looking for jobs nowadays, that is probably why this guy has a cell phone. The camera may just had been a bonus benefit...I did not ask for a camera when I got this cell phone, it just came with the phone, and at the time, the same type of cell phone did not come without a camera yet, that came out about a year or so later after I bought it. It's now available without a camera, and cheaper, but it wasn't available when I bought it...I bought the Sidekick 3. The Sidekick ID came out about a year or so later. I still have the same old Sidekick 3, and will not be getting a new cell phone for another few years as it still is very usable, and still has everything I need on it right now, thus no need for a new one yet. Regular old cell phones that go for $99 or less from Pocket or Cricket or what have you do not work for me as I can't just flap my lips and then listen, as I am deaf and do not speak well. Sidekick has email, texts, instant messaging, relay program downloaded on it, and the internet (however slow), which are all the things that I *can* do, thus why I have this Sidekick phone instead of a plain old cell phone. As for Hear Again having a cell phone that cost her $20 and only costs $25/month, she has different needs than I do. She can clarify this for y'all if you need her to. I saw many regular old cell phones with only the speaking feature and voicemail but does have crappy cameras in them that go for $25 at walmart, they are great if you can hear and understand the other person on the other end and if you can speak well.

And one more thing....camera cell phones are nifty especially if you witness a crime or something serious and you need proof and there are no eyewitnesses. Think about that.

Bottesini said:

There are donations of cell phones to the poor for calling 911. Any might have a camera.

It is not a big deal.

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Yup. Even thrift stores sell old used cell phones.

VamPyroX said:

Sometimes, you can find good stuff in the trash.

I've seen some people throw away clothes after they've worn them once or twice because they don't believe in wearing things at least once or twice.

Some department stores will throw away boxes and not realize that there's 1 or 2 extra clothes in there. It happened with my mom once. The store gave her a few cardboard boxes that she could use for moving. When she went through the boxes, she found an extra pair of new expensive shoes.

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Absolutely true.

I've found two good working computers AND a good working all-in-three printer/copier/scanner in the dumpster. I took the hard drives out of them and then sold the computers to a friend who is a electronic/computer geek, and I kept the printer as I really needed a printer and a scanner anyway, and it was almost exactly like the one I used to have. Both the computers and the printer/copier/scanner works perfectly. I had my fiance install the hard drives from these computers into my current computer, and now I have a total of 180 GB of hard drive space!

Almost my entire apartment is furnished with everything that came out of the dumpster. (Yes, they are clean - I cleaned them). Only things I bought was the bed and my computer (which I bought in 2005) and my clothes. A friend in Minnesota gave me one TV for my bedroom, and my fiance's grandmother gave me another TV for my living room (both are old). My fiance gave me the DVD player for my birthday. The very nice couch and dining table was given to me by a friend/neighbor who had to move out of her apartment and could not take everything with her as she has no job (she was laid off last month and her car got repo'd a few weeks ago) and no income at all and she went to live in a smaller one bedroom apartment along with her small son, her mother, AND her grandmother a few blocks away. (They were all already living in the one bedroom apartment that share a wall with me, and they moved because there was a robbery next door recently and they were very scared). Everything else were given to me as gifts. I actually moved from Minnesota to Texas with only my cats, my clothes, my computer, and my one TV. Nothing else...it cost too much to move everything I had from there to here, so I just dumped almost everything and paid a friend to drive me down here with the cats and my clothes, computer, and my TV. The trip took three days. I bought the bed as soon as I got here. It was worth it, cause I could not stand to stay on that fucking hick farm in Bumfuck, Minnesota one more minute with drunk people. *shudders* I was only on that farm cause I lost my apartment and had to save up money to get the fuck out of Minnesota.

As for the people not believing in keeping clothes after they've been worn once or twice, they are insane...they should consider themselves lucky. All my clothes were bought from thrift stores, with the exception of a very few favorite expensive clothes from Hot Topic that I brought with me from Minnesota. I find it quite easy to dress punk style with thrift-store clothes, all it takes is some creativity.

One more thing...it was a very good thing I had my Sidekick, cause Sunday early in the wee hours, I woke up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back to bed I looked at my alarm clock on my night table, it said 3 am. I then took a look at my Sidekick to see if I had any messages, and it said 4 am. Thank goodness I had looked at it at that time cause I then realized that it was daylight savings and that I needed to turn my clock on my night table forward one hour to 4 am as cell phones automatically change their clocks one hour forward or back but table clock alarms do not, and I had forgotten to do this and I also had forgotten to set the alarm for noon too anyway before I went to bed. I then was able to do this in time so I did not miss my fiance picking me up at a specific time that he and I had agreed upon which was 1 pm, since I tend to sleep VERY late, even past noon (I am just not a day person - I prefer to sleep during the day as there is nothing good going on before noon especially on the weekends. (No, don't tell me to go to church - I am agnostic, thank you very much). So, cell phones are so much more useful than you think!

Sidekicks, Blackberries, and smartphones can be used as a "mini-computer" if you will. Emails, texting, voice mail, voice, internet, cameras, it can almost do everything a basic computer can do therefore they are extemely useful if one cannot afford a computer or has no home to put a computer and internet in...you can take your Sidekicks or Blackberries or smartphones everywhere with you, you can sleep on the street with it in your pocket...you can't do that with a e-machines computer. See what I mean? It's extremely portable, it's not a big chunky thing you can't haul around, it fits in your pocket.