If Not For Soup Kitchens, Many Americans Would Go To Bed Tonight Without Their Cell Phones

Ha! I was coming here to dump this link in reader tips and you already have the pic up!

Too funny!

C'mon John Galt!

of course Lt. Worfe works in the raw food section.

Where's the secret service to knock down this possible threat to Mich O?...

...I guess sometimes "judging someone by the colour of his skin" applies. ;-)

Build it and they will come ..........!!

Post by: The Right Honorable Terry Tory

Look in the top right hand corner of pic. Just because they can,t be seen doesn't mean they aren't there.

"I paid for these teeth. I'm gonna put 'em to good use."

Hmm. I see the point of the post, America does have the wealthiest poor, and the optics of a guy with a cell phone in a soup kitchen line are pretty bad. On the other hand, I hate to bring something like that up for this reason. My theory about poor or homeless people is that they should get a job, and getting a job these days is quite difficult if you don't have a phone to be called at. I bet there are loads of people who abuse the privilige, but I would be unwilling to prevent the one guy out of ten from lifting himself out of poverty because he didn't have a phone despite the optics.

Risotto … muffin with carrots & pecans … freshly baked whole wheat roll …fruit salad...

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m starving, I want some meat. Chicken, beef, pork, you name it – if it bled then I want it! Nothing wrong with a nice risotto, just not when I’m starving.

He's checking the Powerball numbers.

When I worked at a grocery store in Iowa, I remember people coming in and buying carts full of meat with food stamps then paying cash for their liquor and cigarettes. Infuriating.

America, home of the richest "poor" people in the world. That guy has a nicer phone than I do. Probably nicer shoes too, and lets not forget the obligatory bling.

Pharmaceutical sales, y'think? Or is it that cell phones are SO much cheaper in the States that even soup line dudes can afford it on their alms money?

That's a possibility, we're getting REAMED by cell carriers here in Kanuckistan.

Who says he paid for the phone or that the minutes arent paid "by someone else's" credit card.

All joking aside, this may well be his home phone.

Cell phone penetration is quite high in some very poor countries as well. But yes the general point is there that being poor in the US, or any western country, makes you better off than most of the rest of the world.

Numerous studies have shown that poverty is a relative concept, based on the society and your "neighbours"

Jaysus, my parents were still using an outdoor toilet in Liverpool in the 50's, the rental flat, and yet they weren't "poor".

But nothing wrong with any of this, the desire to not be "poor" is what keeps driving humans. If we were happy with just what we need then we would have stopped development a long long time ago, like the lost tribes in the Amazon.

"But nothing wrong with any of this, the desire to not be "poor" is what keeps driving humans. If we were happy with just what we need then we would have stopped development a long long time ago, like the lost tribes in the Amazon."

Unless you are an Obamabot which strives into going back to caves it seems.

Remember even Oprah set up her school for black girls in Africa as opposed to the US of A because over there they were willing to work for and value an education over material things. Remember, all they wanted here was a blackberry, an I pod or a cell phone, and anyone would wonder why they need more soup kitchens?

I'm just happy that somebody in the Obama family finally found an honest job.

http://translate.klingonreference.com/

try "say mama , wheres da malt liquor"

I cant believe she has her pipes covered up.

cant CNN photoshop this better.

CanuckInMI makes a good point — cell phones in the U.S. can be had for a song, and without access to a number at which you can be contacted, nobody can acquire employment.

A lesson I learned a long time ago when I was a teenager.  Want a call back?  Stay by the phone instead of going out and goofing off.  Nowadays you can take your phone with you.

That's kinda freeing, actually...

Garth

Half the third world has cellphones, with people paying for phone cards and minutes instead of food,shelter,etc. I think that's why that Richard Branson dick positions himself as a left wing nut all concerned with poverty.

Are ya sure he is using his phone to take a photo? Possibly he is calling 911 to report that he ordered McNuggets and they are forcing him to have Risotto. Perhaps the White House philanthropists could send their culinary staff to this kitchen along with all the food purchased for the White House and then eat all their meals there with the proletariat. Vey easy to be magnanimous on the taxpayers' dime.

People line up to get free meals.

People line up at Food Banks to get free food.

Why won't someone open up a Gas Bank or a Beer Bank.

I want something for free too.

Everybody achieves their own level of poverty regardless of how much moey they.

So if you guys lost your job and perhaps had no place to live would you throw out your phone as it would be your primary point of contact for a job. I would think that a phone would be my last, and cheapest, lifeline to getting out of my situation.

I can just see it "well I am poor now might as well throw away this phone, no sense in having a pay as you go program to look for work"

As far as we know that guy could be a volunteer there too and heaven forbid if the reporter took a little creative approach to sell a story.

I live where all the bums collect, and I used to regularly talk to some of them.
Here's what I learned ,NONE of them are on the street because they're poor.
I have never met one, truly poor person here, ever.
They are poor because they choose to be.
They are all, yes every single beggar in Toronto is one of three things:
1) an alcoholic
2) meth/crack/smack user,
3) Schizophrenic.

Food is free here.
It's everywhere, the grocery store owners don't even care when they get shoplifted for food, they let them go.
They don't even have to go into the Tim Horton's dumpster.
(I know the owner)
People and organizations leave money and hot food with new sleeping bags beside pissy panted passed out half dead zombies, every day.
There are over a hundred homeless organizatons in Toronto.
They patrol and deliver everything 24/7 to the alleys and heating grates, they pick up and deliver the homeless people to and from shelters.
Free crack kits, free money, free hot food, free daily bedding if they choose to sleep outside and wine if they come in.
We spend more on the homeless than we do on the police or snow removal in Toronto.

None of them are poor they're either sick (schizophrenic and should be hospitalized, against their will if need be) or they're trying to kill themselves, the slow way.
Giving money to Toronto beggars just funds the smash and grab industry here and makes the use of public washrooms downtown either insanely disgusting, or impossible.
Don't leave anything in view in your car when you park it anywhere downtown, ever.
Jack Layton, Olivia Chow and their tribe of dippers on the city council built it, feed it and grow it, they are responsible.

BTW, Incredible anacondas of charity on Michelle.

I bet she could BRRRRIING, the stir'n to a 45 gallon drum of Risotto.

Check out the latest ctv.ca poll. "work harder" first, and "I'm not working anyway", a close second...

Does the unstable job market make you want to:
Work harder 41%
Find a new career 17%
Go back to school 10%
I'm not working anyway 32%
This is not a scientific poll

Don't take my caddy away - I need it to drive to the post office to pick up my welfare check.

Hahaha! very funny!
This only proves that being poor doesn't merely means having nothing at all. Being poor sometimes mean, having the usual thing in a cheaper sense and sometimes free.
Get it? ;)

I thought "gun shows" were banned in DC?

The "poor" have sure come a long way, from when I was young. They dress well too. Not as skinny as I remember either.

I think today the "real" poor are the homeless. Very few cell phones there I'm sure.

No different than the 'poor' 20 years ago in Ontario...'Rae daze'. Hubby worked, I was SAHM, mutual choice.
We were content but we pinched pennies,did the thrift shops and drove the beater.
The poor had the huge sat dishes and snow machines, $300.00 per kid to start the school year, and taxi's whenever to wherever.

Don't rationalise here, please, people.

There are very few "poor" people in Canada, just alot of people who have no wealth.

But how can they expect to have wealth when they blow most of their disposable income on cell phones, high speed internet, plasma tv's, phat farm jackets($300-$400), etc, etc, etc.

I am personally sick and tired of having to pay for all of this excess through my taxes.

If a person can afford the aforementioned luxuries, then there is no way in hell that they should be collecting welfare from the state !

CUT. THEM. ALL. OFF.

I do laugh at some of the comments. I'm not poor, but if I ever were to fall on really hard times I'd ditch my cell phone to save that money for better purposes - like buying a book to learn a new skill.

It's amazing to see what was once considered a luxury item is now considered a necessity even for the poor.

Shows you the power of marketing to change expectations.

My parents grew up at the tail end of the great depression, worked hard and never wasted a penny. They have a decent retirement income, yet they don't own cells phones because they think they are too expensive.

It shows you just how damn spoilt we have become.

In 2009, Fred said:
"People line up to get free meals.
People line up at Food Banks to get free food."

In 1899, Gustave Le Bon said:
"Socialism is in fact nothing but the religion of the Stomach."
urlm.in/buud

Well judging by that picture,at least nobody can ever again say that Michelle Obama has never done an honest day's work in her life!

Now if we can just find a picture like that of Barack..................

Shaidle nails it on her site...

"Today's "poor" are the rich Jesus warned you about: fat, slovenly, wasteful of their money and other people's."

The 'organic' food stores here in Edmonton are filled with 'poor students' buying food at three times the price of Safeway (which itself is pretty expensive). Every time the U of A announces a tuition increase, there are always demonstrations, though when the student paper carries out street surveys of students about what they would do with the money they would save if the tuition rise were retracted many of them say they would buy more beer. It's really quite funny.

PS. I don't own a cell-phone. Never have. Never will.

Not that I disagree with the general sentiments here, but I do support a men's shelter here in Ottawa, and by looking at him I don't think this guy with the cellphone is homeless. He's dressed well and clean shaven, and he doesn't have that beaten-down look I see in a lot of these guys. Now, he could be trying to bum a free meal (soup kitchens generally will serve anyone who comes in the door, whether they look like they need help or not), or he could just be another helper at the kitchen, or some passer-by who wanted a picture. Let's not jump to TOO many conclusions about who this guy is, because it doesn't really say, does it?

Huh. She eats three-figure filet mignons and such and cleanses her image via a photo-op...

Dude with the cellphone camera... how the hell can someone who can't afford food afford a cellphone with a camera?

The whole picture looks a tad reverse-ersatz to me.

Then again, nothing is what it seems in Obammunist Ameristan.

Now, Neo, think carefully about your options and choose your pill... reality, or the ObaMatrix?

Are we sure that we have all the facts with this photo?

Is this man taking the picture homeless? Maybe he is a volunteer, he seems better dressed and clean shaven then most homeless people I have encountered, He could be a member of the church.

Why is this photo crooked, was the person taking this photo concealing their camera, and if so why?

Who was taking this picture, another homeless person? What if their photo had been taken, then they would be the homeless person in line for a free meal with a camera/cellphone.

If this photo were of 100 homeless/poorer people in line for the meal, all decked out in designer clothes, all taking snap shots of the First Lady with their cells, it would be a little less ambiguous.

The title of the picture dictates how we interpret it, were I to see this without the caption I would have just assumed it was someone taking a picture of the First Lady. I know I would, if she were in town and we crossed paths.

Damn these Richy Poor People, I remember when poor really meant poor! Damn the poor were luck to have a loin cloth, were cover in boils and sores and they would kiss your feet if you just smiled at them and told them to get a job. Why even looking back to the Great Depression that FDR created, the "Poor" were still rich, lining up at the soup kitchens in Suites and Fedora Hats, riding the trains for free, camping outside and eating beans.

We should do nothing to help these "Poor" people until they are near death, naked, cover in boils,... it their own fault anyways, working for companies that failed,...

Poverty is relative!

A young hard working “middle class” person with a mortgage and car loan has less net worth than a penniless welfare recipient living in a rental with no debt or obligations.

He’s a great video from a Katrina “victim” talking to a Fox reporter…………Listen to the end!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1iaNaYT4wc&feature=related

Hey Kate, I know you live in the boonies with a pentium II or some other kind of archaic computer. Heck it wouldn't surprise me if you still have a rotary phone.

So it may surprise you, but in many urban centers people are skipping the land line these days. Actually that's happening all over the world. Never mind the fact that if you have a cell phone and you're out looking for a job, people can reach you.

Were you expecting employers to get in touch through post?

I should add, unlike Canada, American cell service is often the same price as a landline, perhaps even cheaper.

"Oh but he must have bought the phone!"

No, probably not, most cell companies subsidize phones and provide them for next to nothing, and in many cases nothing, if you sign a contract...even picture phones..actually I think almost all of them take pictures these days.

Tim, Zorph, thanks for stopping by with the obligatory "unfeeling Conservative bigots!" comment.

Back to your culverts now, good boys.

"Another day, another post criticizing those that help the poor. And the poor themselves.

Leave it to small dead minds to decide who is poor enough to deserve help. Jesus is so proud of you.

Posted by: ulianov at March 6, 2009 3:58 PM :

Yeah SDA'ers!!! Leave that job up to uli.After all,his hero,Stalin,did such a good job of figuring out who was poor! Mind you,that's pretty easy when you turn everybody but your buddies into serfs.
Back into your hole.

Yas, another troll heard from.

ulianov, I know this won't have occurred to you, but we're not actually making fun of the guy with the cell phone. I'm not, anyway.

We're making fun of -you-. Yes indeed, you and all the other bleeding heart confiscationists who are pretending as hard as you possibly can, trying to convince us that guy is poor.

You suck, your propaganda sucks, and Michelle Obama sucks golf balls through garden hoses for practice.

ulli assumes too much.

I didn't show any malice toward the people that Rae labeled as poor.
In fact I found out about this stuff by hanging out with them...just like Jesus would.

Yep. Uli... you know, your opinions sound eerily like those of James Travers at the Red Star... just FYI that I noticed...

And guess what? You're paranoid... if you look at the comments herein, you'll see that, in fact, no one is dumping on the poor, nor on the act of helping them. The criticism is based on the picture of Mrs. O. The fellow with the phone-cam doesn't look the least bit poor- new, clean-looking clothes and everything... it has the feel of being staged, as a photo-op, to make Mrs. O look good, despite being infamous for living hedonistically on the taxpayer dime, dining on the most expensive cuts of meat, throwing lavish parties... as people lose their jobs and themselves become "poor"...

Wake up, Uli, pal! Those elite Leftists are just pretending to care about the poor so as to assuage whatever guilt they've got about being rich... and sometimes failing to pay their taxes, as we've learned is the case with many of Obama's appointees...