DHS assistance money for poor elec bills is broke here in Okla.

[karlrschneider]

Just on the local TV news.

Everyone is getting record high electricity bills due to over 100 degrees for a month now, low income people now get to sit and maybe die in the heat. What a country. :mad:

We add 10% when we pay ours to a fund that's run by the electric co-op to assist those in dire need.
It's a damn shame the government can't divert a little of that BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK for the Iraq
Occupation to help out.

[MadMaddie]

1. Why would they help Americans.....they have already sent

30 million to Lebanon....(not that they don't need it) but the Repugs fought tooth and nail to deny the Gulf Coast money to rebuild.....and they will fight tooth and nail not to help those in need of money to pay their electricity....

[karlrschneider]

2. Looks like charity no longer begins at home...

:grr:

[Corgigal]

3. Didn't Bush cut federal assistance for this major problem?

I understand that Maryland is broke too. Poor seniors, poor and children.

[RoyGBiv]

4. It's freakin' insane ...

I went off on a rant at a family gathering this past weekend and will probably be actively uninvited from any future gatherings because of it.

It started with a conversation my psycho cousin was having with her husband about the rapture. I was mostly ignoring them, but I couldn't help but hear a bit about how they really shouldn't worry too much about the $47,000 loan their church had secured to do some building improvements, i.e. the rapture was going to happen soon, so they wouldn't really have to pay it back, and this logic was apparently used to convince the elders in the church to get the loan.

I exploded. "You got $47,000 dollars you have no intention of paying back to build another piece on that enormous monstrosity you call a church (HUGE building), and every day when you pass by that church you see homeless people, starving people, starving *kids* sitting at that intersection near where your church is, and all you have time to worry about is whether the rapture will come soon enough for you not to have to pay back the bank for money you borrowed to build something no one really needs ... I AM SICK OF YOU." And then I got nasty. "Just how deep is your hypocrisy? How many poor people could you feed with $47,000? If you don't have to pay it back anyway, if the rapture is going to take away that responsibility from you, just why didn't you ask for more and *feed* some people with it???"

Damn...getting worked up all over again.

I give to that fund as well. It's insane what is taking place.

On a related note, there's a charitable group in OKC (can't recall the name right now ... have it written down at work) that helps people who can't pay their utility bills. I talked to a guy last week who is one of the people that goes around writing out the checks, and he told me that the requests for help had doubled this year, and it's all about electric bills ... or electric bills that can't be paid because of gasoline bills. He was quite depressed, said they're out of money basically during a time when they're typically building their reserves in preparation for winter.

[MadMaddie]

5. Good for you for confronting them with their hypocracy....

if you are uninvited well you will be better off....

they don't care about the poor...


My question is what will happens when their Rapture doesn't come? Will they join the Jim Jones cool aid crowd....the Rapture crowd is deluded....

[RoyGBiv]

7. Screw 'em ...

Psycho cousin called my mother a nasty name in an e-mail she CC:ed to my mother "accidentally." She thinks my mother is "godless" and "condemned to hell" because she doesn't attend church regularly. I found this out after the encounter, but it only intensified my disgust at this person. I get along with her mother, but her mother doesn't call her on this bullshit, so I'm coming to a breaking point there too.

Told my mom that if the rapture is real, I have this burning need to do something really soon to make sure I'm not a part of it, just so I can visit my cousin after everyone else has disappeared and flip her off ... my only goal in life if the rapture had an ounce of truth to it.

Anyway, she's not the Jim Jones crowd type ... too much in to self-preservation. She doesn't give to the poor or do anything to help anyone more unfortunate than her for the very simple reason that she thinks she deserves the charity more than anyone else because "her works" are so profoundly wonderful. "Her works" include criticizing everyone, verbally or through letters, that isn't living life according to her version of "godliness." That kind of person doesn't kill themselves. They hand out the kool-aid and then run away.

[JanusAscending]

6. Could it be your local Rotary Club?

They do great work for folks in need in my small hometown. They collect donations all year through local businesses, and then Social Services requests funds for needy clients. I got help from them twice this year. Once for an oil delivery, and once for my electric bill. If I'm ever in a position to donate again, it will be to them!!

[RoyGBiv]

8. They do stuff too ...

I've talked with some of them recently also.

But, it's not the Rotary. I'd never heard of the organization. The guy I encountered was paying a phone bill for someone who literally couldn't pay a $20 bill and needed her phone because she was taking care of her mother, who had terminal cancer. He said they were a loose coalition of local business owners who had grown fed up with many local churches (and government) not doing anything, some of them churches they attended, and had decided to do something about it. He in fact described the organization as a Christian organization, simply one that worked outside the church's official hierarchy.

[Maat]

10. Great rant!

Thanks for speaking up for the rest of us!

[lonestarnot]

9. absodamnlutely!