The slow decay of society. It comes in drips and drabs...

[Javaman]

I'm one of the lucky few, my wife works at Whole Foods. I;m lucking because we get a discount. If we didn't get that, we wouldn't be able to afford to shop there.

after buying a few things, I was walking back to my car. This young woman with her little daughter (maybe 4 or 5), walks up to me and asks, "do you have two dollars? I need to get gas."

In the past the parking lot at whole foods always was the hot spot for most homeless. I think they figured that if you can shop there you can spare a few bucks.

While reaching into my pocket to retrieve a the money, I noticed their shoes. They were nike's. Clean, not new but not old. Not cheap. both the woman and her daughter were well kept and clean.

I gave them the money and smiled. "I hope you get home safe", I said. She mumbled something under her breath. I said, "pardon me?"

She looked down and said, "we lost our home".

They walked away.

[Catherina]

1. :(

:cry: What kind of country is this where people are on the streets but we explode multimillion dollar missiles on the heads of innocent people halfway across the world?

[proud patriot]

2. The rise in everything's cost is hitting people very hard

it's happening so fast .

[FirstLight]

3. Wow...my prayers are getting stretched thin these days!

So many people suffering, so little time to help them...

Just goes to prove that our old ideas of poverty are not holding these days. It is a diferent kind of poor, with los of jobs, retirements, homes, etc...hitting us all across the board. We live in a tourism area, and I wonder how people are affording to come up here at all, much less go out to eat or bring their RVs...I guess they are all putting it on plastic of some sort. So there is the next bubble to burst, eh?

Wake up! We should be helping eachother as much as we can and as often as we can, because before this is all over we wil ALL be on the side of being in need...all of us.

[Javaman]

4. there are no more bubbles.

after a bubble bursts, there is the momentary soap ring, with little bitty bubbles left on the surface. That slowly turns to a puddle, then dries up.

the US has existed in a bubble for the last 60 years. That bubble burst. All the other bubbles are nothing but dying gasps in a quest for instant wealth.

standing back and seeing the illusionary sea of "bubbles" one has to look beyond and take in the view as a whole. we as a nation are propping up one "bubble after another, in hopes of creating that giant american dream bubble that burst oh so long ago.