Would you shoot a squirrel with a BB gun?

I had the opportunity recently to shoot a squirrel with a BB gun, and I couldn't do it. But wait. Let me back up. I did shoot a squirrel with a BB gun, which is why I don't think I will again.

We've had squirrels all over our backyard deck this summer, ransacking the bird feeder, running across the roof at all hours, maybe -- according to our friends and neighbors -- eating away at the electrical cords in our attic. They started, a year or so ago, as a squirrel couple, but now they are, by count, a squirrel family. They run rampant over our house and our trees. I saw one just yesterday sitting on its haunches in a tree in our front yard, gnawing off whole branches to get to some kind of nut I didn't even know we were growing.

Tree rats, a friend calls them. Pests. Get rid of them.

But how?

We called a "pest removal" company, but they wanted $70 per squirrel removed -- we have at least six or seven -- and no guarantee that a neighbor's cat won't wander into the trap, which means more money to remove it.

So I bought a BB gun.

You may or may not know what that is. A BB is a very small metal ball, about the size of the smallest pearl you would string onto a bracelet or necklace. And BB guns come in all sizes and strengths. I went to my neighborhood Super Walmart and asked for the weakest BB gun. I didn't want to kill a squirrel, just scare it away.

The one I bought was the cheapest -- $16.99 -- and was spring-loaded, which meant I had to cock it after every shot, which isn't as easy as it sounds. (The clerk, by the way, told me that his dad had bought one for the exact same purpose but had made the mistake of shooting the poor squirrel in the head, which killed it, which meant that he had to decide what to do with the carcass, which, in that case, meant throwing it into the dumpster with the trash. If you hit the squirrel in the body, the clerk assured me, it would sting but shouldn't penetrate the flesh.)

At home, I loaded the BB gun pistol with the BBs, cocked it, and waited for a squirrel to appear.
It was late afternoon when one did. On the backyard deck, eating birdseed that had dropped from the bird feeder. I slipped the door open and took aim. The squirrel was no more than six feet from me. I couldn't miss. I fired. He -- or she -- jerked and immediately left the deck, sprinting for the trees not far away.

I didn't experience the thrill of the kill, so to speak. At best, I'd discouraged this one squirrel from feeding on dropped seeds on our deck. But did he/she connect this stinging sensation in the hindquarters with eating those seeds? Would that one random -- and probably painful -- sensation keep him or her from coming on the deck again, looking for something to eat? Probably not. The next morning, a squirrel was back, swinging from the bird-feeder.

So when I was sitting on the front porch the next day, reading the newspaper, and saw a squirrel sitting in a tree not ten feet from me, on its haunches on a limb, eating a nut, I didn't go for the BB gun.

Friends might say it was because I was in Viet Nam and called artillery shells on possibly innocent villages, maybe killing lots of women and children, but I think it's because something in me doesn't want to kill ANYTHING. I don't stomp spiders. I ride my bike around bugs on the walk. I only kill wasps and bees when my wife demands it; she's allergic to their stings. (And I secretly apologize for killing them.) Oh, and mosquitos, especially after I got what I think was West Nile virus a couple of years ago. Flies I pretty much leave alone; they'll be dead in a few days anyway.

More than once I've been sitting on the porch, reading the newspaper, when a certain tiny insect alights on the page -- so tiny that it would take a microscope to discern its features -- and I watch it walk across the vast expanse of white and black and don't disturb its path. Once I blew on one and was amazed to find that it didn't go away. I blew again. Again, it stayed rooted to the page. How do you get such footing? Rock-climbers would love to know!

No, I can't shoot squirrels. Except for the exceptions I've mentioned, I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to killing other creatures.

I guess I'm just amazed that life exists on such levels down from ours that I'm hesitant to kill ANY of them. Those tiny, almost microscopic creatures still haunt me. I mean, how is it possible to be alive and moving across the page and be about the size of that "o" I just typed? Or the size of that ' I just typed? Got that? The ' I just typed. That was the size of the bug that crawled across my newspaper. What's that all about?

I'm just not sure who or what is important. Are you?

Don't throw away all that kid art!

If you have kids, you know that, especially in the early years, they bring home lots of pictures they've sketched or painted or colored with crayons. Over a few years, it can overwhelm your storage capacity. The temptation is to throw away the earliest -- the crudest, depicting you, the mom, as some kind of long-necked monster with claws for fingers, or you, the dad, way too big and with a head the size of the moon -- but I caution you not to.

When our kids are just starting out in life, they don't know that only a few of them will become artists. In the beginning, they're ALL artists. They love colors and they love the tools they're given -- the crayons, the chalks, the paints -- and they put down on paper or canvas what they see of the world. It's a view we've all lost as we've grown to adulthood, a view we can never capture again.

Save this stuff!

One way to do it is to keep a big cardboard box with each kid's name, and the dates: Kate, from 7/17/07 to whatever date you close it up. That kid, that Kate, will be able to come back later and recover childhood memories. And really, how much space does that box take in a basement or on a garage shelf? Yes, you may end up with multiple boxes over the span of a childhood, but sooner of later, that kid is going to re-claim those boxes. And what else were you going to use that space for anyway? Tools? Old video tapes? Get real.

But the main reason for saving kids' art isn't just to preserve it for them. Kid art is often quite arresting. And I've noticed that, as my kids got older and more interesting, so did their art. (Just for the record, none of my children are artists.) Some pieces that they did later, into their teens, are actually pretty damned good. As the old saying goes, I don't know art, but I know what I like. And I do like some of my kids' art. It's primitive, but in the best sense: acute sense of color and line, images I wouldn't have thought of myself. Good stuff, some of it. Worth putting on a wall, somewhere in the house.

In fact, our walls are lined these days with a combination of "real" art and kid art, and I suspect many of our visitors can't tell the difference. (If you frame them the same, it's hard to tell, especially if you're into abstract/expressionist pieces.)

When our childen are young, their depictions of a grandpa, a dog, a snow storm, may be just right and should be saved, not just for them but for the family record. This is what it looked like to us, the kids, the Kates. Her depiction of the family or the event may prove to be more accurate than the event itself, in a way no photo in the family album ever was.

So don't throw away that kid art. Or at least go through it before you throw it away. You may find something valuable. A piece that brings back childhood memories. A piece you need to keep for yourself. And ask your kids before you toss it.

You'll thank yourself later, and so will they.

Treat your detainees respectfully.

For anyone taken into custody on the battlefield, the war is over.

Whatever you thought was a cause worth fighting for, and maybe dying for, is done. You're in the hands of your enemy, and they have total control over you. As a prisoner, you hope you have some rights -- to a lawyer, to certain rules various nations have agreed on -- but really, you're at the mercy of your captors. They can suspend all those rights, claiming that you're an "enemy combatant," seized on "the field of battle," and they can put you in a room and do pretty much anything they want to you. What a horror show! Aren't you sorry you surrendered?

Yes, this is about what we're doing right now to detainees taken in "the war on terrorism", but no, it's not political. It's neither Democrat or Republican. It's a matter of human rights. When you're arrested -- whether on "the field of battle" or in your own neighborhood -- you hope to be treated humanely, and you hope to retain certain rights.

But there is another consideration here. If you're suspected of being a terrorist, and if your normal human rights are suspended because "national interest" becomes a factor, then we, the nation, the people, have to decide what is the best way to get vital information from you about your supposed plans to subvert our government and our way of life and maybe kill lots of us, as happened on 9/11. You may be a special case.

The easy/traditional way to extract information from you is to torture you. To make you so uncomfortable that you will tell us, your captors, what we want to know. And we have ways of making you extremely uncomfortable.

The problem, though, is that what you tell us in the end may be a result of you saying what you think we want to hear just to end your suffering. And, of course, that kind of information may prove to be useless. (We can always come back and kill you if we think we need to and claim that you were trying to escape or whatever, but we've still lost whatever you might have told us.)

I heard not long ago a military interrogation expert from an earlier time say that he had gotten his best, and most reliable, information from detainees that he'd befriended, in a real and honest way: he'd listened to them and argued with them and, in the end, won them over to his/our way of thinking. It made such sense to me that I'm amazed/appalled that we still try to torture our captured foes into telling us anything of any value. I suspect I would say anything just to stop the pain, wouldn't you?

The simple fact is that all those people we've detained and still hold in custody after the horrific events of 9/11 were likely rounded up out of a national over-reaction. We penned them up and didn't give them access to lawyers -- maybe didn't even charge them with anything. Some of them have been deprived of their freedom for five years or more. Due process be damned!

I have no idea whether those people held are guilty or not. But we have an obligation, as a civilized country, to be sure they are treated well and have recourse to our legal system.
Anyone accused of anything wrong in this country gets to have a lawyer, right?

I think a country is, ultimately, judged by just a few criteria: how it treats its poor; how it treats its children; how it treats its disabled; how it treats its detainees.

You tell me what score you would give the U.S. right now on these criteria. It has nothing to do with one party or the other but with human decency. Try them, in a court of law, or let them go.

Some things make us feel miserable but don't get us out of anything.

You have a cold, and you're wheezing and dripping and feel like hell. You go into work and tell everyone how miserable you are. They all express sympathy, but someone inevitably says, "Hey, it's only a cold." As if to dismiss your suffering and to let you know that you need to get on with your work and let them get on with theirs.

But let's save colds for later in the discussion, as they have other effects to be considered.

There are all kinds of afflictions that we are subject to, and that make us feel equally awful, but that don't get us out of anything. Anything, in this case, meaning work. A day off, or more.

Take, for instance, a bad night's sleep. There are as many reasons for restlessless at night as there are words for it in the dictionary. (Are there any?) You toss and turn and wake up and then go back to sleep and then wake up again. Maybe you need to go the bathroom. You lie down again and do your best to re-enter that welcomed oblivion, only to find that your mind is still wrestling with something from work or your relationship or your kids' futures or whatever. You make the mistake of looking at the clock: five a.m. You groan and turn over and just hope you can get a few more hours of sleep.

You go into work the next day, feeling drained of energy and slightly ill, and you're expected to perform as if you were just hired, all bright-eyed and eager. And all you're thinking is that if you could just go home and nap it off, you'd be okay. But you can't. You're at work, and you're expected to be at your best.

Or maybe you have a hang-over. You drank too much the night before, for whatever reason.
Today you're not feeling so good. Your stomach's queasy, your brain is shorting-out. Again,
you're wishing that you could go home and sleep it off, show up tomorrow feeling better.

There are so many things that happen to us that make us feel awful but that don't get us out of anything. Some are brought on by ourselves -- hang-overs -- but others are brought on by our workplaces -- a promotion we expected but didn't get -- or our relationships -- troubles with the wife or husband or kids-- etc. Others are inflicted on us by nature: colds, for instance. But what they all have in common is that they make us irritable and less efficient and not good company -- and no one else wants to hear about them. At least not for long.

We're suffering, you and me, and all we want to do is un-load on someone else, but those others we're un-loading on have their own problems, and a little of ours goes a long way. They can sympathise, but only up to a point. We're only thinking of ourselves, which is natural but not necessarily admirable, but so are they.

There are things we have to endure, as humans, that are particular to us and of virtually no interest, or at least limited interest, to others. We think they should qualify us for time off, a day or more of recovery, but they don't get us off at all. They just make things harder.

Why? Partly because they're invisible -- who knows the stress another human is enduring? -- and partly because, as noted above, we all have our own, similar, problems we're wrestling with. Human empathy has its bounds, and it usually ends at repetition of someone else's woes. Enough already, we say to ourselves. Deal with it, for God's sake! Like I have to every day.

Suppose you come into work and tell your colleagues that you had a bad night's sleep, or that you have a hang-over, or that your spouse is being an asshole (again), or that you're bummed out over not getting that promotion you were expecting. What are they supposed to do? They can sympathize -- yes, the boss is an asshole, and so is your husband, and maybe you should try some pills and maybe not drink so much -- but after a while they need to get back to work. And their own lives.

Which brings us back to the cold. It's a common problem, obviously, but a more complicated one. When you come into a workplace -- or a social gathering -- drippping from your nose and snuffling and maybe even coughing up something from your lungs -- you not only don't get much sympathy, but no one wants to be near you. "It's only a cold," you're told, but everyone keeps a distance. Go home, they all want to say, including your boss, but after all, "it's only a cold."

Having a cold -- whether it's the sniffles or a full-blown nasal/lung attack -- gets you not just not much sympathy but ostracism, too. Keep away from me! On the other hand, why are you asking to stay home when it's "just a cold"? Double bind. No easy way out. What to do?

The answer is that you accept whatever's bumming you out and keep moving. We all have these problems, but we can't let them rule our lives and get in the way of what we need to do. Suck it up. Get help if you need it, but otherwise keep on truckin'. We all do it, and if you can't, then you may not belong here.

Your colleagues care about you, but they don't want to hear your sob stories. They may be willing to hear them once, but not over and over. They have their own sob stories they could tell you but -- lucky for you -- they don't. (Unlucky for you if they do.)

When I was a grad student, some of us went out for pitchers of beer after classes. I used to complain, endlessly, about my bad marriage. At some point, a young woman friend said, "David, you're getting to be a real downer." It hit me that I was going on and on about something that affected only me and that I wasn't doing anything about except boring my fellow students.

The truth is that there are bad things in our lives -- personal disappointments, colds, marital problems, restless nights of sleep, etc. -- that we just have to absorb and endure and not burden our friends with, because they can't help us and also because the more we whine, the less they
want to be around us. Some things are ours alone, and we have to own them and move on. It's your misery. And mine. Accept it. Embrace it. Decide what to do about it. By yourself.

We're all grown-ups now, and we have to understand that some things don't get us out of anything but just make life harder. Sorry about that. It's just the way it is.

You need to know when you have too much.

I think it's our right to make as much money as we can, within the laws, and to enjoy the life that our earnings provide us. We should be able to buy the house we can afford, and the life-style. But I also think that, beyond a certain point, we need to think about giving back to the society that gave us such riches, however we choose to do that.

But how much is too much? How do we know that we have so much that we can't possibly spend it all, on ourselves and our children, and their children's children? How do we know that we have way more than our family can possibly spend for generations to come?

Here's a clue. It comes courtesy of a Q&A to a popular magazine. (And I quote this verbatim.)

Q: Does Aaron Spelling's widow still live in his huge home in L.A.?

A: Yes, but Candy Spelling, 62, has listed the 123-room, 56,000-square-foot mansion for sale at $150 million. Meanwhile, she's bought a pair of duplexes for herself and her terrier. They total 16,500 square feet and cost $47 million. In Hollywood, that's called down-sizing.

This is from Parade magazine from a couple of weeks ago.

Are you as astonished by the dollar numbers as I am? And the square footage? Candy is going to end up with duplexes that are bigger than my home times five -- and two of them? For herself and her dog?

Okay, maybe sometimes we do have too much. But how do determine that?

I would say that if you have more space than you need, that's a start. Maybe you do need a pool and rooms for guests and even for hired-help. I mean, if that's the life you're used to, go for it. But why two duplexes? Surely one isn't just for your dog, right? And why so big? Candy doesn't have kids coming home, looking to crash somewhere, right? So what's all that extra space for? Do you know what 16,000 feet of space looks like? A gym? An airplane hangar?

I don't think it's a sin for anyone to accumulate wealth and to spend it as he/she sees fit to make a great life for himself or herself. But doesn't there come a time when he or she has so much that he or she can't possibly spend it in one lifetime to make himself or herself more comfortable? Or his/her heirs for their lifetimes?

What should be done with the excess? Well, of course most of it is left to the children or other designated heirs. But what if there's even more left over after that? Once the kids are guaranteed a life of leisure, and old pals are paid off, what about the rest?

Andrew Carnegie, who was among the richest Americans in the early 20th century, said something to the effect that it was a sin to die rich and so donated much of his wealth to build libraries that bear his name. Not sure what the oil tycoon Rockefeller did with is money, but there are buildings -- the Rockefeller Center -- that attest to his donations.

I think that the basic rule of when to know when you have too much is if you have more than you and/or your children can reasonably expect to spend in your and their lifetimes and if you've given all you want to give to charities/causes you support.

So what should be done with what's left? It's not easy to decide, especially if you think you've done right by all concerned. You don't want to turn it over to the government, since you know they're notorious about wasting money. You don't want it buried with you. Who would that serve? And your kids have all they'll need to live a life you probably didn't while you were making all that money.

This is probably when you need to think about what was important to you in your life. What cause or charity really would benefit and would mean something to you. Maybe it's sponsoring a grant to someone at your old college in your major. Maybe it's giving to a person who meant a lot to you and who needs some financial help: a few thousand dollars to the right person, at the right time, can make a difference in a life. Maybe you have some particular subject you were always interested in and that you know is always under-funded: astronomy, flying kites, acting, the arts.

Be creative. Once you and your kin are taken care of, leave that other money to whoever strikes your fancy.

They won't expect it, but they'll love you for it.

The U.S. Postal Service is going, going . . .

Think about it. What have you gotten in your mailbox lately? Mainly promo stuff, right? Ads and credit card come-ons (transfer your account to us and you'll get blah blah blah). Any letters from friends? Anything that used to make a trip to the mailbox enticing?

Friends send us emails. You can pay your bills and do bank transactions online, which is faster.

So what is clogging our mailboxes? (See paragraph 1.)

There was a time when our postal system was the envy of the world. We could deliver a letter across the country in a day or two. But no one writes letters anymore. So why the hurry?

A package? Most of us would rather send it with UPS or FedEx, which give us tracking numbers so we can be sure -- via our computers -- if and when it was delivered.

Does that mean that someday no postman will be putting items in our mailbox? I think so. And it's kind of a shame, but all post-modern institutions are going to have adjust to the new age of electronic devices that keep us in touch with each other, more efficiently and in an instant.

So what is lost? Where's the downside?

I think it's subtle. The interaction with humans, which we all seem to need. As we become more and more electronic-ized (a made-up word), we are going to be spending less and less time with each other, face-to-face. That may seem a small price to pay for the time we save doing everything by ourselves in front of a machine, but I think the price may be bigger, in the long run.

I don't know, but I'd bet that most sociologists -- who study groups and societies -- and most psychologists -- who study you and me and what makes us tick -- would agree that a dependence on machines, at the expense of personal contact, is not a good thing.

For one thing, it goes against our natural tendency to want to be with other people, even if just the people who check us out at the grocery store or sell us stamps. We're always making chit-chat with those people, passing the time, being human.

Machines -- computers, robots, et al -- don't "pass the time". Their time is programmed. There is no "down time". What would a computer do with time on its hands? Play one of those games like Solitaire? Not likely. They would simply shut down and wait for another command.

When the postal service ceases to be, what we will lose is that human contact, that one-to-one interaction with another person. No big deal, maybe. Just one more contact lost. When you and I can order books online and even food, why bother going to the store? It's so much easier done from home. It allows us so much more time for . . . what?

Time with friends? Hobbies? What? When we start to eliminate our opportunities for engaging our fellow humans, we'd better have something rewarding to fill that gap.

Will I miss the postal service? Getting stuff in my mailbox? Well, yes, but not the way it's been going. I used to look forward to seeing the mailtruck pull up: who knew who was writing to me? These days nobody is writing to me. I guess I enjoy the occasional coupon I can use to get 2 for 1 dinners at a pretty good restaurant, but most of what I get are bills, which could easily be delivered to me online.

What will be really sad about the demise of the postal system is the loss of jobs. I can't imagine how many people work for the post office. Tens of thousands? Eventually they'll all be out of a job. Maybe the change-over to e-everything will be gradual, so that most of those workers will just get old and retire. I can't predict how soon the change will come, but you know it's coming, and so should they.

I'm sure there have been other industries that went out of business and stranded lots of workers. Did they see it coming? Do these postal employees? Are they making plans?

Or am I totally off-base? Will the junk mail business keep the postal service going forever? I hope so, but I wouldn't count on it.

All good things come to an end, someone once said. It's just a matter when.

We're all good at something that is totally useless.

Ed Sullivan had a TV show many years ago featuring people who could balance dishes on top of poles, and keep many of them all spinning at one time. David Letterman has his "Stupid Human Tricks," which shows our fellow men and women doing really odd things just to be on television.

I think we all have unusual things we can do. We just need a venue to show them off.

I can yodel. I can't sing -- can't carry a tune -- but I know how to break my voice into that weird sound known only to country-western singers (think Hank Williams) and Swiss Alpine singers. My ability to do that hasn't made me any money and comes from who-knows-where. It's just one of those odd things I can do.

I can also balance almost anything on one finger. I've somehow figured out some kind of visual math that escaped me in school. Nothing too heavy: no anvils, thank you. But give me a baseball bat or a broom or shovel or rake, and I'm your man. I can even balance them on my little finger.

I can also stand on my head. When an old childhood friend and I got tired of waiting for the school bus to pick us up -- way back in maybe second grade -- we practiced standing on our heads in somebody's yard. I can still do it; not sure about him. (And this was long before yoga got popular.)

These are skills/talents that got me nothing but that I insist on showing to people whenever they're willing to sit still for it. (I'm also pretty good at throwing a Frisbee.)

My point is that we all have acquired, in our time on the planet, unique skills that don't get us any kind of praise or applause or profit but that we shouldn't be ashamed of showing to others, if and when the occasion arises. Were you good at tossing a baton and catching it after it was whipping around and around way above your head? Could I do that? No way. Be proud of it -- and make all your friends watch you do it, once or twice a year, at a picnic or wherever. Okay, maybe just once a year.

I knew a couple who had a party that required everybody attending to bring not just a potluck dish but also a "unique" skill. After a little -- or a lot of -- wine, someone whistled the national anthem. Most of us can whistle -- but not the national anthem. Someone else made pretty damned good scampi in fifteen minutes: from un-shelled shrimp to finished dish. My favorite was a lady who sang Billie Holiday songs, with no musical accompaniment, while knitting a scarf for the hostess - in under an hour. Her voice was off-key, but her needles were a blur. My least favorite was the guy who lifted weights for everyone's enjoyment. It was his house, though, and he had them all right there in his den. He was certainly buff and could outlift any of us, but it wasn't much of a spectator sport. Still, it was something he was proud of, and he did it well.

We also applauded the young woman, a swimmer, who could hold her breath for three minutes. We timed her, puffing ourselves, and, by God, she did it! We also tried it ourselves and didn't come close. Bravo!

Oh, and there was a banker guy who had learned card tricks when he was a kid and who succeeded in fooling all of us. We thought we'd caught him cheating a few times, but he always proved us wrong. Somewhere along the way to becoming a banker, he had probably dreamed of doing slight-of-hand in Vegas, and here he was, totally entertaining a room of his friends.

My other favorite was the belly dancer. This was a woman, slightly (okay, more than slightly) overweight, who donned the required costume and, to a taped song, went through all the gyrations those women go through. At first I thought: Oh my God, she's too fat for this!

But the more I watched her move her body in time with the music, swaying and humping -- and winking/smiling at us all -- the more I got into the primal rhythm of what she was doing. At the end, we were all applauding like crazy. Here was a forty-something stay-at-home mom who was, in her heart, a belly-dancer. And she was good at it.

Not a single person who performed that night ever made a penny doing what they were good at. That wasn't the point. They were all doing something they could do well but that nobody in their day-to-day lives much appreciated. But those are the things we should most treasure: what we
do for ourselves, and maybe, once in a while, for others. Let's take pleasure in those throw-away talents and celebrate ourselves.

There are so many more things that I never learned to do or was never good at. I can't dance or ski or skate or mix comfortably with people I don't know. I could go on and on, but why bother?

There is something each of us can do well, however inconsequential it may seem. And I'm not talking about real talents that go un-realized: the family singer who could/should have made it but didn't get the breaks or didn't have the ambition, or the writer friend who wasted his/her talents on booze/drugs, etc. I mean the silly, but kind of cool, things you and I can do that most of the people we know can't. The trivial things that set us apart, that make us who we are.

I can program my VCR to tape shows in the future. I'm the only one in my family who can do it, which gives me special powers that I try hard not to abuse. I'm also good at organizing a garage and even a kitchen pantry. When I try to show off these gifts to friends, they dutifully nod and then head for the beer in the fridge. But, hey, they're just jealous, right?

So what can you do that makes you special? What can your friends do? Time for a party, don't you think?

Poverty doesn't build character.

We all grew up with stories of Abe Lincoln moving from his humble log cabin to the White House, but he was an exception, the rare person who overcomes poverty to explode onto the national scene and go on to be a great success.

Most of us who grow up poor stay poor and suffer the consequences. Poverty -- not having enough to eat, not having change in your pocket, not wearing new clothes -- diminishes most of us. It's not character-building: it's character-destroying.

Here's how:

1) Being poor makes you desperate. You want to feed your family but don't have the money to do so, even if if you're working at a job and your spouse is, too. You count your money at the end of the month and have to choose between paying for your electricity and water, not to mention your rent, and being able to buy your kids new shoes. It almost makes you want to let your kids walk out of a Wal-Mart with those new shoes you didn't pay for. You might get away with it, but what does that do for you or teach your kids? Still . . .

2) Being poor makes you feel like you're a second-class citizen. Jeez, we're all Americans, right?
Shouldn't we all be doing okay? But you're not, so that must mean that you're not okay, not a good American. You vote, you pay your taxes, you do everything other people do. So why can't you make a decent living? Is it because you're Hispanic? You start to wonder . . .

3) Being poor makes you start to doubt yourself. Let's say you're a good student in school, or an athlete, and you're hoping for a scholarship to a good university. You don't get it, for whatever reason. And there's no money in the family to send you there. Now you have to think about applying to lesser schools or even to community colleges. You know that if your family had enough money, you could have gotten into wherever you deserved. But you start to doubt yourself: Maybe I'm not that good. Maybe I should lower my standards. Maybe I should just skip college and go to work. That job at McDonald's . . .

4) Being poor can actually make you violent. When you've put your ambitions on hold for too long, it's almost natural to strike out, and this often means against your spouse and even your children, sometimes against the society that seems to be keeping you down. Not enough has been written about how frustrating it can be to be denied your life dreams, how strong the impulse is to assault not those responsible but those at hand. It's a sad and sick thing, but it happens. And it happens because of poverty, of being poor, not having enough money.

5) Being poor begets being poor. My parents had nothing, and neither will I. It's a psychosis that infects whole families. My dad picked onions in the field, while my mom had kid after kid, so I guess that's what I'm going to be doing the rest of my life: picking onions and having kids.

I could go on and on about the dangers -- to our souls -- of poverty, but the real danger is to our society. Why don't we, as a people, as a nation, realize that it's not in our best interest to have a sub-culture of people who are just scraping by?

Where do we think crime comes from? Duh. From people who aren't respected, who are desperate, who see no future for themselves or their kids, who have nothing left to lose.

Think about the parts of your city where you feel comfortable to walk at night, alone. Probably nicer neighborhoods, with lots of streetlights and well-to-do homes. What about the parts you wouldn't walk through on a dare? Not so well-lighted and filled with less well-do-do homes, right? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the connection.

When we demean people, we reduce them to their worst instincts: survival, even crime. When we lift them up, economically -- giving them jobs and/or assistance as they look for jobs -- we offer them at least a shot at a better life, which means more education, better nutrition, less impulse toward stealing from us or even killing us for a few bucks.

Aren't we, the middle/upper class, with our comfortable lives, better off not having a desperate under-class who craves what we have and might risk life and family to get it from us?

It seems to me that any society should be judged by how many or how few people we have living below what is accepted, statistically, as the "poverty level". If we have too many, we need to do something to bring them up to at least a subsistence level, meaning that they don't have to beg or steal just to stay alive. And while charities do what they can -- and they do a lot -- it's probably up to government -- local or state or national -- to really make it work.

Yes, this post may sound political, but I think of it as practical. Whether we're Democrat or Republican -- or something else entirely -- why have desperate people in our communities or, worse, on our streets, when we can avoid it? Common sense dictates that we do something, don't you think? For all our sakes, let's try to eliminate poverty. Let's make us all whole.

Here's the gold standard: You can walk through ANY part of your town at night, by yourself.