2018 Spring April 17 Tuesday

65 degrees this morning 34:17 minutes

A “cool” 65 degrees this morning, some wind made it much cooler than the temperature indicated.  

Pace was 22 seconds faster than the goal.  Bettering the goal has been a trend lately which is good.  

Continuing to listen to the autobiography of U.S. Grant.  It is definitely a well-written biography.  

At this point Grant has just become President and is starting his administration.  It is interesting how Grant transitioned from being a General to being a civilian President.  

One thing I hadn’t realized about Grant was his commitment to equality for all citizens, he definitely was progressive for the era.

Reading about the Starbucks situation in another city, I was surprised, since all of the Starbucks around here have homeless people who drop in and just sit and aren’t asked to leave or bothered. May be a local policy.  

I am concerned by the number of homeless people I see.  I have to wonder how “we” (as a society) allow that to happen.  I  realize it may just be a chosen lifestyle for some, but I hardly think most of the homeless people wouldn’t prefer that lifestyle.

In fact, as I mentioned last Fall, I went to a City Managers conference and somehow attended a session on homeless.  A few cities (in some very cold areas!) have made significant strides in dealing with the homeless situation.

The successful cities approached the concept of the homeless as another demographic of citizens that had special needs etc, rather than rounding them up or trying to resolve the problem by chasing them to where no one would see them.  

I don’t know if the people standing on the corners are homeless or not, but I do feel that people standing on corners or medians begging money (whether they are doing so for themselves or charity), I think it is a hazard to traffic and should be banned.  

Speaking of charities, I recently read where the people who are always soliciting funds for “animal protection” over the internet, cloying tv commercials and direct mail solicitation etc. have raised so much money they don’t know what to do with it and are buying dogs from “puppy mills” and saying they are “rescue dogs”.  

Of course the “puppy mills” react to this by breeding even more puppies, increasing the problems that the “animal protection” groups are supposedly trying to correct!

I hate to be a pessimist, but I really take a jaundiced view of all charity requests, especially when I see where the fund raisers get 80% of the money for collecting it!  

I find especially repugnant the stores who try to shame you into contribute to THEIR favorite charities by asking you to donate when you buy something at the store. I’ll decide what charity I donate too!  The exception is possibly local groups who may need funding.  

Another day without meat.  I have no idea how long this will continue, but it will continue at least for today.

That’s it for now, Tuesday, April 17, 2018.