my own drum

Here we are in the enlightened 21st Century, and the world is supposed to be a better place -- at least that was the impression that I received from my youth. My parents struggled to make ends meet, ensuring that all of the children were fed and clothed and ready for school, and had a roof over their heads at night to keep away the darkness, the cold, and the bogeymen.

I'm looking around today and I'm wondering where it is better? To be sure there are some, perhaps many, who are at least better off financially. That is evident in the number of SUV's and Road Rangers prowling the streets. It is also evident in the great halls of our business infrastructures. Oil companies are reaping huge profits, Coca Cola is worldwide and growing, banks and investments companies (some of them) are bigger and have assets that I cannot comprehend. And the people that run these businesses are going home to their their trendy condo's, their mansions, their art, and their other SUV. Nothing wrong with that, per se, people who run things well have always been compensated well. I certainly would expected to be compensated for my leadership abilities. Alas, I have none.

But show me where the world is a better place. Show me a place where greed has been overcome to help the needy. Show me a profit that is turned to helping others. The stockholders won't hear of it!

Out here on the streets, where I live, there is little improvement. Drugs and prostitution continue to take the meager earnings of hardworking people. And now, in most states, the states themselves have joined in the action by introducing the lotteries. I can't begin to count the number of losing $5.00 scratch-off cards that litter our city busses and trains. $5.00!! That's enough the feed a person for a day, seriously. Sure, that person will be hungry all the time, but they will get one decent meal at least. I actually try to exist on no more than $2.00 a day. It's difficult, let me assure you. But I'm getting off track.

The neighborhood I live in is getting gentrified. This is no secret. New condos are replacing older apartments and homes at a record pace. One even advertises, "A new way of living in the Old Fourth Ward" It seems that the only thing to slow down this progress is the drying up of development money. The residents have little say in the matter, something I know as fact on the street where I live. Even my own little hovel, a squatters shack on a small piece of property, is in danger. I've recently been advised that the place which I call home is to be deconstructed.

Fine! I'll throw up a tarp and make believe that I'm enlightened and better off for the experience. Move over Mr. Thoreau.