Or maybe I heard it on the radio.

Despite my antipathy toward many "charity" ventures by the usual manipulators and publicity seekers, it was good thinking on someone's part to start this trend, IMO. People who are actually out there trying to be responsible participants in the economy get rewarded.

It is also easy to tell exhausted people working long and lonely hours during the holidays to simply "keep the change", or to leave a somewhat larger tip then usual. A $10 year end "bonus" can really brighten the day a bit for someone working at minimum wage.

But one should not be cynical at this time of year.

"Secret Santas" paying K Mart layaways started early December in Michigan. Wire services picked up on it and the practice has spread. We've had a big handful of them here. Seems like a worthy thing to do.

I think we're ending this year of Hot Topics in an unusually bad temper. Always bad, but this year seems to take the fruitcake.

Merry Christmas to all you grinches.

Hay

:) Merry Christmas! to the Hay-grinch too.

Little things mean a lot to some people.

The kit was a little cheaper than I thought - only $3.

I bought her a dial pressure gauge as well.

Hope things improve for you, Marshall--you are usually one of the more congenial on here; I miss that.

Same with the "layaway angels". Kindness and the willingness to help others does not always get the notice and appreciation it should, which just goes to show that you can't spend a lot of time and effort worrying about what others think.

I hope Marshall feels better soon, and that everyone had a happy holiday.

I've really increased my skills, knowledge and experience doing charity work as well.

I've purposely taken many of the jobs others couldn't solve, or didn't want - often difficult jobs, or service/repair jobs with numerous call-backs, or intermittent electronics/control issues for free just to improve troubleshooting skills.

I generally cover the costs of parts as well as labor and all other expenses.

People do this kind of stuff every day, on their own, completely independent of government participation, and with no expectation of reward or recognition. What stands out here is the petty fault finding. Mark gave an example of how an unexpected kindness came back around. Yet some could not resist casting a few minor, socially desirable acts in negative terms. Mark was only nice to those people because he figured there was something in it for him. Conservatives are greedy, and cannot possibly show kindness just for the hell of it.

I have a suspicion that Wal-Mart funds some of this itself. Kind of like an illegal sweepstakes or lottery.

I would bet a lot of money you wake up and go to bed with a smile on your face and a positive attitude.

That goes a long way towards success.

Now I offer free advice/consultation or greatly reduced design fees.

Oddly enough, there were few referrals coming from that period of "donating" our services.

We run into this often, especially with furnace, boiler and hot water heater repairs/service/replacement. The Heating Equipment Repair and Replacement Component of HEAP (The Home Energy Assistance Program) will pay up to $6,000 of these costs (sometimes more), but many won't apply, or won't accept charity.

I've stopped my car off the side of an intersection to help two guys push a big truck out of the way. I may be a small female but I can still help. I steered so they could push and we got it off the road. In retrospect 18 year old girls should not be helping strange men, especially getting in their car... but they needed help and I could offer it.

I gave a very nice Japanese man a jump the other day. He didn't know how to use cables, but I had a pair and got him on his way.

I picked up a woman and her children from the side of the road last summer. Their car had broken down, it was in the middle of summer. Her husband was going across the street to get tools to repair the car, and I drove them home.

It's not a liberal or conservative thing, it's a human thing.

As for the lay-away pay-offs... I could get cynical about that. But I won't today ;)

That goes a long way towards success.

I smile all the time, much more than average. Even when I'm cold, exhausted etc.

I've had a very positive attitude all my life. Pessimists, doubters self-doubters, excuse makers and other miserable people generally aren't very successful, plus many tend to drag others down with them.

Misery loves company...

I called what Mark did exactly what it is. Pro-social. I have no evidence, nor have you offered any, that Mark in any way is guilty of "strategic giving." He must be quite the strategic planner if he can calculate ahead of time where he needs to be, and when, and then discover a person in need to help him out, all so he can have a chance to bid on three (GASP!) profitable jobs down the road that this person happened to know about. I suppose it could have all been choreographed. Or it could be that Mark really is a nice guy who saw something that needed to be done and took care of it. Finding problems and fixing them a way of life for people who own and manage rental properties, so when Mark matter of factly says he fixed some problems for people, I find it entirely credible. It's often said that if you want something done, ask a busy person. I doubt Mark spent a lot of time weighing the cost/benefit angle but I could be wrong. Some people probably would.

I spent zero seconds weighing anything. I helped since I felt sorry for the woman since she had cancer, limited funds and none of her relatives would help her.

I'm surprised she even called me to begin with, let alone gave us referrals as she dropped us as a service provider a few years ago in favor of a cheaper service provider.

Apparently some feel that random acts of kindness that inadvertently lead to rewards are less than virtuous.
Could it be, instead, that always looking for the worst rather than the best in people is less than virtuous?
The mind can have a profound effect on reality. What one envisions tends to materialize.

I don't support OWS and other means to encourage the restoration of a level playing field because I think only the poor and middle class have virtue; I do it because the playing field is no longer level but those who most benefit from that are now so used to conditions as they are that they have a blind spot regarding it. Trying to help someone to see is not the same as criticizing or judging them. It is trying to help them see reality.

I agree with the others that people that do the sorts of things that Mark does are good, generous people. Someone has, for example, to own rental properties and take care of them, and renters are lucky if they have a landlord with the skills to properly maintain those properties. Some of them are also lucky that people like Mark are there to purchase their properties before they lose everything to foreclosure.

People that are out in the world actively doing things and pointing the world in a positive direction are not bad people. Bad people are the ones who, for example, sell stock shares to their own customers so they then can bet against them.

I have been wondering why some moderates are unwilling to support OWS, and feel that this thread may give me a partial answer--they want the message to get sent, but they do not wish to play into the negativity that can be so easily tapped into in the process.

People wanting good things and working to achieve them is not evil. It is not greedy to want a good life, or to work to get one. It is, however, IMO neglectful to not look at the big picture and see how one contributes to that picture, positively or negatively. It is possible to inadvertently contribute to the deprivation of others, and that is what OWS is about--helping the inadvertent to see what they are doing.

Criticizing and judging people IMO only makes them defensive and increasingly rigid in their positions. Those whose habit is to do this could look at how they themselves respond to perceived criticism. If you respond that way, don't you think others will, too?
How is it helping?

I admit I took the idea of high society "charity" to task in a previous post. I still believe that such charity
is often not the best way, for structural reasons, as stated in that thread. One-on-one charity which responds to specific needs of individuals without causing them to lose face, I have no problem with, even if it does lead to benefits to the giver. This type of charity, IMO, is in the same category as a little boy holding the hand of his littler sister as she attempts to learn how to walk. It is a natural, spontaneous act with a good intention behind it, even if, as many feel, such random events would not be consistent enough to warrant eliminating governmental social welfare programs.

This temporary action does not, in any way, do a thing for poverty in the U.S. I believe that an extra big tip (I do it myself often) or helping someone clearly in need for a specific purpose needed (changing a tire etc.) is to be commended - this used to be commonplace activity in America but is getting rarer and rarer.

It does not, however, address or lower, by one iota, poverty in America. It makes both parties feel good and there is nothing in the world wrong with that (everything in the world right with that) - but it does not lower or prevent one instance of poverty in America.

If such a small moment out of one's day can create such a difference in the day of the giver and the receiver, think what reducing poverty in America could do for both making a difference and changing the spirits of this entire country.

It would, however, require the relenquishing of control the more fortunate individual - the upclose, personal control over exactly who it is that would be offered help and the kind and extent of the help which would be offered.

To me, that is where the problem resides. It's the old idea of "Too many bosses, not enough workers."

What if MarkJames didn't like the looks of a man needing help with plugging a temp hole in that tire until it could be replaced? Then we are back to square one. A sick person needing help and a healthy person driving on by.

American citizens don't seem to like the look on the face of poverty. So we keep on driving by.

Any objections?

Your eleven year old will then be able to perhaps grow up and raise his/her own children in a kinder and more caring and much more fortunate America where poverty isn't something that we need to wage war on in order to "win".

"America, of all the nations of this world, has the least percentage of it's people living in poverty!"

I can't think of much which would make your chid feel better than that.

Or would you rather join me in eliminating waste and addressing the causes of poverty and requiring those living in it to change their lives to be self sufficient if they are not physically or mentally impaired with the tax money we already collect?

What exactly is it that you want to do since you don't seem to be very impressed with the millions of "nice things" that individuals and groups and churches and families do for people every day?

If those making over $250,000 paid their fair share it would go a long way. Lets let the Bush tax holiday for millionaires expire.

Those making over $250,000 per year aren't all millionaires.

For singles it's $200,000.

Easy enough to make sure you just don't make that much.

Most people can get along on $250,000 $200,000 or less.

Then what are you going to do for that "fair share" that you judge others should be paying?

It means just keeping money in cash, not investing all of it and making sure your investment returns fall below an amount to be taxed at a higher rate.

I agree - negative people should put half the energy they expend whining and complaining into bettering themselves - otherwise it's a waste of flesh.

mark, kudos to you for what you did.

Pauline, Yet again I agree with your comments about negative people.

There are posters here that you just know are having a tough going, by what they write. They have the ability to present issues and problems I may not have considered or have forgotten without coming across as whiney, obnoxious and self-serving. I learn from them and modify my opinion and I sincerely appreciate that they allow me to do that.

We are certainly not wealthy, but I'm able to see that there are those far worse off than us. Thank you to those that share their life experiences in the manner you do!

I agree with kwoods that the Bush tax cuts should simply expire. Honestly, keeping the Bush tax cuts is one of the big mistakes that Obama made.

I understand that you feel it is outrageous for Americans to expect of the very wealthy to pay more than they are as of right now, the way the tax code reads, legally obligated to pay.

Many who are and who are not in poverty feel the same way about the country asking those who don't have enough in the first place to pay more, which could ruin their lives.

The wealthy will remain wealthy if they are taxed on every dollar they have.

The poor will be destroyed, leaving them perhaps no real and viable chance of digging themselves up into even the lower middle class financial section of our society - ever, in their entire lives of struggle.

If one has more than most, then taxation needs to reflect the taxes on every dollar they have earned - just like the taxes required of the average blue collar worker in this country.

The better we make America for jobs and promising futures, the lower the rate we have of poverty in this country, the more taxes the majority of Americans will pay.

I want it understood that I don't want to leave the impression that I think that small gestures are not of real worth. It's the small gestures of kindness each of us offer to strangers often throughout the week, month, year, which makes human life something of any value in the first place. Without them we are nothing more than those ancient digital pac man cartoon game creatures, adrift in a sea of self absorbed consumption.

What I want to remind people is this. The gestures of kindness and goodwill make the human animal worth being top dog for this moment in time that we are top dog of living creatures.

However, we can't afford the line of thought that because because we covered someone who had baby supplies ringing up at the grocery store and came up a few dollars short and one covering it instead of the young mother having to decide what she would have to put back is making a significant difference in this young mother's life.

We can't afford the thought that we do such acts whenever we see them as needed that we are doing our share to fight poverty in America. Or that we are making the difference in poverty which is our individal obligation to meet. Life's obligations aren't that easy or simple.

It makes a significant difference in that one shopping trip to that woman. The basic situation of her life remains the same. She will shortly need to go shopping for the baby needs again because the baby will continue to need to eat, the rent needs to be paid, the electricity bill has to be met, the gas, the trash, the car payment, baby clothes etc. She continues to have to make all those obligations of life if she is to provide for her baby's most basic needs.

That one act of kindness was nice, lifted the burden on her shoulders for a minute and certainly returned far more to me than it did for her because we ALL know that the baby might need antibiotics tomorrow morning and more diapers than expected because of the diarrhea that came from the overnight illness.

Her situation in life remains exactly the same when she walks out of the store as it did when she walked into the store.

That is what I truly feel society has an obligation of the soul to address.

We are responsible for our brother - "brother" meaning our fellow human being in need. Not our fellow brother who might need a bit of help - that is what you do for family. I'm talking about the person who is out there that you will never set your eyes on but nevertheless exists and is not able to make it, simply not able to make it.

He is the obligation of all mankind. If not us, then who? If he could make it on his own he would have, nobody chooses the soul destroying stress of poverty.

That is the attitude I feel this country must decide to wear. Not judgement on the string of poor decisions he might have made. Who knows what each one of us would have done in EXACTLY the same situation.

We don't know because we aren't him. HOw fortunate we have not been in his situation, we never have to know what we always thought we would surely have done differently - and then face the life of judgements we have made on others because we were so SURE we would have done it differently because we were better than that.

If we stop the random acts of kindness then we become that waste of flesh Paulines talked about. Random acts of kindness should be a part of who we are as a person. It costs practically nothing at all and gives back so much in return.

But it doesn't address the question of poverty in America and how ALL Americans need to address it in order to significantly lower the percentage rate.

I think that everyone agrees that it's disgraceful that our country of America isn't addressing and resolving the high rate of poverty in America - and that everyone wants to eliminate it as much as it is possible to do so.

I think we part about how people fell into poverty in the first place. Our opinions or judgements on the individal in need or the poverty stricken in general don't address specific answers to the problem. And that is what I feel our society needs to be willing to address or we are going to slip ever further in world rankings.

Are we going to be so fearful that a few who don't deserve help or scam the system will get something they didn't work for that we will be willing to allow the poverty rate to remain unchanged or even grow? Are we going to be so miserly that in order to prevent one out of five hundred from getting help that they don't deserve that we will penalize the 499 and put them through rigors of humiliation before we have satisfied ourselves that they do, after all, qualify?

Is that what has become the little tight and miserly heart of America?

If so, then nothing will change.

I intend to come back and read more carefully later when I'm not in a hurry to get out the door

Thanks for posting.

I have my ideas about how we came to have the poverty we do, but as I well know, and many others do, but some do not want to admit, we will always have the poor with us, for a variety of reasons.

It is our responsibility to help when we can, but not perpetuate poverty by misguided actions and poor policy and lack of requirement of personal responsibility. Certainly people make mistakes--I've said too many times that people need second chances and help.

Just not ad infinitum.

When you speak of differences, there is no difference in what we want in the end. We would all like to see poverty eradicated. The differences that I've seen here in discussions, is the means of reaching that goal. And of course there would be no discussion if we all didn't consider our way the best way.

We've been trying that since Johnson's "Great Society." Trillions down the drain and still millions living in poverty. Keep doing what you're doing, keep getting what you're getting.

Or try something different.

Q:How badly do liberals want to end poverty in America?

A:Not badly enough to stop importing it. Just ask them.

There are all kinds of paperwork "proofs of need" already required in order to receive assistance; IMO providing proof of reliable contraception is the only one that would act as a sufficient deterrent to an endless increase in the welfare roles, while at the same time providing a good motivation to get off of them.

It is really a very simple solution, but one that would have much resistance from the Catholic church, and probably be political suicide for any politician to put forth (my thanks to Brushworks for my understanding of that point). However, it makes logical sense and I believe it is fair. People who plan their families responsibly already limit their fertility to match their ability to pay, and I do not feel they should be asked to subsidize a level of reproduction that they do not allow of themselves. To continue to do so is regressive, and can only lead to the continued overreproduction of the most incapable amongst us, at the expense of those more able. That will not serve us well in the global competition our country has been pushed into.

I realize that there is a segment of our society that desires the production of children that will essentially grow up to become "gun fodder", but I do not agree with that philosophy. If there were a satisfactory place for every child born in our society, the thought of beginning a war that would lead to the deaths of many of our kids would not be as easy an option for our leadership.

I don't have your gift with words but you spoke from my heart.

Thank you.

Sharon

Eibren, I think I've come to agree with you regarding govt assistance and the birth control issue.

Everybody does have a strong moral and ethical obligation when accepting govt. help to use that help wisely. If they are not of any need for govt help and choose to have children that is their business and nothing wrong (maybe everything right) about it.

But if funds are so limited that one is not able to care for the children that already exist within the family unit, then it would only be logical for the person getting the funds show good faith by providing proof of good contraceptive practices so as not to have more children until they can afford again to support all of their offspring.

Which is great in theory.

I do find the idea of providing proof very distasteful, but then we are not a very trustworthy society. Just look at all the drug testing places all over the country which now even offers DNA testing for providing proof of (or proof not of) fatherhood. That need, to me, is vastly more distasteful and dismaying.

However, we are a society which embraces the idea that the individual rights are to be protected even often at the expense of the society as a whole - and we have gone to great pains to protect those individual rights.

Which is mostly a good idea but then sometimes an issue like this comes along where the practice works against us as a whole.

I think everyone in the country (save a few nuts) would agree that until one can afford to financially care for what children they already have would be common sense and only fair and just to the existing children - but then a huge percentage would also argue that the woman has total rights to her reproductive processes, even if she is completely irresponsible about how she reproduces.

It's a real problem, one we probably have to live with. Freedom and individual rights come with a price to society and this financial cost might very well be one of them.