Incidents

The heat is brutal. Driving through the City today, I saw a firetruck lit up with red whirls at the bus stop. There was a body laying in the shade of a tree with two firemen administering CPR. An ambulance arrived, flicking its siren off.

I saw all of this just while waiting for a traffic light to change.

I was panhandled outside my favorite Vietnamese sandwich shop. An older man with a sweat-stained orange tee shirt and jeans. "I need seven dollars to go back home. Car's out of gas." He showed me his driver's license and another form of i.d. for some reason. I gave him around two dollars in change & wished him luck.

I'd read this article earlier from the comfort of my air-conditioned home with my high-speed internet & now I wonder how much harder and wider the ax is going to fall.
One thing I expect though is that the people who can afford severe cuts the least are the ones who will most suffer when they come. So everybody out there needs to say a prayer for the poor. Say one for yourself & pray that they pray too, for as Napoleon Bonaparte noted in the bloody backdrop of the French Revolution; "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."