$5, the Key to Happiness

For the price of a Starbuck's breakfast, with change back ($1), happiness, new beginnings, a sound night's sleep and maybe even the next Nobel price winner in economics, can be had. Isn't America great?

$5 can get you a Sunday New York Times, although I am not sure. It will certainly get you a 7/11 20-oz coffee, a daily Times and leave some change jingling about in your pocket. Imagine that with the flick of a wrist by our president (although, probably not his wrist but some mid-level bureaucrat), America has managed to chip away at the patina of incompetence that led the world to wonder: "so, it is true, they do all of those good things around the world only in the hope of opening more markets."

Katrina came and went and in the wake lives were lost and lives were ruined. And, after the news vans pulled out, what remained was devastation. America's cultural gem, a city that so many snobs throughout the world label "America's only contribution to world culture" (they are refering to jazz), was decimated and fell into Gomorra-like destitution.

Oddly, a person like Brad Pitt, and I am sure so many other amazing Americans, started to do something to help these people, the city. The government was completely absent during all of this (I will not recall that photo of our "hands on" President sitting in Airforce One looking down at the misery). It is simply too easy to say that nothing was done because most of the sufferers were black and poor. But, really, a) what contributions were the sufferers making to the tax base? And, b) how many of them had voted republican (or had voted) in the last election?

Had a beach been eroded in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, you can be rest assured that the government would have had the Army of Engineers out there rebuilding that lost property value for the republican faithful. But, New Orleans is only relevant when crime sprees prove that "well, look at them, they're animals." Or, when we need a Super Bowl to be played there as if this shows that America is uniting to help this lost city.

Really, this $5 is not for New Orleans, but for the victims. It truly boggles the mind when I read recently that the homeless there, those who had lost their homes during and after the hurricane, were about to be evicted from their trailers. Imagine? I cannot imagine this and I am certain that W., living in that swank neighborhood in Dallas and enjoying bbqs with neighbors where a wink and a tug on the elbow are silent signs of "haha, they go theirs, uh?" has no idea that this was going to happen. I am even more sure that his only response would be: "well, uh, the goodness of Americans and our tradition of giving will certainly help these folks." Said, whilst the sheriff has pad-locked these homes and the bulldozer is shifting gears.

W. and Mr. Potter's responses would have played out perfectly with the conservative lumpen, for they believe that charity from the rich to the poor is the real way to run a nation. And, if there isn't any "charity" left, then this is because the government is taking too much from them in taxes and so, well, we know the story. The bottom-line is that such thinking makes it impossible to sell homes for $5 because really, the barrel has found it's bottom, we are a broke nation, and yes, "$5 here and $5 there all adds up." Here I agree with the conservatives!

Yet, for a mere $5 the homeless, who had been stuffed like sardines into tin trailers, which are only a little better than a sweltering subway car in August heat, were about to be evicted and President Obama said: "no, this will not happen while I am president." So, for a mere 500 pennies, these people bought their "new homes" and with this they bought security, a sound night's sleep; they bought tomorrow in the place where they went to bed at yesterday and the day-before.

Stability and knowing where my favorite shirt is hanging, where my cat is sleeping at this moment of the day, knowing the smell of the breeze as it makes it's way through the neighborhood, pulling along with it smells of frying fish, a cigarette, some freshly-washed strawberries and then finding you, sitting in a chair sipping on a tea, cooling you and reminding you that "for better or worse, this your home and tonight you will sleep under this roof," is a very powerful commodity. For these people, however, it is a "luxury" and that is not right.

We are better than this. President Obama has again shown us that we, all of us, are truly better than what Bush and Cheney had made us out to be. And, once again, we are a safer nation thanks to our President and a government that is governing. To this I say, and I will borrow shamelessly from the conservatives, "thank you sweet Jesus!"