More proof that people suck

Posted on June 14, 2006
Filed Under Ranting

For most people, seeing panhandlers on the side of the road is nothing new. You pull up to the stop light and there is some dude walking between the car with a “Please Help Out of Work Vet.” Most of the panhandlers that I’ve seen look like they are passing time between being drunk or wacked out on the drug of the day. I rarely roll down my window and toss change their way. Mainly because I feel that any money I give them is only going to go towards a bottle of booze or go into their veins. If I felt that they were going to use the money to buy food or to do something in the way of getting their life back in order, I’d feel much more compelled to throw a few bucks their way. When I see a panhandler outside a fast food joint that I’m driving through, I have been known to purchase an extra burger and fries, have it bagged separately and deliver the meal to the person rather than giving them the cash. This way I know that they are going to use the donation as it was intended. Keep that in mind… “As Intended.” I’ll get back to this in a few minutes.

I feel bad for all the people who had to experience Hurricane Katrina. Many lost their lives or lost friends or family. Many lost their homes and/or businesses. It was horrible even watching the chaos of it all safely from my living room. And, as always, it wasn’t long before all the benefits start rolling around. Benefit concerts, auctions, telethons, etc… Whatever the process is, tons of money goes to FEMA and then they distribute aide to victims of the Hurricane. The intention being to get these people back on their feet. I don’t think I have ever sent money in to a telethon myself and I don’t think I’ve ever won an auction for this type of charitable organization. When I read articles like this one I found on CNN.com, I don’t think I ever will. As it turns out, about $1 billion dollars worth of the aide money was spent on hookers and blow. OK, not hookers & blow exactly, but $600 at a strip club, $400 on “adult erotica products” etc, etc… Here’s a nice little snippet from the article:

Among other problems found with the registrations, according to the GAO study:

# People signed up for assistance using Social Security numbers that didn’t exist or belonged to other people.

# Aid applications contained bogus addresses for damaged property, or gave addresses for damaged property where the applicants did not live when the hurricanes struck. In one case, FEMA paid nearly $2,360 to a man whose allegedly damaged property was in a cemetery.

# Payments were made to people who listed post office boxes as their damaged residences.

# People submitted duplicate registrations, which FEMA did not detect.

# More than 1,000 registrations used the names and Social Security numbers of prison inmates. According to the GAO, in one instance, FEMA paid $20,000 to a Louisiana prisoner who listed a post office box as his damaged property.

So, I’ll end this the way I started it… people suck.

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