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Lovely web site! Thank You!

I'd consider my parents middle class, perhaps lower middle class. But when I was a little kid I wouldn't say we ever struggled to pay bills, or afford food and things like that, and we had a roof over us. But it wasn't until my mom lost her job nearly two years ago now, and my family lost their health insurance, that my mom even considered that universalized health care was a rational thing. I'd first brought it up the summer after my first year of college, after taking a sociology class on social problems, and she told me that universal healthcare was a waste of money, and people would only abuse it. I disagreed. Then was the first time I realized how much of a problem it really was, even though at the time I was relatively healthy, and I had insurance so I never thought twice about going to see a doctor when I needed one. But that's just an example of part of the problem. The majority of people will neither move up or down a class in their lifetime, it's just a social statistic. Someone raised middle class, will likely go on to live middle class as an adult who for example truly just lacks any concept of what it is like to literally not be able to go see a doctor when one is needed...Until recent years, at least. The recession affected enough people that implementing some form of universalized health care wasn't an insane idea to a lot of people. It's just one example how you can't really know until you live it. It's a fact I try to make sure I'm aware of, I can't really know what their situation is like, but I can listen to their stories, and learn.

It's also an interesting social statistic that the most giving folks are also the poorest. I think it's because they've walked that mile, and they know. Or they remember thinking if just one person could help me with this or that, and so when they run across a person in a similar situation to them, why wouldn't they want to help?

What's that other saying? The rich write the news for the middle class to turn them against the poor? Something like that.

Yeah, it's the best starting ground on the internet (and off the internet). But I'd be happy to advise them too. <3

Jackie - You're not too frightened?

Ember - Remember that I read it and survived. You watched 'The Human Centipede' and survived that. But what can I say. :)

I need to read this book.

I'm currently reading yet another book of Bill Bryson's. He was on about the paper round that he had as a child. There was a house belonging to a former vice-president of the USA. Two sitting presidents and Rockafeller had stayed there, while Bill Bryson delivered the paper. He said he mostly remembered that house, and the whole area, for the smallness of its tips.

Maybe it's looking after the pennies and disdaining those below, which make those people so rich and powerful.

I won't pretend for one second though that I don't end up jaded too. After that work program course, I found myself so twitchy about the middle classes. They became a by-word for posh accent, haven't a freaking clue about the real world. It took middle class friends to remind me that I was besmirching a whole class based on nothing more than their birth.

I don't think I want to read this.

Obviously I don't know exactly what it is about, but that's part of the problem. I kind of like being able to sleep. Then again, I was made to play slenderman going in blind, and I happen to love that! It was the right kind of scary. xD

My friends were chatting the other day about how they realized they didn't know their...I think Irish grandmother's last name. I told them I knew someone who might be able to help them figure that out (aka you.) Would they likely be able to figure it out using ancestry?

No it's not, or not you're not reading it?

I don't actually know but the main one they make here is massive. People visit La Orotava just to see this!

e_____e

No.

Thank you, Mira! And yes, I do love this island!

Thanks for your comments, Mira! Personally I need "palpable results!"

Just after starting high school, I was chatting with someone in the office. I told her I wanted to go to college to be a social worker, because I wanted to help people. She looked at me and in all seriousness told me that it was a really bad decision. She said that I won't be helping people as a social worker, even if a job I take makes it sound like I would, because I would have to follow the laws set forth by the government. In the end, she told me I'd just end up screwing a bunch of people over, and turn out jaded. Well then. Turns out I like the sciences, anyway!

Nearly everyone working in that job center is going to be someone who is educated and from their salaried seat in their office, it is likely that most have never even begun to imagine what a day in the life is like...Sad.

The grocery store I work in serves some of San Francisco's richest. Despite being around them most days, the prices on average things still blow my mind. Outside this store, a homeless man spends his days by a bus stop. He is the nicest man. In passing, he always says something in an attempt to make me smile, and he smiles twice as big when I do so little as to look him in the eye and offer him a smile. He often wishes me a nice day, and I'll return the sentiment. And then he'll tell me that I did just make is day a lot nicer, or he'll thank me for my kindness. I often wish I had more to offer. But I have these customers who will stop to complain to me about that man's existence. Yeah he's there, yeah he's homeless, but he's a really nice man. He's never rude to people, or in anyone's way. I've had people come in, flustered like their day has just been totally ruined, and in their utter contempt ask me to ask him to move. And what I really I want to say is from where? From the PUBLIC sidewalk? Perhaps I should ask him to take up residence in the middle of the street, would that make your lives better? I'm sorry this subhuman thing attempted to speak to you, you should wash your ears, that might help some.

But I can't say these things, these are my customers, and part of what they pay for in that store is excellent customer service.

But, it is entirely disheartening when someone thinks so highly of themselves that they can't take the time to consider another person's situation, and/or truly believe that someone unemployed, or homeless, is somehow subhuman, and incapable of coherent thought, rational behavior, or human emotion. :/