Real friendships have no strings attached

It has been my experience that many people view friendship
as a means to an end. To my way of thinking this is just plain
wrong. A friend is someone you like and are willing to help
and will help you without asking for or expecting anything in
return.

This also means not making any strange demands or having
any requirements or restriction to be your friend. The only
thing any friend should expect is that you respect each others
privacy and be given your space when it is need it. If I don't
call or come around for a long while it isn't because we aren't
friends anymore, it is because I have my own life to live and
may be too busy and forget or simply can't spare the time.

I have learned to accept my friends for who and what they are.
Sometimes I disagree with their viewpoint and ideas but in
the end I understand that those ideas and viewpoints are part
of what makes them themselves; Part of what made me like
them to begin with. And all I ask is they do the same for me.

Yours Truly,

Dick McPlenty P.I. (pissed indefinitely)

Poverty does not equate with stupidity

It has been my experience that many people erroneously believe
that the poor are stupid, ignorant, lazy, and generally uneducated.
The "logic" applied here is that if they weren't stupid they'd have a
job and money.

Wrong.

Sometimes you find yourself in a place were you have limited or
no real opportunities. There are also times when someone decides
to have a go at it and work for themselves and find that they are
having a hard time due to external influences like a weak economy
or an unexpected illness.

I have known my share of people that were down on their luck that
were probably sharper mentally than many PHD's. One friend of
mine who was a college graduate spent better than ten years bagging
groceries at the same store not because he was stupid or lazy
but simply because he hadn't seen any opportunities to apply his
degree. Somehow, I doubt asking people if they wanted paper or
plastic was what he envisioned when he graduated!

And then we have the truly poor, the homeless. Too many people
tend to either look down on them or let their eyes slide over them
and pretend to not see them. Occasionally some smartass will yell
at them to, "Get a job ya bum!". If they could get a job, do you
they would be homeless, slackwit?! In the current economic
climate, it makes me wonder just how many people will and
have found themselves in this position.

Now I have to take a cheap shot at the previous administration.
George W Bush, a Harvard MBA and obscenely wealthy. And about
as sharp a bowling ball! Now if someone will kindly apply that
"logic" I spoke of early to this case...

Yours Truly,

Dick McPlenty P.I. (pissed indefinitely)