Friday, May 12, 2017

Desert Days



This is a story about the Desert and history and me trying to gather a lot of my disparate thoughts about it.

Right before the inauguration I decided I wanted to see some of the places that make America special before they potentially get ruined by short sighted money grabbing or our world ending, so I put together a trip with some friends to go see some of the American Southwest and get a feel for why it looms so large in the collective imagination of our country, and specifically myself.

The trip happened a week ago. I met some friends (King, Josh, and Tim) in Las Vegas, we rented a car immediately upon leaving the airport, and drove away from Vegas as quickly as the road could take us. I want to take a quick moment to denigrate Las Vegas since it deserves to get called out for what it truly is, a hellish place designed to remove people from their money as quickly and effectively as possible. Vegas is a blight upon this country. The sinkhole city wasn’t a part of the trip other than being being well placed in terms of an airport and a good reminder of where we needed to get to, the Desert.

The Desert, in my head, is a place full of scarcity and death and decline and struggle. It’s remote and mysterious, things seem to appear and disappear without warning. Its a place left alone in our country because it has very little to give. It is also a place of staggering beauty amidst and amplified by it’s stark surroundings.

The Narrows
The first place we went to was Zion. Driving into the park you’re flanked on all sides by jagged giant tall ass rock formations. I don’t know if they’re technically mountains or not, it didn’t matter to me. It took us a while to get our bearings, as in we took the wrong road through a really really long tunnel that was perfectly hewn out the side of a mountain almost all the way out of the park before finally figuring out where we needed to get to, which was the Narrows. The Narrows is where the Virgin River gets hemmed in by two walls of rock to the point where it is really moving with some force. Once we got to the end of the trail that led along the river you either look at the start of the Narrows and turn back or you get wet. Our intrepid leader because he had previously been to Zion, Tim, already knew what was in store at the end of the trail so he just waded into the river and figured we would have no choice but to follow. He was right, we followed. Trekking upstream in the Narrows was a bit treacherous considering I'm not a particularly balanced person, especially when you tried to move laterally instead of straight, but we all made it across to an embankment where we could stow our cell phones before going further upstream. I was wearing jeans and sneakers for this, which went from worn out costco to dark designer jeans during the second leg of the river fording. I guess I should just be thankful that neither of my shoes got pulled off in the current, since I hadn’t packed any other footwear for trip. The Narrows was the first time that we encountered what would become a reoccurring theme. The National Parks are amazing no matter what or how you experience them, but the large amount of people around isn’t ideal. When you go off the beaten path though, and it gets quiet, and there isn’t anyone else around, you can get a sense of how wonderful and holy these places are.

That night we stayed at a house out in the middle of nowhere on route 89 between Zion and Bryce Canyon, and against my misbegotten worries that we would end up engulfing the entire area in flame, we built a fire in the desert consisting of scrub brush and driftwood. It did not smell like a normal camp fire. It was more of a bitter aroma. I think I still have some of the smoke residue stuck in my sinuses. But it was an experience to be out under the stars in the middle of the desert, no light to be seen except for what my friends had built and what was in the sky.


Bryce Canyon at Sunrise
The next morning we woke up well before dawn to catch sunrise at Bryce Canyon. On paper this was a great plan, in practice it wasn't easy to get teh day started considering we hadn’t extinguished the fire until an hour or two after midnight. Luckily Utah deals mostly in 3.2 Beer so getting up wasn’t nearly as tough as it could have been with normal non-mormonized beer. Sunrise at Bryce Canyon was worth it though. Watching the light change overhead, then on the horizon, then having the sun crest over the ridge line to start bathing the canyon in light and long shadows was incredible to behold. For a non religious person, I guess I could call that sort of thing my church service. Supplication to the rising of the Sun God. Somehow it would turn out to only be an opening act towards what was in store for the next day. After sunrise we walked along the rim to where we would start our descent into the canyon, and mine into madness (sorry, can’t help myself, when else am I ever going to get to write that phrase). The way down was incredibly beautiful, with steep sharp switchbacks and great views of the individuals and groupings of dick rocks (hoodoos). Once at the bottom we took the trail to meet up with the Peekaboo Loop that would end up being the semi-end of me. The Peekaboo Loop was three miles long. I was dead tired and huffing and puffing after the first half mile. I am admittedly not in the greatest shape. I smoke. I'm at optimal weight. I had just inhaled hours worth of odd smelling camp fire the night before. And we were at an elevation of 7,000 feet. I was toast before we even started down into the Canyon. So the Peekaboo consisting of only straight uphill and straight downhill did not agree with my body or mind. I was cursing at my friends, cursing at the rocks, cursing at beauty itself. Every time I thought we were at the summit, I was wrong. Peekaboo Loop was a uniquely horrible hike for me. When my friends asked me after it was over wasn’t I glad I had done it, I repeatedly said FUCK NO. Fuck that loop. After the Peekaboo Loop mercifully ended we walked (me slowly, them at a more industrious pace) back up to the outer rim and out to where we parked. All in all, we hiked 7 miles in Bryce and I very much did not enjoy the middle 3. The middle 3 is where I started to think about a world where everything was flat, there were no inclines anymore. I think I could get elected on that platform if everyone in the USA was subjected to the Peekaboo Loop.

After we left Bryce I had called the Air BnB owner from the previous night to tell them that we wouldn’t be able to return an errant key that one of my friends had in his back pocket when we left. I lied that we were already on our way to Monument Valley and would mail it to them. Well it turns out we were going right past where we had stayed and we were all starving so not only were we going to drop off the key but we were also going to pick up some eggs and bacon and make breakfast at the place that I minutes earlier had told the owners that we weren’t anywhere near and getting farther every second. Luckily my Larry David caught in a lie awkward moment didn’t happen where we encountered the people at the place and had to compound the lie with more lies. I was definitely grouchy from the hike that morning and a little bit delirious from hunger to even think up that scenario. The whole thing went fine. We just went there, made breakfast, and dropped off the key in peace. And I sent them a message saying I was a dumbass and hadn’t had a clue where we were when I called saying we couldn't drop off the key.

Once we finished breakfast we got in our minivan and drove south out of Utah, into Arizona and past the suspiciously blue waters of Lake Powell, then on to Monument Valley. I think my dream vision of the West is Monument Valley. It’s beautiful. It’s vast. It’s barren. It’s a postcard from a bygone movie about people using guns for good or evil or something in the middle. It is a large part of America's self made culture. It is our idealized, whitewashed past. In reality it stands for something a whole lot darker and and more bloody and more illuminating about what America always has been. Monument Valley is Navajo Land. To enter you pay the Navajo Nation. The US gave this land to them after taking everything else. They didn’t give it to them because it was beautiful and iconic. They gave it to them because it served no purpose for the USA. It is a desert with surreally giant pretty isolated red rocks. The Navajo can’t make a living off of it besides charging people to drive through it. They can’t farm it in any large scale. They can’t turn it green. It was a throwaway. This is what made a lot of America. Killing and stealing from tribes and then giving them something in return that didn’t benefit the tribe. And it wouldn’t surprise me if America took it back at some point. That’s how we roll.

Night Hike/Nap
Once we arrived at our cabin overlooking the Mittens in M.V. We unpacked and sat on our deck and drank until the sun went down. It was incredibly pretty. I got pretty damn drunk. At some point in the night my friends very rudely woke me up (ineffective drunk punches were thrown over me not wanting to go) from my bottom bunk bed and made me go on a night hike with them. I ended up spending most of the time finding comfortable bushes to take impromptu naps in. My friends ended up making it a good way up onto the Left Mitten. I was woken up the next morning right at sunrise, and it was the most glorious piece of nature I have ever seen. The clouds were red, the horizon was on fire, and the giant rocks were still dark silhouettes in the foreground. It was a magical moment for me. I will never forget it.


Monument Valley at Dawn
We packed up after sunrise and drove further south towards and then past Flagstaff to get to Sedona. I had been to Sedona as a little kid and have vividly happy memories of playing in a natural waterpark/creek, so we decided to go find it again. Recapturing a piece of your childhood is always a dangerous game, because if it doesn’t live up to your memories, then that memory is somewhat broken by your newer experience. That didn’t happen this time. Slide Rock was awesome, again. The first thing I did in the water was do a cartoonishly exaggerated slip and fall on the slick mossy rocks. As a kid my lower center of gravity and lesser size and weight made foibles on the smooth ice-like rocks less hazardous. Now I was just going down hard and fast repeatedly. The people seeing it probably either thoroughly enjoyed me repeatedly going feet up back down or were mortified that they were going to witness a horrific injury as I tried to cross the creek. On the other side there was a 10 foot cliff into a deeper pool that was excellent to jump off of and then sort of walrus your way back onto dry land off of the slippery sides of the pool. At some point I resorted to sliding butt first and crab sliding across the creek instead of trying to walk across it. I was not putting pride on a pedestal at Slide Rock. Tim eventually found a 40 foot jump that he devil-may-cared off of. I wanted no part of that. Partly because I couldn’t see where I was landing from the top, partly cause I was worn out, and partly because I had done a similar jump at this hillbilly gravel pit in Indiana and it fucked up my eardrums and jaw real good upon impact.

After we finished frolicking in the creek we slowly found Josh, who had been hammocking in a nearby copse of trees and then mounted up in the minivan and made our way north to our AirBnB in Flagstaff. That night I beat all comers in a 1981 version of Trivial Pursuit. As the current Trivial Pursuit Champion, I would like to say that my opponents didn’t have a damn chance (the game took several hours because the 1981 version includes a whole bunch of bullshit questions. I had endurance more than some overpowering knowledge). I was like Lebron in the Eastern Conference.

The Granddaddy of Them All
Flagstaff was our last night of the Desert trip. We woke up a little after sunrise, packed up, and drove to the Granddaddy of Them All, the Big Bopper, the Realest There Ever Was, the Grand Canyon. When we got there we immediately went to the closest overlook to see it. It didn’t disappoint. After 15 minutes or so my friends grew weary of the crowds, and decided to find somewhere else along the rim to take in the majesty. We got back in the car and drove along the Desert View Road to a little parking lot that was close to the offshoot to Yaki Point. Instead of taking the road, my intrepid traveler friends decided it was best to walk directly through the forest to get to the rim of the canyon. It took longer than I would have liked, but it was definitely unlike any forest I had ever been in. It was quiet, there were a lot of downed trees, and the vegetation was piney, sparse and brittle. We encountered a lady Elk at one point, which I could not have backed away from and circled around faster. Once we got to the rim there were no people there, probably because we were not on a trail, or even close to it, we were on the edge of the goddamn world. I honestly have never felt smaller than when staring over the cliff side at the hills and ravines and smaller canyons so so so far below. It could have been on a different planet it seemed so remote. It gave me vertigo and heart palpitations just to look out at the immense openness. The Grand Canyon is the most alien thing I have ever seen in my life. It was literally the inverse of a giant mountain. I can't shake the feeling that the Grand Canyon isn’t an impartial slab of nature, but a magnetic force that can bend objects and people to it’s will. It can talk to you. Tell you to do things you don’t want to do. It scared the shit out of me, which in a way is showing it the respect it deserves.
Grand Canyon Elk - Photo by Joshy Baby
That was the end of our trip. Later that night we flew back out of Vegas. It was a bumpy flight, and when I was going in and out of sleep the turbulence would keep waking me up, but right before I woke up I would have the briefest vision of me falling towards the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Like I said, the place has an unseen power. I was also severely sleep deprived from late nights and waking up for sunrises every day so that probably played a part in my brain tripping out.

This trip made me think about how the history of our country and these towering figures in our landscape mean different things to different people. When I look at Monument Valley, I see the West. When the Navajo look at Monument Valley, they see their home, but one only begrudgingly and callously given to them when it was of no use to Whites. When Native Americans look at Bryce Canyon, they see their ancestor's spirits living on in each of the hoodoo sentinels. When I look at it, I only remember the horror of the Peekaboo Loop. Okay, I also remember how unique it was to everything else I have ever seen. But that could be said for most of the West. Way back when, we took this country by hook and by crook from the Native Tribes. It would be a very late start, but a start nonetheless, to respect it the way they do and protect it at all costs. It is the best thing we have in this country and I'm worried that jackals would rather blow it to bits over money than to preserve one of the last truly great things we have here in America.


Friday, March 17, 2017

Magnifying Ants

Trump’s budget seems to have been created by a malicious sentient money counting machine that was left out in the elements for a decade and now is taking it out on everyone. It lacks the slightest shred of empathy for people that are desperately in need of the social safety net. What is the purpose of cutting Meals on Wheels, or after school programs that provide meals for kids? Like, why the fuck is that a targeted cut, besides that fact that the people getting left in the ditch are people that Trump and his nest of squawking spite-filled shitbirds don’t consider to be equals that deserve any help. What’s wildly unfunny about this whole situation is TRUMP AND RICH MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE HIM GET THE MOST HELP FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND THEY DON’T RECOGNIZE IT. Or if they do recognize it and can do the mental gymnastics to think everything is on the up and up well then I think they are a deserving candidate to have a sinkhole swallow them.

I guess I see what they’re trying to do, which is make a big show about getting rid of the waste in federal spending, but all of these cuts are nothing in the grand scheme. They just make for a good talking point, where they can say "we slashed", well you really didn’t considering the defense budget is like the whole pie chart and you expanded it.

Let’s see, among other cuts is funding for the NYPD, which kind of was Trump’s base. At least police officers in general were big supporters of Trump before he decided he didn’t need them anymore. That one makes no sense to me. Every decision these man babies have made goes counter to logic. But then again, logic is not something they deal in. Maybe they want crime to actually rise as opposed to them lying through their teeth about it rising. Then they can use that actual crime wave as the impetus for more draconian bullshit. 

Why get rid of PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts? SESAME STREET IS AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION. Did Oscar the Grouch big time Trump at a meet and greet or something? LegalAid, Homes for Vets, EPA funding, all of these things are insubstantial parts of government spending and yet they are the ones to get the axe because we are being run by an even more aggressive strain of tactless moronic bozos than usual.

Public education funding in Puerto Rico is being cut by 53%. That is criminal. Everything these people do is criminal, but this is just cold. This cut, among all the things, is a good example of why America as an ideal of democracy is a mirage. We colonized Puerto Rico. We said they were a part of the US, but we never granted them statehood because then they would have equal rights, which is not something the powers that be were interested in. And now their foundation is being laid to waste because America decided the education and well being of Puerto Rican children was not important to American interests. That is some rotten shit.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Live and Let Live

Since mid November, I have been at accomodating a simmering rage that hovers just beneath the surface. Sometimes I wonder why I'm in a bad mood and then I remember, oh right, that whole thing is not going away. I try to understand how things can play out the way they have, and all I can come up with is that the world doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks is right or wrong. If there is a god, it doesn't care. This is probably all very amusing to it. I mean, if you're god why not just sit back and laugh at the dark cosmic joke that is unfolding right now.

White People in America are playing that old 90's R&B standard on loop, "I want it all, or nothing at all." And if they can't have it all, then they might as well drag everyone else to hell with them. WHICH IS INSANE. I know it's a power and control thing but god damn, why do people always want to project their own values onto other people? Particularly people that they don't know and aren't affected by in any way. Why does Betsy Devos feel the need to spread her malicious evangelism to every public school instead of just the ones that her family attends? Can't people be satisfied with living their life the way they want to and letting other people make their own decisions? Why is that such a foreign concept to certain segments of our society?

Hate is such a powerful motivator and I wish it would be directed towards the people that deserve it. Why hate immigrants when the people that actually have taken your jobs are the CEO's that value profit over people? Or if you hate immigrants because they scare you and you think they're up to no good, maybe consider how scared they probably are to be in America, where they have been portrayed as devils only because their set of religions, that are all basically the same as christianity, go by a different name. Why hate the poor for needing assistance when they are born into a system designed to keep them poor? Instead why not hate the people in power that have stacked the deck against poor people from advancing upward?

America seems to be cruising towards a comeuppance of our own making. What makes me angry is that a lot of people at the bottom have had no choice in the matter, but nonetheless will suffer the most.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Shift Back

It’s hard to put it in words, because the change taking place for decades in America has been imperceptible in a day to day sense, but what that change has amounted to is everything shifting to the right. The quickest, broadest explanation to me is that Republicans have been a lot more stubborn and strong-willed about what they want to see happen in America, so they have slowly dragged the conversation and accepted beliefs about what is normal and just out of the center and firmly into the right. Bill, Obama, Hillary, they all were more centrist than leftist in politics and practice. The last president to be a true leftist might have been Jimmy Carter or LBJ. What I’m trying to say is that Democrats have lost a lot of ground in this game of tug o war, and I would kindly ask them to pull it back. When you look at a lot of what Hillary campaigned on, the only truly liberal positions she held were cultural ones, and not even all of her cultural ones were that far left. If you look at how she felt about war or the economy or trade all of her positions could actually be considered pretty close to what Republicans used to espouse not that long ago. Democrats occupy the vacated space that Republicans left when they decided to fully embrace the evangelism of extremely far right insane rich people.

By hook or by crook (by the way, y'all better obstruct the shit out every Trump Supreme Court Nominee) I would like to see Democrats shift back to where they used to ideologically reside. Get back to being pro-labor. Unions are a key component of wealth distribution and critical to the survival of the middle class. Get back to fighting the de-regulation of industry, banks, whomever. Corporations need to be held accountable for their practices. I'm still pissed that Obama didn't prosecute a single banker for the economic collapse 10 years ago. Make environmentalism a hill you're willing to die on, not something that you allude to in speeches but then never actually get around to with legislation. If you aid and abet Republicans in their plans to steal America's public lands and sell it off for short term gains in the energy field, you deserve to get trampled by a herd of bison. Then again, I guess that threat will ring hollow soon enough when their is no more protection of Endangered Species. Get back to being the party of the people, not just giving it lip service. Being in bed with Big Pharma and Wall Street is not how you stick up for the little man. The people who want to believe in Democrats and vote for Democrats have been given too little to show that you actually care. This morally repugnant Trump bullshit is your chance to flex some backbone and reset what the Democrats' priorities will be going forward. Because if y’all don’t and decide to go along with this whole cop out garbage, “what’s the point of obstructing, this is how it’s always been, I don’t want to fight them because it takes more effort and sacrifice" the people that have supported you will definitely abandon your path of least resistance sham excuses and find someone else that is willing to step the fuck up and way to the left.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Sinkhole

For whatever reason, Democrats think that they are still playing a game with rules. That there is still going to be a give and take involved. I’m not sure why. The game ended when Obama took office. Trump and his Gang are not playing around. They have no intention of throwing the Dems a bone or making concessions. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but they are going to push through whoever and whatever they please irregardless of what it looks like to the rest of America and the world. They obviously don’t care. They’re just out here stealing $500 bills out of the monopoly bank willy nilly with no repercussions or push back while Dems are the thimble sitting on GO waiting for a dice roll that is never ever going to happen. Republicans have been waiting for this moment for a long time. They want to break their opposition early and irrevocably. Everything they’ve done so far has been to consolidate their power and control. They don’t plan on giving any of that power and control back. It's going to have to be wrested from them by overwhelming force. They're getting rid of freedom of the press by dropping felonies on journalists covering protests. They're getting rid of peaceful protests by letting police departments sue protesters for the OT hours officers have to work during the demonstrations. They are going to turn America's most prized possession, our majestic public land, into future oil drilling projects and eventual environmental disaster sites. The EPA now has a gag order on talking about climate change or abominable situations like the Flint Water Crisis. I don't even want to start with how fucking dumb and delusional it is to try and build a fucking concrete 30 foot high border wall.

They are turning America into a giant ATM for them and their buddies, an ATM that withdraws directly from America's bank account, while keeping the rest of the country under an authoritarian thumb lest they voice their displeasure of getting robbed blind. Every executive order so far has been horrifying but unsurprising because either Trump or one of his clownishly evil cronies has already said they were going to do this shit. We have brought full blown fascism into America's house. Fascism doesn't just leave on it's own. You have to remove it forcibly and then burn the couch cushions that it sat on. Dems right now think that when they say, “Okay, party is over, it’s been real, see you soon,” that the night ends and these fuckers are going to go on their way. Trump’s Fascism is going to hear that signal to depart, proceed to kick their feet up on the couch, dig their heels in and say, ”Fuck your couch! This is my couch now. And my house. You're actually trespassing right now, cops are on the way. I'm pressing full charges.” They aren’t going to play nice. So don’t play nice with them. We just got 8 years of insane obstructionism from Republicans in Congress. Dems didn't make it a week before caving to Trump’s bullshit. It’s going to be a long grim nightmare for the foreseeable future if the current dynamic between the two parties stays the same because the Dems don’t seem to understand what is happening and is going to keep happening until they stop allowing themselves to be duped and bullied. And if these Dems don’t toughen up then they need to be ousted to get people in there that aren’t scared of fighting fire with fire. And if it comes down to it, as Petey Pablo said, "Fuck the Law, they can't arrest us all."

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

They Know The Way (Into the Abyss)

UPDATE FROM 2/7/17: DeVos got confirmed today. Fucking shameful.

Charter schools are a union busting con job that if given the opportunity will permanently topple an already dizzily teetering American education system. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, has been working tirelessly for decades to push her agenda of charter and private and religious schools being the way forward. Unfortunately that way forward doesn’t do anything to help better the vast majority of students in America.

Charter schools aren’t the solution they’ve been claimed to be. They aren’t better than public schools in measurable statistics or accountability, if they're held to any accountability at all. Charters don’t improve reading rates or math aptitude. They don’t have better teachers (some charters don't even have to hire certified teachers), or better curriculum, or some magic potion that all of the sudden cures our country of the malaise afflicting our nation’s classrooms. What charters do is drain government funding away from already perilously cash strapped public schools in working class and poor neighborhoods. They don’t improve anything besides the bank accounts of the stockholders that have invested in the privatization of our country’s education system. They weaken the teacher’s union, which slowly knocks another leg out from under the working class's ability to fight back against the dynastic wealth that is being built by the greedy few in this country.

America’s future is being mortgaged, and the lien is going to be on the parents and kids that can least afford it. Free public education is the backbone of our society, not an entity that is judged solely through a lense of profits and losses. It is the most important thing our country can do to ensure that the America we want to believe in is still around in 50 years, and that the people that are still around have the knowledge and skills to move our society forward.

Every kid in our country should be able to get a solid education near where they live. Not across town because the school in their neighborhood has been closed after it's funding went to some charter school that has no accountability to provide a quality education to their students. A lot of children are being left behind on purpose, and that will only worsen exponentially as charter schools become the last option left in town.

Instead of declaring that the public education system is irrevocably broken, and unregulated, unaccountable charter schools are the future, we reinvest. Pour money into the system. Pay teachers and support staff more. Fix and upgrade buildings and classroom technology. Offer more after school programs. Our federal government has plenty of money, it just likes giving it to people and companies that's sole driving force in life is to acquire the kind of money where you could conceivably blow up the moon. Maybe give out a few less gazillion dollar defense contracts to the friends of people in the defense department that also just so coincidentally happen to sit on the board of Missile&SubmarineEmporium.

Monday, January 16, 2017

MLK Day


Martin Luther King Jr. was and still is a ray of hope for so many. But it seemed his own hope was eventually diminished by what he saw as many people in America not willing to stand up for what was just because change and seeing the truth can be uncomfortable. If you look at the history of America, this country’s incredible success was built on the backs of slaves, immigrants, and the poor. And that is still the case. It might be through a different mechanism, but the powers that be in the present day are still creating ways to profit off of and domineer the people that deserve the most help in our society. There is a total lack of empathy for the powerless. Old rich white men are the most out of touch, morally bankrupt people in America and yet they are the ones that are deciding that poor people don’t need healthcare, or women don’t need autonomy over their reproductive rights, or black people will get no justice for the viciousness they encounter at every turn. It’s not hard to see that a lot of this is fucked up, and yet there are so many people that don’t care enough to voice their opposition. If it isn’t happening to you, then is it really that big of a deal? That is the line it seems a lot of people draw. People would rather be callous than righteous. It’d be easy to say that America is a great country that can overcome it’s faults. But honestly, no it can’t. It’s faults are so ingrained and deep that a lot of people aren’t capable of even seeing them when they are right in front of their eyes. There are a lot of reasons Trump got elected. From what I can tell, one of the main ones is that hate is a real good motivator. Misplaced hatred though, because the people that the working class should be hateful of is the extremely wealthy. Who benefits the most from every piece of legislation that is coming down the pipe in our government? Rich people. Who is getting screwed? Everyone else. I feel like the only real equality in America is the spiteful disregard the wealthy have for the less fortunate.