Last year or year before, an FM radio station in El Paso drove around asking all the beggars (PC 1990's invented name = "homeless") how much they would collect in a day. Now, these guys and gals were the ones you see at major intersections and if you drive by there enough, you see the same ones everyday. Oh they may swap intersections once in a while for a change of scenery. In other words, they're not really transients, just permanent beggars. They have the usual array of cardboard signs.... everyone already knows what they say.

Know what their average daily income is? Ready? $37.00

Now, at first glance someone may be tempted to say "Well, that's not very much". But reason and logic says otherwise. It's $37.00 too much for doing nothing all day. A friend said to me "Yea, but these guys stand around in the sun all day long, that aint easy". .... as if standing around in the sun should somehow be compensated for! (I hear Karl Marx applauding in the background) I asked him how much he would earn if he stood around in his frontyard all day.

Know how much the highest "wage earner" averaged every day? (by his own account, understand) $70.00 (note the use of the word "averaged")

Where do these guys live? Under their favorite I-10 overpass; in the desert; in a breezeway or leeward corner of your local closed-down Target store; in city parks; at a tax-funded "shelter"; etc.

This is El Paso. One of the lowest-wage large cities in America. Let's see here.... minimum wage about $7 or so....times 8 hours....hmmmm.... $56 for someone willing to do something productive.

Where does the money go? Who knows. Beer? Wine? Wild Turkey? A new pair of used sneakers from the Salvation Army?

I still don;t know why I give them anything. I suppose it's just hard to look a guy straight in the eyes and not feel some compassion. If nothing else, then maybe for the 3-legged dog they all seem to have one or more of.

Ever notice none of them ever have cats? Cats are just too smart for that. They choose the good life.

Whatever leads these people to their situation is irrelevant. Just as it is irrelevant to consider any criminal's past (childhood experiences, etc) when considering guilt or innocence for comitting a crime. But it seems to me that they are definitely, each one of them, mentally afflicted with something, or they wouldn;t be living the way they do. It's a choice they've made. They consciously choose to live this way, whatever mental affliction guides their conscience.