Posted on 11/21/2004 1:33:34 PM PST by rface
Maybe he's so tied to ideology that he can't bring himself to admit that the economy is bad and people are hurting.
Or maybe it was just the OxyContin talking.
Wendy Glick sees life in circles. Circles that link every human being. Circles that surround and protect. Circles that mark our paths through life sometimes.
Even the social circles we move in.
"You know what you live," says Glick, director of The Lord's Diner downtown, meaning people too often observe the world in all of its breadth from inside their own insular world.
That's why she seemed so patient in her response to radio rube Rush Limbaugh, who recently implied that some of the people waiting in those long lines every night at The Lord's Diner didn't really need the free meal the diner provides.
Reading an Eagle report, Limbaugh mocked Glick, who had said that new families showing up for help looked uncomfortable.
"They're wondering if they're going to get away with it, Wendy!" Limbaugh said on air.
Rush could learn a thing or two from Glick.
"First of all," Glick says, "I think it's awesome that Rush Limbaugh reads The Wichita Eagle. But The Lord's Diner is here to serve, not to judge."
People have more than one kind of hunger, she said. People hunger for fellowship as well as food. Some people come to the diner terribly lonely and hungry, and they get nourished in the way they need to be nourished.
Maybe Limbaugh found himself scrambling for program material and thought the diner an easy target.
Maybe he's so tied to ideology that he can't bring himself to admit that the economy is bad and people are hurting.
Or maybe it was just the OxyContin talking.
That last comment might seem like a cheap shot. Limbaugh admitted on his radio program last year that he'd been addicted to the painkiller since an unsuccessful back surgery and later hired lawyers to keep his medical records sealed.
But a rich talk radio host bashing poor people who can't afford lawyers to hide their pharmacological peccadilloes is pretty doggone sorry, too.
As I said, he could learn a lot from Glick, who, a few years ago, began living a larger life.
After selling off her Skate East and Skate South businesses, and as she says, doing the stay-at-home-mom thing, Glick felt her faith pulling her into volunteering for Catholic Charities, which serves the poor.
There, she formed her own part of the circle with people outside her usual orbit.
And they notice when she's styled her hair differently and they think enough of her to tell her. They smile and thank her constantly. They see fatigue in her eyes and encourage her to please go home and rest.
She said, having been tucked away in an east-side community, she had no idea of the need in our community. "If you don't live it, you just don't know it," she said. "Just a lack of knowledge."
Now she's so in tune that she can watch a family standing in the food line and tell they are there for the first time because they don't know the procedure. They're holding documents that other charities require before helping anyone. But The Lord's Diner requires no such documents. All you have to do is sign in.
And as welcoming as the staff at the diner tries to be, it still can be very humbling to stand in line for food, Glick said.
"I just wish that he (Limbaugh) could make statements with more knowledge," she said, adding that she'd gotten a contribution Wednesday in his honor. "I invite anyone who'd like to see The Lord's Diner to come on down for dinner."
I think Rush should visit and live something he doesn't know.
He should stand in line with the people for whom The Lord's Diner exists as the most benevolent of blessings. Sit with them and tell them that they're freeloaders. Step out of his glass-encased recording booth into a new, larger world.
One that begins and ends with individuals, people to whom we're all linked.
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Reach Mark McCormick at 268-6549 or mmccormick@wichitaeagle.com.
She's so involved in circles, she's going around in one. It's one thing to feed the hungry, it's another to feed a person's reason to not be a responsible citizen or even a visitor to this nation.
2 Thess 3:10 says: "For even when we (Paul and his entourage) were with you, we commmanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat".
Please read this, Ms. McCormick. These conservative pundits have a long history of attacking do-gooders who feed spongers: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/580838/posts
Don't you know that the DJIA doesn't matter much to someone living on the street? /sarcasm
Because their "piety" is actually altruism. C.f. "The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand. It's a short, short hop from acting charitably to looking down on those that aren't acting charitably, and another short hop to feeling entitled to FORCE them to contribute to your charity.
Sounds like another immature attempt at Rush. Yes even Red Kansas has it's far left liberals.
I don't recall Rush defending himself using a "Sensible Drug Policy" argument. He has stated that he did wrong and he has taken his lumps. His argument about his drug addiction problem has been that there are laws concerning "Right to Privacy" issues that are being Selectivly Ignored in order to persecute/prosecute Limbaugh
when did Rush make these comments?
For many years, my husband and I rented a building to a ministry that provided "homeless" housing and ran a free meals program. It was very evident that for every truly needy person, there were a dozen lazy, drunken, or drugged up freeloaders. Instead of helping them, it just enabled to support their chosen lifestyles. Most "homeless" are that way by choice. They choose not to work, be responsible, and fulfill their obligations. Rush is right!
Oh, please. These are multi-millionaires. It's like me giving a penny to charity and work A COUPLE HOURS at a charity function and then have the press broadcast their "good works" to the public which they made sure they would be headline news. It's a publicity stunt, and I'm sure that if I gave the same percentage of my wages to charity as they do, and work a couple hours as a publicity stunt so that my name hit the headlines, I would be branded a "slime ball". Well, if your rich and famous, you're not a slimeball, you're kind, generous, charitable, and a humanitarian. It's a matter of who and how famous you are that makes the difference.
????
Precisely! The law of supply and demand. If it's free the demand is created.
The liberals do not understand the FREE MARKET. They do understand COMMUNES.
Ergo - liberals are communists. No two ways about it.
"One that begins and ends with individuals, people to whom we're all linked."
So, how is this writer "linked" to Rush Limbaugh? How is he showing his empathy to Rush as an "individual"? How is he being a "blessing"? The courts in California recently ruled that "Catholic" Charities is not even a religious organization. The audacity of calling misguided human "work" the "Lord's Diner" is beyond outrageous. This is strictly feel-good puffery, expounded upon by a pompous and bitter buffoon.
"He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain people shall have poverty enough." Proverbs 28:19
Marky's just feeling a little lonely....a bluey living in a deeply red state.
Leviticus 19:
14 Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD.
15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
16 Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour; I am the LORD.
I heard the show referenced in the article.
IIRC, Rush's point was that there are people
who need help, but not freebies.
Freebies attract all sorts of people who are
not in need of help.
To help these folks, teach them how to help themselves.
This woman's heart is in the right place,
but she surely does have an ugly mouth.
I heard the Limbaugh show that day. He was reading/commenting on the article in the paper.
Sorry..Ms Glick...I have to agree with Rush. There ARE
lots of people who take advantage of soup kitchens, Church
Charity Furniture/clothing stores (give aways) and Overnight Sleepovers. I know because I work for the PADS organization at our Church, and the wife does the laundry the next day for all the people who show up. They get a dinner meal, a bed with fresh sheets made up for them (maid
service), a chance for a shower (most don't take it, many don't even brush their teeth in the a.m.) and after a night's sleep away from the weather outside, they get breakfast before being put on a bus and driven back to their point of origin about 8 miles away. Some of them live "on the streets." Others have housing of some kind, maybe the family car.
We see mostly the same faces every week, Moms, Dads, kids.
I happen to have seen a couple of those same faces playing
Bingo in a different town. Once I found a family that had spent a night with us buying a nice meal in a restaurant. I've seen one or two in the grocery store buying food and cigarettes with government stamps. And I've seen some coming out of a liquor store with groery bags of booze. Don't know where they get the money. We don't furnish money. Our program is all voluntary. People in our Church figure we're involved in the Faith Based Project President Bush advocated.
That's not to say there are folks out there who are truly
down and out on their luck; have even given up hope perhaps. But there are the free-loaders, too. Like Ms.
Glick, we wouldn't think of embarrassing any of them. But
they know they're cheating. And I think their kids do, too.
fyi - Mark McCormick is non-caucasian.
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