Mile 0.1

.1 miles – Michael – It took a little less than 500 feet to move from an icon of Salt Lake City to a scene that generally gets ignored by many of the city’s residents. It is interesting to me how often people associate panhandling with fraud and deceit. I am certainly willing to concede that there may be a great deal of fraud being perpetrated by the city’s panhandling population, but what is so interesting to me is how upset and insulted many people get about panhandling fraud. We fully expect and tolerate dishonesty and deceit from our politicians, lawyers, bankers, brokers and car salesmen but damn it we are going to draw the line at someone asking us for a buck when he or she doesn’t really need it.

June 1, 2009 – “As GM goes, so goes the nation.”  GM declared chapter 11 bankruptcy today. Apparently Rick Wagoner (the former CEO of General Motors) panhandling the federal government and receiving billions of tax payers’ dollars just wasn’t enough to save the sinking ship.