Newt Gingrich said today that black folks should choose a pay check over food stamps.  How this is limited to black folks is something only Newt could explain.  I hope for his sake that he does.

I don’t use food stamps.  I live alone, and I stocked up on emergency food boxes while I was still working regularly.  I would use a paycheck, once I get one of the jobs for which I have applied.  I’m not black, but again, how that matters is something only Newt could explain.

He also was quoted as saying that, if he went to any given neighbourhood in America and polled the residents, a majority would choose food stamps over a paycheck.  Really?  I see lots of people going into work, every day.  8.7 % of  working-age Arizonans are unemployed.  That means at least a majority of working-age  Arizonans are working.  The rest are off the grid, or like me, semi-retired and still willing to work.  I don’t know what percentage of Arizonans are black, and I really don’t care.  People are people.

I am getting some money from SSDI each month.  If I get a job that pays over the maximum that SSDI allows, I’ll give up that benefit.  It’s not the end of the world.   Fair is fair.

It was not fair that I was let go by a social service agency three years ago this May, because  the director was uncomfortable with my having a disabled wife, and thought I wasn’t bringing in enough money to the agency.  I cringe that those people are still allowed to present themselves as “mental health professionals”.  Life went on anyway, and guess what, Don and Dave, I’m still here.  I will continue to work with children,  because that’s where my heart is.

Lots of things are unfair in this life, as JFK once said.  The course of Newt Gingrich’s campaign from here on may strike him as unfair, but let’s see him spend just 48 hours being told he’s too old, too ethnic, wrong gender, overqualified, underqualified, wrong background, wrong personality.  The voters of New Hampshire may just tell those very things, next Tuesday.