Life in the outer darkness

February 27, 2020Audition files, Bible, Get on your feet, Justice, Motivations, Poverty, Squalor, Thursday postsMatthew 22:1-14, McDonald's #2763, Outer darkness, Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Self-love, The Homeless BloggerWilliam Tell

The appointed Gospel text for Sunday was Matthew’s Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22:1-14.

I was struck by verses 11-14 —

¹¹“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, ¹²and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. ¹³Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.”

— in that, last Tuesday at McDonald’s, I’m the one who got thrown into the outer darkness.
Continue reading Life in the outer darkness →

Pinocchio

February 22, 2020Bible, OUR BEST POSTSAcceptance, Accepting feelings, Celibacy, ED, GEICO, Honesty, Marriage, Matthew 19:14, Pinocchio, Religions, SexualityWilliam Tell

“I’m sexy and I know it.” — NOT!

ADVISORY: Lewd.

Ironically, I really like the GEICO Pinocchio commercials.
Continue reading Pinocchio →

“Normal” life goals out of reach – for millions

February 20, 2020Homelessness, National news, Poverty, Thursday postsAlex Hribal, Catherine Rampell, Deon Eugene Warren, Gun control, HuffPost, Marlene Pinnock, Marriage, Millennials, Tattoo, The Homeless Blogger, Trinity GrowersWilliam Tell

Bookmarks:
“Normal” life goals out of reach – for millions • I want this job. • Marketing strategies, part 5 • Farmers unite to combat hunger • Marlene Pinnock follow-up • Alex Hribal update • Stranger murders father breaking up a fight

Continue reading “Normal” life goals out of reach – for millions →

More about the Priestly Source

February 18, 2020BibleDocumentary hypothesis, JEDP, Priestly Source, Writing stylesWilliam Tell

The theory that would become JEDP, began with questions of word use. Why do some passages refer to God as “God,” others as “the LORD,” and others as “Lord GOD?” Why do some passages call Moses’ mountain “Sinai” and others “Horeb?” As one sorts these things out, it becomes clear that each of the four supposed authors is distinctive not just in word use, but also in writing style, interests, beliefs, and even politics. Continue reading More about the Priestly Source →

Podcast — Exonerating Meghan

February 18, 2020Bible, Media, OUR BEST POSTS, Podcast, The William Tell ShowBullying, Documentary hypothesis, Fake news, JEDP, Meghan Markle, Mordochai ben Tziyyon, Piers Morgan, Priestly Source, Projection, The RiflemanWilliam Tell

There is no truth without love.

ADVISORY: This one’s a bit of a downer.

Exonerating Meghan

Elton John, “Candle in the Wind”

Tags: Meghan Markle, Media, Fake news, Bullying, Projection

The second chakra

February 15, 2020Homelessness, MotivationsAphrodisiacs, Auditory learners, BPH, Chakras, Edgar Cayce, Learning styles, Lord's Prayer, Prostate, Prostatitis, Sacral chakra, Second chakra, Sex, TestosteroneWilliam Tell

ADVISORY: Discusses sex.

Tuesday, December 31, my heart got set on a hotel stay. But there was sure to be nothing available that night — New Year’s Eve — and it was infeasible for me to get a room the next night, given the hoops a homeless man must jump through to be inside on New Year’s Day. So I reserved a room for two nights later, Thursday the second. Continue reading The second chakra →

The poop on the stoop

February 13, 2020Qabala, Squalor, Thursday postsBirur nitzotzot, Dunkin' Donuts, Jesus, Maggots, Nitzotz, Poop, The Homeless Blogger, VandalismWilliam Tell

The shelter boots us out at 5:45 a.m. daily. You must take all your belongings with you and cannot come back until 2:30.

Until February 2013, my custom on non-work days was to go to Dunkin’ Donuts to pray, drink coffee and use the bathroom, until the library would open at 10:00 and I could go online. Then the temp agency closed down, and I could no longer afford Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and so began going to McDonald’s instead.

Some days I would arrive at Dunkin’ Donuts before opening. One such morning, I arrived to find a large, neat pile of human feces on the doorstep. It was clearly no accident. Who had left it there, and why, had no bearing on the fact that it was there now.

When staff arrived we opened the door and stepped inside very carefully to avoid any contact between the door and the stool, or our feet and the stool. However, I knew that if nothing were done about it, eventually, inevitably, customers who could not take the time to be as observant and careful would step in it and begin tracking it through the store.
Continue reading The poop on the stoop →

Dreaming of my own place

February 8, 2020Get on your feet, Homelessness, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTSBlackness, Housing First, Housing search, Kinesthetics, Law of Attraction, Lexington Market, Obscenities, Public housing, Rapid rehousing, Self-love, White flightWilliam Tell

Some of them act so much like people act
in the places I won’t go.

Continue reading Dreaming of my own place →

Where trees thrive, people thrive

February 6, 2020Squalor, Thursday postsArrested development, Evangelism, Indulgence, McDonald's #2763, Our Daily Bread, The Homeless Blogger, Tikkun, Tohu, VandalismWilliam Tell

This thinking goes back to 1973.

I was a senior in high school, running an errand in the family car. I must have been listening to WKSU. This 5- or 15-minute segment came on. A female spokesperson for the ACLU said that, under the compulsory school attendance law, a minor can only be in one of two places: a school, or a penal facility. In her view there was no real difference.

I was an honors student and deeply convicted that education is the answer to poverty. Thus her remarks left me incensed. More than that, whereas I’ve never been a conservative, it seemed to me that the ACLU and other, like-minded movements were bent on destroying all order in society. The family unit was under attack. Marriage was under attack. The schools were under attack. Change for its own sake, which seemed to be what these people were after, isn’t good. Nothing can be built on a foundation of chaos. A child needs to root oneself in earth that will be in the same place today as tomorrow. A tree can’t grow in quicksand.

Continue reading Where trees thrive, people thrive →

My own experience with “ban the box”

February 1, 2020Clippings, Job search/Job prospects, Justice, Local news, OUR BEST POSTSBan the BoxWilliam Tell

Md. Lawmakers Overturn Hogan’s ‘Ban The Box’ Veto

From a previous post:

This affects me.

In August ’10 I became the first member of my family in three generations ever to be arrested, let alone jailed. It was the only time I have ever been arrested. I was locked up for 40 days before being sentenced to “time served” on one misdemeanor charge. I have no other convictions.

In the months following, I applied to all kinds of jobs, including at each of the half dozen major hospitals located in downtown Baltimore. I was applying for secretarial jobs, janitorial jobs, groundskeeping — anything I could possibly do, as remains so today.

Each of those hospitals has its own online application system, and they’re all very similar, so I don’t recall which specific hospital this story involves. You enter a “profile” into their database, that includes all your employment information, history, references, etc.; this takes 90 minutes to two hours. That information is kept in their database, and thereafter you can apply to any job listing with just a handful of clicks. You can also access a listing of the jobs you’ve applied to, and each application’s status.

One Saturday I was at the public library submitting applications online. Click, click, click, submit. Check out the next listing; decide “go” or “no go;” click, click, submit. I did a bunch of those, and then went to check the list of applications’ status.

A number of the applications I’d submitted in the previous half hour had already been turned down.

I really don’t think anyone was working in the HR office on a Saturday screening applications. Clearly, they had some automatic software set up to pre-screen applications and reject anyone who admitted a criminal record.

The question is whether reformed criminals can find honest work.

Subsequent post: My record cannot be expunged..