Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 10, 2023

Another band name: Dr. Why and The Spare Constants.

Yeah. If the spare change guy isn’t careful, he’ll be handed a change of location.

There is another constant and that is lack of change, especially for the poor and homeless!

Didn’t someone say that – Change is Good?!? Dunno, maybe i might have misheard it.

Deep theme there… Underlying reality is that technology has crossed a new milestone. Now the corporate cancers can automate any worker. Any skill that can be clearly defined can be done better with a suitably programmed computer. For example chess or rewriting. The only hitch is that it has to be profitable, so that means they will start with the most expensive workers, replacing them with cheaper AI workers. And it doesn’t matter how good you are at learning new skills. Any better paid skill will only be a bigger target for replacement.

Can you believe there’s a solution approach? Just joking. I’m fully convinced “There’s no way to get there from here.”

Not according to weird newscaster Colin Mochrie: “Our top story tonight, A man is still in critical condition after swallowing $250,000 in large bills. No change is expected.”

One other constant: ever increasing wealth inequality.

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Not that it has any real world effects though:

Like growing levels of poverty and homelessness and the crime that results from those.

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Republicans, of course, are happy — it gives them another issue to weaponize and LIE about, and make people afraid.

Yes, we need BIG change.

The fastest way to become an orphan is to become homeless – no matter how many people you’re related to, none of them wants to know you. That’s also a constant.

This is known as an ‘oxymoron’ – until you turn the corner.

My favorite witty counter tip jar label is “Afraid of change? Put it here.”

they’re good at marketing

Another day at the corner of Acumen and Indigence.

thanks to COVID, nobody has any change, it is all electronic

When was the last time you actually had coins in your pocket?

Heraclitus. You can’t step in the same river twice.

Amazingly one of the richest nations in the world claims to be Christian yet spends oh so much money on war and also heavy duty weaponry for police yet lets people starve and go homeless and if not die of disease lets them be financially devastated for life if they become ill. “Human interest stories” about high school children building specialized (or any other for that matter) wheelchairs for their classmates because they could not otherwise have one should bring us great shame because that is how much our country fails to care for the least of us – remember where you saw that phrase oh great Christian Nation?

To a coin collector, change is the only constant!

Know how to avoid change?Never break a dollar!

Give to the charity of your choice. (Don’t wait for the government to start a “program” and skim 50% off the top for ‘administration’.Donate unused items to charities like the DAV, Habitat For Humanity Restore, (Never “Goodwill”)

Never look down on others for their choices to help/not help, etc. You just make yourself into a judgmental anal orifice.

Give to the charity of your choice! Don’t wait for the government to take your money, skim 50% for overhead, and then study binge drinking in Chinese prostitutes.

Avoid ‘charities’ where the head makes a 6 figure salary and perks like Red Cross, Goodwill (which NEVER gives anything back), March of Dimes, etc.

Donate used goods to Disabled American Vets or Habitat Restore or Salvation Army.

Do your research and give what you can when YOU want to.

Does anyone here still carry change? I’m a curmudgeon, and even I don’t anymore.

They can’t feed their kids, but they can feed their dogs.

Too true. A bit of a punch in the heart for me.

Nice one.

The stereotypical picture of a homeless person is a scruffy male bum on the street.

Some of us judge this person as a drug addict, wino, mentally “retarded,” too lazy to work for a living, or having some other “moral inferiority.” We don’t like seeing them on “our” streets. Why can’t the police move them someplace where we don’t have to look at them. They are an eyesore to downtown and the neighborhood. We don’t make eye contact.

We don’t like to think of women and children and entire families as homeless.

It’s incomprehensible to me that we have $22M for a missile to shoot down a balloon… and there are hungry, homeless people in the US. Our priorities are upside down.

Please help that struggling family!

Just give him some bitcoins then.

Reminds me of a homeless guy I knew in SF. “Bill” always stood in front of Walgreens wearing a dress and talking to himself. I always helped him out. He seemed intelligent and very kind. I still wonder what happened to him

congratulations to the Swamp…after decades and trillions of laundered poverty prevention dollars the War on Poverty and The Great Society Energizer Bunnies keep going and going and going…

Maybe this is a repeat but today I know a lot of people don’t carry change in their pockets.

In India there’s a small cottage industry that puts out eyes and cuts off hands and feet of small children to make them more effective beggars. It hasn’t (yet, at least) come to that in the USA, but if you’d like to test the sincerity of anyone asking you for a handout on a street corner, carry a little business card with the address of the local social-services office and hand them that instead.

Does that seem cruel? Does that seem heartless? No, it’s a reliable way of making sure that a systematic method of helping people who are truly in need is getting the money you actually want to devote to them. As it is, chances are probably better than 50/50 that you’re supporting somebody’s drug habit or abusive relationship.

The women’s group (CCW) at our church makes “compassion bags” of snacks and grooming essentials to pass out from your car to people at traffic lights.

I never carry change anymore because change is always with me.

Change must come from within.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

So utterly shameful that there are hungry homeless people in this country.

You change it, I’m not touching that.

Powerful strip, Wiley. Big thanks.

Here is to a Pulitzer for this cartoon

The poor ye have with you always.