{"id":563,"date":"2010-12-25T20:58:17","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T20:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=563"},"modified":"2010-12-25T20:58:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-25T20:58:17","slug":"merry-christmas-johnny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"“Merry Christmas Johnny”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Christmas… \u00a0 In between campaign tours, we’re volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta this winter, an outreach to the homeless here. \u00a0 (They take homeless people in here, but we are currently full.) \u00a0 This morning while making my rounds outside, I came across someone who is somewhat of a regular here. \u00a0 He slept outside last night under two threadbare blankets. \u00a0 The temperature was in the lower 30s. \u00a0 “Johnny” is a thin, Black man who appears to be in his late 40s. \u00a0 He has a mental disorder and has been on the streets since, well, anyone can remember. \u00a0 He’s fallen through the cracks, as have many down here. \u00a0 Along with a “merry Christmas Johnny,” I gave him a hot cup of coffee, a couple sandwiches and $5 for cigarettes. \u00a0 But what he really<\/em> \u00a0 needs is extensive counseling in a quality in-patient, mental health facility, some nutritious food, a support network… \u00a0 And that could actually happen for Johnny — if so many of us in this country lost the satellite radios, the wide screen TVs, the air-conditioning… \u00a0 But sadly, we go on pampering ourselves and in turn saying quite literally to the “Johnny’s” of the world: \u00a0 “Sorry, there’s no room at the inn.” \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 In this same vein, President Obama and his family are on an 11-day vacation at a million dollar beach house in Hawaii where, the press reports, they’ll have steak tonight. \u00a0 ‘Change we can believe in?’<\/em> \u00a0 President Bush would go to a set of multi-million dollar family summer homes on an ocean island off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine, for some of his vacations. \u00a0 Where, I’m sure, he also had steak for dinner. \u00a0 Incidentally, “Johnny” — if he’s lucky — will have a cold bologna sandwich for dinner tonight on his way to searching out another back alley to sleep in. \u00a0 Isn’t it time to stop the insanity in this country? \u00a0 And I’m not talking about “Johnny’s” mental disorder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Christmas… \u00a0 In between campaign tours, we’re volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta this winter, an outreach to the homeless here. \u00a0 (They take homeless people in here, but we are currently full.) \u00a0 This morning while …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}