Complain less...

The media's reporting about poverty is misleading too. It's true that the official poverty rate has risen lately. Some people do line up at food banks. But what Americans call poverty is totally different from what it's meant through most of history. A "poor" man at a food bank told me he had "the normal things": cable TV, a microwave -- the "normal things" that not even rich people used to have.

Andy, why don't you stop into the Bethesda Center on Patterson Ave. one morning and ask those guys if they have cable.

Do you think the Connor's that lived on 66 across from my grandparents had cable tv? Oh yeah. They didn't have electricity! That's right.

Sure, we're always going to have those folks who live in a trailer and drive a Hummer and have the huge satellite dish in the front yard. But I don't believe that's considered true "poverty".