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Main question Would it be better to be homeless or a serf?

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Main question Would it be better to be homeless or a serf?

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It was easier to be a homeless person because they quality of life is higher. They have better clothing to keep warm in the cold. Usually warm place like a shelter to go in the winter. people are more concerned about homlessness and also public awareness about homeless people and how people can help.

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They both have a low quality of life, limited amount of food, more

prone to disease, rarely have education and personal hygene was

very poor.

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They have no shelter. Homeless people are prone to getting disease. Don't have anyone to get help from. When its cold there at risk of getting frost bite and hypothermia.

Resource: homeless and hopeless... what are the danger:

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they were treated bad because

had a low quality of life. They were

poor and would bag. they sometimes

weren't able to pay their taxes. They were

under slave law.

Recourse: Life of a Peasant

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they were plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting

caring for animals, cooked meals, wove cloth,

and made clothes.

Resource: textbook page 152

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A woman was found dead in a tent Wednesday afternoon underneath the Pontchartrain Expressway overpass at the edge of New Orleans' Central Business District, after a night so cold that area homeless advocates were out trying to get as many people indoors as possible.

Police and paramedics discovered the woman's body around 2 p.m. still in a blue tent near the overpass onramp by LaSalle Street, said three men who said they stayed the frigid night in tents nearby. The woman was middle-aged, they said, and while they didn't know how or when she died, it must have been overnight, because they did not see her all day until authorities arrived, they said.

John Gagliano, chief investigator for the coroner's office, confirmed that the woman was found dead in the tent there, but said her cause of death will remain unknown until an autopsy scheduled for Thursday, Gagliano said. Her name is not being released yet either, he said.

Officials at the New Orleans Mission said Wednesday afternoon they had heard of the woman's death, but that she wasn't a client of theirs. Mission workers conducted a sweep Tuesday night to bring in anyone cold on the streets, said Will Johnson, director of security, but homeless people who live in tents are often difficult to convince to come inside.

"They usually stay where they're at," Johnson said. "Usually the people that come are the people who are out on the ground. The people in the tent usually don't come no matter how cold it gets."

Temperatures dropped to near record lows in the mid-20s overnight, but the man whose green tent under the overpass was nearest the dead woman's said he chose not to go to a shelter, despite the weather.

"I got blankets and a sleeping bag, you know," he said, declining to share his name with a reporter. "You learn to adapt if you take care of yourself. You've got to adapt to what the situation is."

News of the woman's death had already reached the little yellow corner store at Simon Bolivar and Clio where she was known to sit on an upturned milk crate nearly every day, laughing and joking around. Richard Dowling, a customer at the store, said it was actually her friends from that corner who first discovered her body - they were surprised she didn't show up Wednesday, and when they walked up to her tent, found her unresponsive.

"She used to sit right over there," he said, pointing to a thin black milk crate still on its side. "Right over there. I think that's her seat right there. She would sit every day on that seat, right there."

With that, Dowling headed off down the street, hunching his shoulders against another cold night ahead in New Orleans.

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Woman found dead in tent under Pontchartrain Expressway overpass after freezing night

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A woman was found dead in a tent Wednesday afternoon underneath the Pontchartrain Expressway overpass at the edge of New Orleans' Central Business District, after a night so cold that area homeless advocates were out trying to get as many people indoors as possible. Police and paramedics discovered the woman's body around 2 p.m.

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Written by Tim Nash

When we enjoy entertainment or festivals that celebrate medieval life and times, it is the life of royalty, traveling bards, monks of knights that are most often the focus of our attention. Few of us would want to celebrate the lives of peasants and surfs during the middle ages. There is good reason for that. There was little to celebrate about the harsh life poor people endured during this time in history.

For the poor, the dark ages really did not end in the way that it did for wealthy landowners, merchants and high ranking clergy during medieval times. It is not an exaggeration that the life of peasants was a constant struggle to survive. That struggle meant a daily life of hard work, harsh taxes and a lifestyle that was filthy and full of dangers of all kinds for themselves and for their families.

Because peasants were the very bottom rung of medieval society, they were under the harsh authority of just about every other rung of society. They had to work the land of the Lord who owned it and then pay rent for working and living on that land as well. Peasants were required to swear an oath of allegiance to their Lord and to violate that Lord would bring harsh if not fatal punishments. To fulfill that oath, peasants had to do just about every kind if difficult manual labor imaginable including plowing the fields, planting and caring for crops, harvesting corn and other produce, storing it in barns and cutting and storing wood for the winter for themselves and the Lords who owned the land they lived on.

The level that those in power exploited the peasant class during medieval times was truly appalling. In addition to coping with staggering poverty, peasants had to pay stiff taxes to their Lord and to the church in the form of the "tithe". Often peasants had no money for their tithes so they paid them in the form of the produce they grew on the land they rented from their Lords. The Catholic Church realized such huge returns on the tithes from the peasant class that they had to build massive barns to hold all of the product that the peasants paid in.

Daily life for peasants was a constant struggle for the basics of health, water and comfort. Their houses were called "crunk houses" and they were made of very basic materials such as straw, mud and manure. There was no glass or wood for doors and windows so those openings were covered with curtains which meant that the house was cold in the winter or stiflingly hot in the summertime.

Furniture was a luxury for a peasant family so life took place on the floor. There were no toilets so usually a single bucket was used that was emptied each morning into the nearest stream or river. If the family owned animals, they were brought into the house at night as well. It was too dangerous to leave the animals outside at night as they could be stolen or killed by wild beasts that roamed the countryside without restriction.

This lifestyle was filthy and uncomfortable at the least. Water was a tremendous premium so usually a small amount was carried to the home once a day and it was used for cooking or any cleaning that needed to be done. Water was retrieved from the same river or stream that the refuse was emptied into the previous morning. And since everyone in the village had the same habits, the likelihood that the family drinking water was contaminated was high. Peasants had no resources for bathing or maintaining the minimum of what we currently consider to be hygiene, which meant that disease and death were rampant.

Small wonder that few movies or medieval fairs focus on the lives of peasants during medieval times. But it is good to take a few moments to realize that life during the highly romanticized medieval period was neither romantic nor luxurious for the majority of the populations of that era.

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Because peasants were the very bottom rung of medieval society, they were under the harsh authority of just about every other rung of society. They had to work the land of the Lord who owned it and then pay rent for working and living on that land as well.

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Homeless and hopeless...what are the dangers?

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Homeless and hopeless...what are the dangers?

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5 Winter Dangers Facing the Homeless

It's Monday afternoon. Last night the temperature dipped to minus eight-a minor cold snap. Joseph is sitting on a ledge by the LivingBridge, an urban garden located atop an abandoned rail bridge in downtown Edmonton. He's shivering slightly but the sun is creeping up over the Brownlee Building, and around us the frost is loosening its grip on the brown perennials.

For most of us these first fingers of frost are a reminder that winter is approaching. We retrieve coats and gloves from the back of closets, suddenly remember to call the garage to swap out summer tires for winter ones, and, perhaps reluctantly, cast our minds forward to the flurry of holiday tasks ahead; not always recalling that with the descent of winter, the problem of homelessness becomes more urgent.

Joseph slept outside last night, but will, if it stays cold, head to Hope Mission for shelter tonight. He pulls at the fabric of his jacket and says he'll need a heavier coat for the winter, and some gloves.

For homeless people, frostbite is winter's number one hazard. Most common is frostbite of hands or feet-from superficial to deep. Not unheard of, because of muddled judgment from intoxicants or mental illness, are frostbite-related amputations.

Second is the danger of illness associated with cold weather. The cold lowers immunity and thickens blood, increasing the risk of everything from infection to heart attack.

Thirdly, prolonged exposure causes hypothermia and can result in death. Every year, across Canada, some 80 people die of exposure. The core temperature at which a body expires varies widely from person to person. But in general, men are more prone to freezing than women, as are the lean and well-muscled; but those most prone are the ill-prepared homeless.

Joseph says he sometimes worries about freezing to death. But when I ask him what the worst thing is about being homeless in the winter, he says, "Depression."

Weather affects our mental state. No surprise. Science bears this out. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a well-documented form of depression that can strike healthy people. But consider the exponential burden that short and frigid days places upon homelessness people. Physiologically, a cooling core temperature renders enzymes in the brain less effective, causing mental lethargy. For the emotionally tormented, cold can collapse the instinct for self-preservation.

If depression is the fourth danger, the fifth-a clearly related yet distinct danger-is loneliness. Homelessness by definition is the state of being without the support of family. And at no other time of year is the pang of isolation felt more intensely than during the Christmas season.

Hope Mission is preparing for the coming winter months. With your help these dangers can be overcome through the simple act of sharing of a hot nutritious meal-fuel for body, sown hope for the soul.

Thank you for considering our homeless neighbours this winter.

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5 Winter Dangers Facing the Homeless | Hope Mission

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It's Monday afternoon. Last night the temperature dipped to minus eight-a minor cold snap. Joseph is sitting on a ledge by the LivingBridge, an urban garden located atop an abandoned rail bridge in downtown Edmonton. He's shivering slightly but the sun is creeping up over the Brownlee Building, and around us the frost is loosening its grip on the brown perennials.

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Citation: C N Trueman "The Lifestyle of Medieval Peasants"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 5 Mar 2015. 14 Apr 2018.

The lifestyle of peasants in Medieval England was extremely hard and harsh. Many worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming year. Certain jobs had to be done at certain times of the year. Their lives were harsh but there were few rebellions due to a harsh system of law and order.

Ploughing - a vital farm job

The peasants were at the bottom of the Feudal System and had to obey their local lord to whom they had sworn an oath of obedience on the Bible. Because they had sworn an oath to their lord, it was taken for granted that they had sworn a similar oath to the duke, earl or baron who owned that lord's property.

The position of the peasant was made clear by Jean Froissart when he wrote:

It is the custom in England, as with other countries, for the nobility to have great power over the common people, who are serfs. This means that they are bound by law and custom to plough the field of their masters, harvest the corn, gather it into barns, and thresh and winnow the grain; they must also mow and carry home the hay, cut and collect wood, and perform all manner of tasks of this kind. Written in 1395

The one thing the peasant had to do in Medieval England was to pay out money in taxes or rent. He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had to pay a tax to the church called a tithe. This was a tax on all of the farm produce he had produced in that year. A tithe was 10% of the value of what he had farmed. This may not seem a lot but it could make or break a peasant's family. A peasant could pay in cash or in kind - seeds, equipment etc. Either ways, tithes were a deeply unpopular tax. The church collected so much produce from this tax, that it had to be stored in huge tithe barns. Some of these barns can still be seen today. There is a very large one in Maidstone, Kent, which now has a collection of carriages in it.

Peasants also had to work for free on church land. This was highly inconvenient as this time could have been used by the peasant to work on their own land. However, the power of the church was such that no-one dared break this rule as they had been taught from a very early age that God would see their sins and punish them.

The Domesday Book meant that the king knew how much tax you owed and you could not argue with this - hence why it brought 'doom and gloom' to people.

After you had paid your taxes, you could keep what was left - which would not be a great deal. If you had to give away seeds for the next growing season, this could be especially hard as you might end up with not having enough to grow let alone to feed yourself.

Peasants lived in cruck houses. These had a wooden frame onto which was plastered wattle and daub. This was a mixture of mud, straw and manure. The straw added insulation to the wall while the manure was considered good for binding the whole mixture together and giving it strength. The mixture was left to dry in the sun and formed what was a strong building material.
What a cruck house may have looked like - minus the wattle and daub
Cruck houses were not big but repairs were quite cheap and easy to do. The roofs were thatched. There would be little furniture within the cruck houses and straw would be used for lining the floor. The houses are likely to have been very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Windows were just holes in the walls as glass was very expensive. Doors might be covered with a curtain rather than having a door as good wood could be expensive

At night, any animal you owned would be brought inside for safety. There were a number of reasons for this.

First, wild animals roamed the countryside. England still had wolves and bears in the forests and these could easily have taken a pig, cow or chickens. The loss of any animal could be a disaster but the loss of valuable animals such as an ox would be a calamity.

If left outside at night they could also have been stolen or simply have wandered off. If they were inside your house, none of these would happen and they were safe. However, they must have made the house even more dirty than it usually would have been as none of these animals would have been house-trained. They would have also brought in fleas and flies etc. increasing the unhygienic nature of the house.

The houses would have had none of the things we accept as normal today - no running water, no toilets, no baths and washing basins. Soap was unheard of and as was shampoo. People would have been covered with dirt, fleas and lice. Beds were simply straw stuffed mattresses and these would have attracted lice, fleas and all types of bugs. Your toilet would have been a bucket which would have been emptied into the nearest river at the start of the day.

Water had a number of purposes for peasants - cooking, washing etc. Unfortunately, the water usually came from the same source. A local river, stream or well provided a village with water but this water source was also used as a way of getting rid of your waste at the start of the day. It was usually the job of a wife to collect water first thing in the morning. Water was collected in wooden buckets. Villages that had access to a well could simply wind up their water from the well itself.

Towns needed a larger water supply. Water could be brought into a town using a series of ditches; lead pipes could also be used. Water in a town would come out of conduit which was similar to a modern day fountain.

Bathing was a rarity even for the rich. A rich person might have a bath just several times a year but to make life easier, several people might use the water before it was got rid of!

It was said that a peasant could expect to be fully bathed just twice in their life; once, when they were born and when they had died! Face and hand washing was more common but knowledge of hygiene was non-existent. No-one knew that germs could be spread by dirty hands.

London had a number of public baths near the River Thames. These were called " stews ". Several people at one time would bath in them. However, as people had to take off what clothes they wore, the stews also attracted thieves who would steal what they could when the victims were hardly in a position to run after them!

Regardless of how water was acquired, there was a very real potential that it could be contaminated as toilet waste was continuously thrown into rivers which would make its way into a water source somewhere.

Families would have cooked and slept in the same room. Children would have slept in a loft if the cruck house was big enough.

The lives of peasant children would have been very different to today. They would not have attended school for a start. Very many would have died before they were six months old as disease would have been very common. As soon as was possible, children joined their parents working on the land. They could not do any major physical work but they could clear stones off the land - which might damage farming tools - and they could be used to chase birds away during the time when seeds were sown. Peasant children could only look forward to a life of great hardship.

For all peasants, life was "nasty, brutish and short."

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The Lifestyle of Medieval Peasants - History Learning Site

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The lifestyle of peasants in Medieval England was extremely hard and harsh. Many worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming year. Certain jobs had to be done at certain times of the year. Their lives were harsh but there were few rebellions due to a ...

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Written by Tim Nash

When we enjoy entertainment or festivals that celebrate medieval life and times, it is the life of royalty, traveling bards, monks of knights that are most often the focus of our attention. Few of us would want to celebrate the lives of peasants and surfs during the middle ages. There is good reason for that. There was little to celebrate about the harsh life poor people endured during this time in history.

For the poor, the dark ages really did not end in the way that it did for wealthy landowners, merchants and high ranking clergy during medieval times. It is not an exaggeration that the life of peasants was a constant struggle to survive. That struggle meant a daily life of hard work, harsh taxes and a lifestyle that was filthy and full of dangers of all kinds for themselves and for their families.

Because peasants were the very bottom rung of medieval society, they were under the harsh authority of just about every other rung of society. They had to work the land of the Lord who owned it and then pay rent for working and living on that land as well. Peasants were required to swear an oath of allegiance to their Lord and to violate that Lord would bring harsh if not fatal punishments. To fulfill that oath, peasants had to do just about every kind if difficult manual labor imaginable including plowing the fields, planting and caring for crops, harvesting corn and other produce, storing it in barns and cutting and storing wood for the winter for themselves and the Lords who owned the land they lived on.

The level that those in power exploited the peasant class during medieval times was truly appalling. In addition to coping with staggering poverty, peasants had to pay stiff taxes to their Lord and to the church in the form of the "tithe". Often peasants had no money for their tithes so they paid them in the form of the produce they grew on the land they rented from their Lords. The Catholic Church realized such huge returns on the tithes from the peasant class that they had to build massive barns to hold all of the product that the peasants paid in.

Daily life for peasants was a constant struggle for the basics of health, water and comfort. Their houses were called "crunk houses" and they were made of very basic materials such as straw, mud and manure. There was no glass or wood for doors and windows so those openings were covered with curtains which meant that the house was cold in the winter or stiflingly hot in the summertime.

Furniture was a luxury for a peasant family so life took place on the floor. There were no toilets so usually a single bucket was used that was emptied each morning into the nearest stream or river. If the family owned animals, they were brought into the house at night as well. It was too dangerous to leave the animals outside at night as they could be stolen or killed by wild beasts that roamed the countryside without restriction.

This lifestyle was filthy and uncomfortable at the least. Water was a tremendous premium so usually a small amount was carried to the home once a day and it was used for cooking or any cleaning that needed to be done. Water was retrieved from the same river or stream that the refuse was emptied into the previous morning. And since everyone in the village had the same habits, the likelihood that the family drinking water was contaminated was high. Peasants had no resources for bathing or maintaining the minimum of what we currently consider to be hygiene, which meant that disease and death were rampant.

Small wonder that few movies or medieval fairs focus on the lives of peasants during medieval times. But it is good to take a few moments to realize that life during the highly romanticized medieval period was neither romantic nor luxurious for the majority of the populations of that era.

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Because peasants were the very bottom rung of medieval society, they were under the harsh authority of just about every other rung of society. They had to work the land of the Lord who owned it and then pay rent for working and living on that land as well.

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An article showing how this winter's cold has affected homeless people in the U.S.

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An article showing how this winter's cold has affected homeless people in the U.S.

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AS FRIGID winter weather descended on much of the U.S. at the start of the month, there were serious concerns for the many people at risk of physical harm from the "polar vortex" cold.

But there's another danger compounding the cold this winter and putting people at risk--and it's a man-made one: Poverty.

Cities across the Midwest took usual steps to minimize the impact of the cold weather for residents--but for people already living on the edge, severe cold poses a threat to their very lives.

In Chicago, for example, homeless shelters were operating at capacity according to reports, which forced those who couldn't get in to try to find alternate shelter--or, in some cases, to ride public transportation all night in order to stay warm.

Kevin Govert and Marcus Faletti, both homeless, were interviewed by the DNAinfo Chicago website in the gentrified Wicker Park neighborhood as temperatures began to plummet at the start of the month. Both explained that they were taking their chances on the street--since the only homeless shelter with beds available was, they said, infested with bedbugs.

According to the DNAinfo report:

Govert, who sleeps near a building that's being converted into a fitness club, said he awoke to construction workers putting a plastic tarp over him to keep moisture off his "frozen sleeping bag," while Faletti, who sleeps near an area school, used "a bunch of comforters."

"I had to brush snow off [myself]," Faletti said, adding, "Ain't been light, ain't stopped snowing."

City warming centers were kept open for extended hours during the stretch of record-cold days--but once they do close for the night, people are forced to find someplace else to go.

This raises the question: Why, in a city dripping with wealth, should any person have to wonder where they will sleep on any night of the year, let alone the coldest so far? Why can't the city provide adequate beds, in a safe and clean environment, for people who need them?

Chicago public schools--notorious for systemic problems heating dilapidated school buildings in winter and cooling them in summer--only cancelled January 6 and 7 classes at the last minute, after an outcry from parents and from the Chicago Teachers Union. The union rightly argued that children attempting to travel to school in frigid temperatures would be at serious risk for frostbite and other health problems.

And just where was "Mayor 1 Percent," Rahm Emanuel, during one of the most severe weather crises in the city's history? On vacation with his family in Indonesia for more than a week, until enough bad press finally forced him to return, looking well-rested and freshly tanned.

And like Emanuel, you wouldn't find J. Peter Lark, general manager of the Lansing Board of Water and Light, in the city that he's supposed to be serving during its crisis. The head of the "progressive, community-owned" utility in Michigan's capital city left Lansing for a vacation with his wife in New York City--the day after a severe ice storm in late December left 40,000 people without electricity and heat, some for as long as 11 days.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BUT EVEN before the record cold descended on the Midwest, this winter was taking a deadly toll on the most vulnerable, even in places like the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the wealthiest in the country. In December, at least seven homeless men died from exposure in separate incidents across the Bay Area, according to the ThinkProgress website.

Among the victims was Joe White, a 50-year-old man who had been homeless and living on the streets of Hayward. According to writer Scott Keyes, White "wanted to work and was able to find odd jobs here and there, but it was never much or consistent enough to afford a place to live. Hayward has no emergency shelter with beds for single men, so White slept outside."

After waiting and waiting, White was finally second on a list for permanent housing support in Hayward. But before he could be placed, his body was found in the courtyard of the Hayward City Hall. He had been beaten and robbed of his new winter coat--police speculated that he died as a result of exposure.

According to ThinkProgress:

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, approximately 700 homeless people die from hypothermia every year. Those deaths tend to occur in the East Coast and Midwest, not California. But temperatures in the Bay have repeatedly dipped below freezing in the past few weeks, leaving thousands of homeless people in danger.

The Bay Area has one of the highest homeless populations in part because of the explosion of recent wealth that has led to increasing inequality and a lack of affordable housing for those without high-paying tech jobs...

[F]or those viscerally impacted by rising inequality, life is especially difficult when the temperatures drop. Many communities in the Bay Area lack emergency shelters, in part because freezes aren't very common. But what happens to many of the thousands of people living without shelter in the Bay Area, waiting for their name to be called for the few affordable housing units that exist?

"What happens is they die on the street," Betty DeForest, director emeritus of South Hayward Parish, wrote in an e-mail to the City Council last week following White's death.

In San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, where the median household annual income was $91,000 in 2012, at least three men--Daniel Brillhart, Enrique Rubio and Daniel Moore--died, probably from exposure, between Thanksgiving and mid-December.

Moore, according to the San Jose Mercury News, "was found huddled on a cardboard pallet behind a Jack in the Box trash bin." Brillhart, according to the paper, "died in a trash-strewn area beneath Highway 87, less than an hour into the final Thanksgiving of his life."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THESE MEN were literally tossed aside in one of the richest parts of the country. And if you ask Greg Gopman, that's exactly the way it should be.

Gopman, the 27-year-old founder of tech startup AngelHack, took to his Facebook page in early December to tell the world exactly what he thinks about San Francisco's homeless population:

The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves. They sell small trinkets, beg coyly, stay quiet and generally stay out of your way. They realize it's a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests. And that's okay.

In downtown SF, the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city. Like it's their place of leisure...In actuality, it's the business district for one of the wealthiest cities in the USA. It's a disgrace...

You can preach compassion, equality, and be the biggest lover in the world, but there is an area of town for degenerates and an area of town for the working class. There is nothing positive gained from having them so close to us.

Such statements are a window into how the elites see the rest of us. Gopman wasn't saying anything unique for his class--he merely said it publicly. Actually, though, as Colorlines' Julianne Hing pointed out, the high-tech bonanza centered in the Bay Area has been a central factor in making the homelessness crisis worse. As Hing wrote:

Here's what Gopman may not realize. The tech boom of which Gopman's a part has spurred an influx of wealth into the Bay Area, and with it, a class of new arrivals who want a piece of the small city's charm. Swift market forces and the absence of protective regulations have spurred skyrocketing rents and no-fault evictions. Evictions, according to San Francisco's Eviction Defense Collective's 2012 report, are a leading cause of homelessness in the city..."Thirty-five percent of respondents indicated that immediately prior to becoming homeless they lived in a home owned or rented by themselves or their partner," the report's authors write.

Put another way, people like Gopman may actually be contributing to the, ahem, degeneration, of the lives of the city's most vulnerable.

Gopman and his ilk not only view those of us among the "masses" as unfit to breath the same air as they do. They also ignore the multiple ways in which the system has been rigged to favor the tiny minority they belong to. They take because they can, while the rest of us get along with less--and then they have the gall to flaunt their wealth.

Like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jaime Dimon, whose mega-bank helped push the U.S. economy off a cliff in 2008 with its reckless gambling, leaving millions of working-class Americans to pay the price.

Dimon, who still makes $19 million a year, sent a holiday card to JPMorgan employees featuring him and his family, including the family dog, hitting tennis balls around a room in their palatial home. In the picture, they seem totally unconcerned about the expensive vases, ornaments and a Jackson Pollock painting that they could have ruined during their playtime. It was as if, said MSNBC host Chris Hayes, the Dimon family was saying: "Hey, we're so rich we can destroy our own stuff."

And there's Amazon founder--and now Washington Post owner--Jeff Bezos, who was "rescued" by the Ecuadorean Navy so...he could pass a kidney stone in comfort. Bezos was vacationing on his luxury yacht in the Galapagos Islands when he began feeling pain from the kidney stone. He was evacuated by an Ecuadorean Navy helicopter to Baltra Island, where his private jet flew him to the U.S. for "emergency treatment."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE PROBLEM isn't just the out-of-control arrogance of a few super-rich banksters or Internet tycoons. These examples reflect a deep polarization in U.S. society--and the chasm between rich and poor will be even greater if some of the elite get their way.

The elimination of supplemental unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, plus deep cuts in programs such as food stamps--which has lost $5 billion in funding under the federal government's "sequester," a huge blow to the 47 million Americans who rely on them to make ends meet every month--are pushing already desperate families even closer to the brink this winter.

But Forbes columnist John Tamny recently told the Daily Show's Jessica Williams that if he had his way, he would abolish food stamps altogether, and force the poor and working poor to rely on charity instead. "I think if people were literally starving, you would see a massive outpouring of charity to make up for that fact," Tamny said.

After all, he added, it's not like America's poor are literally starving in the streets. "If you're going to be poor, this is the country you'd want to be poor in," he said.

Tell that to the seven homeless men who died from entirely preventable causes in the Bay Area this winter. Tell that to those in the Midwest trying to find shelter from the storm. Tell that to anyone in the U.S. worrying about how to make ends meet or feed their kids--while people like Jaime Dimon and Jeff Bezos live luxury, with money to burn.

This winter, we should remember those who are being left out in the cold--and fight for a world where no one is.

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Life and death for the homeless this winter

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AS FRIGID winter weather descended on much of the U.S. at the start of the month, there were serious concerns for the many people at risk of physical harm from the "polar vortex" cold. But there's another danger compounding the cold this winter and putting people at risk--and it's a man-made one: Poverty.

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Life for serfs was easy as pie...they just had to farm during the day and sit back and eat stew at night...true or false?  Justify your data with two resources!

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Life for serfs was easy as pie...they just had to farm during the day and sit back and eat stew at night...true or false?  Justify your data with two resources!

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False, because they worked from sunlight to sunset. During the night they made supper, clothing and cleaned.

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Compare and Contrast:  do you think life was more dangerous and harder for a serf during the Middle Ages, or for a homeless person in a large city (in Canada) today?  Why?  Provide 10 reasons to justify your answer collected from 15 different resources.

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Compare and Contrast:  do you think life was more dangerous and harder for a serf during the Middle Ages, or for a homeless person in a large city (in Canada) today?  Why?  Provide 10 reasons to justify your answer collected from 15 different resources.