you're 'concerned' about flag burning -- this is what you should be 'concerned' about [View all]

[xchrom]

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/americas/2012/01/30/homeless-cat-empires-hat


Phillip 'The Cat In The Hat' Black sells newspapers in Washington

"I know them all. This one on the wheelchair, with everybody around her. She sells heroin. That guy who’s looking at you like that - he’s high on crack. Don't take a picture of him or you might not get home to your daughters alive."

I first met Phillip Black on a corner of cosmopolitan F Street in Washington, a few stops away from Ford’s Theatre, where Abraham Lincoln was shot, and almost within earshot of the White House.

Surrounded by shops selling frozen yoghurt, organic gourmet sandwiches and trendy clothes, Phillip sells copies of Street Sense, a newspaper sold, and written by, the homeless.

If a customer pays the recommended donation price of $1 per copy, Phillip makes 65 cents per paper.






Incarceration in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment and/or rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. At year-end 2009 it was 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population.[4][5][6][7][8]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,292,133 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2009 — about 1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.[4][5][9][10] Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole.[4] In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.[3][4][11] In addition, there were 86,927 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2007.[12][13]



long term unemployment
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/06/the-many-the-doomed-the-long-term-unemployed

According to the December jobs report, there are nearly 5.6 million people in the U.S. who have been unemployed for six months or more—42.5 percent of all unemployed Americans. Labor Department data shows them to be disproportionately black and Asian. They are slightly more likely to be men than women. They are not as well-educated as their more successful counterparts in the labor force. And the recovery is not benefiting them the same way that it is benefiting other laid-off Americans.

[See why there's hope for the economy in 2012.]

The unemployed population can be roughly split into two camps, says Stephen Rose, senior economist at Georgetown Unviersity's Center on Education and the Workforce: "There are cyclers—those who are there relatively short periods of time, and there's the long-term, who are there year in, year out." The "cyclers" make up a majority of the unemployed population, he says, but the long-term unemployed face a tougher challenge.

The long-term unemployed are not being kept out of work simply by a lack of economic confidence or a temporary decrease in demand for particular goods, says Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice Holdings, a provider of career websites. "You clearly have a long-term unemployment issue in the U.S., but it's driven, I would argue, much more by structural factors that have to do with—where's the demand for people in the economy?" says Melland.

the uninsured
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/census_bureau_health_insurance/index.htm



NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The number of people who lacked health insurance last year climbed to 49.9 million, up from 49 million in 2009, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

Nationwide, 16.3% of the population was uninsured last year, statistically unchanged from 2009.

Three groups comprised the bulk of the uninsured in 2010, including foreign-born residents who are not U.S. citizens, young adults ages 19 to 25 and low-income families with an annual household income of less than $25,000.

Much of the declines in insured rates in recent years can be attributed to the loss of employer-provided coverage, which fell amid sustained unemployment and as employers continued to cut back on benefits.

The percentage of people who had health insurance through their employers fell to 55.3% in 2010 from 56.1% the year before, continuing a long, downward trend. In 2000, 64.1% of the population received health insurance through their employers.



i'll be more worried about peoples sensibilites about burning a flag when 'they' get more worries -- and DO SOMETHING about real problems.

everything else is horse shit.