Big Sole Blog (BSB)

This month the Barman's Fund of New Orleans will give a boost to the city's only street paper, the New Orleans Street Exchange. According to the newspaper's newsletter, "the Barman’s Fund is a motley assortment of bartenders who pledge all earnings from one shift a month for charitable organizations." The N.O. Street Exchange is a street newspaper benefiting the city's homeless community and

On Facebook, a friend of mine shared this article at Cracked.com headlined "4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People." In plain language (with occasional cussing) John Cheese debunks the common myths politicians perpetuate about people living in poverty, such as they don't work and that they only want handouts. His post also reveals some of the offensive rhetoric some

I remember seeing on Facebook the picture of the NYPD police officer who gave the homeless man a pair of boots. The story moved me, and I learned more watching this video at CNN with story. Officer Lawrence DePrimo, who's received lots of attention for helping the man, said it was very cold; he saw Jeffrey Hillman's blistered feet and wanted to help him. He asked about buying him socks, and

Written in 2005, the poem "Silk and Flour" was originally entitled "Silk and Flowers," but while creating the video, I changed the title to one I had considered nearly seven years ago. I don't remember what incident inspired the poem. It may have been nothing but a muse in my head, but I feel like I had seen something in the news that caused me to think about the dark side of ego that reveals

This poem is cross-posted at the Urban Mother's Book of Prayers. I have been experimenting with a graphics software program.

Prince released "Da, Da, Da," featuring a rap by Scrap D, in 1996.The song is on his Emancipation CD, which he recorded after his Warner Bros. contract expired. Listening to this song before Christmas 2011, I was struck by how its lyrics remain relevant today, so I created a little video. You can watch it by clicking this link or the Prince picture above. The video should start automatically. If

Some people will read this article at The New Republic, "Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty?," and without going very far into have a knee-jerk reaction and reject its information because the article can be misread to say that all poor people lack impulse control. That's not what it's saying, but I know that's what that I thought until I realized I was wrong.What the article is saying is