Poverty is sort of the new theme.

I started a photo album about it on myspace, but it's going to take some time.

Cleveland has been named America's poorest major city of the year several times already this century.

I used to teach in the inner-city, I pretty much went crazy from watching myself become a failure there. The district on a whole only graduates about 1/3rd of it's students.

I taught music. I remember picking up a student who wouldn't otherwise be able to make it to a performance, three kids in the apartment, not a bedroom for any of them, nor beds or mattresses. They slept on blankets on the floor, maybe towels.

It's a political problem, and the solution doesn't begin with thinking everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps because it's the American way. Not every start is equal, or remotely similar in quality.

The American way shouldn't be to allow people to live in projects like this:



We need to do better.