Sublime

Anthony Bourdain, like Fran Liebowitz, has become an untouchable. That said, how can you not love a man who said, "Is there any place left in New York where an old guy can have a drink in the afternoon and, you know, be a little depressed?"

Again, I want to be very clear that these neighborhoods are not some hell on earth, and anyone from the rest of world would be smitten to have the chance to live in them. As I wrote above, if an average African, Asian, or Latin American asked my advice I would tell them to move there. It would be downright weird of me to tell them otherwise, given ... See more

God, I pray first of all for the brothers and sisters in this jail, that you might strengthen them. I pray for the people who come to the Downtown Chapel to get something to eat and for the staff that provides for them; I pray for all the poor; I pray in thanksgiving for all the people who help me here and for Father Gary, who comes to see me. Plea

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Jails, more and more, have become warehouses for people with mental illness. The stats sum it up: of the almost two million jail and prison inmates in the United States, almost three hundred thousand are people with serious mental illness. Twenty percent of these mentally ill inmates were homeless when they were incarcerated. Seventy-five percent o

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What person who does what this woman does has not been there? How I admire them and cherish them. I see them each day, serving in a variety of ways, dealing with the heartbreaking realities of the poor: frustration; violent transference; physical and mental sickness; rejection; police harassment; loneliness; hunger for food, friendship, and purpose

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Hatred is depressing—it is of course depressing to be hated, but it is also depressing to hate. The erosion of the social safety net means that more and more people are at a sudden breaking point, and there are few messages of authentic comfort to offer them in these pitiless times. One is done in by disease, by isolation and despair, and by life c

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