Seriously.
Via L.A. Times:
First Lady Michelle Obama showed up Thursday as a surprise and welcome volunteer at Miriam’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen for homeless poor people not far from the White House.
She brought with her some food donated by White House staff.
The first lady served up mushroom risotto and broccoli to a long line of homeless men and women during part of her lunch hour and in these photos poses for a picture by one homeless diner obviously excited to be in the first lady’s presence.
Obama said she hoped her service would cause other Americans to volunteer to help the less fortunate in their own communities.
And, of course, such images of need might also help build support for her husband’s economic and healthcare reform agenda, although a Miriam’s spokeswoman said their average “guest” has been homeless since about the time Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Miriam’s is a privately funded soup kitchen about seven blocks from the White House that has 1,200 volunteers and serves about 300, mainly men, each morning. Our colleague Mark Silva has more on the volunteer work in the Swamp here.
Both of these news photos were widely distributed across the country and even around the world.
It doesn’t detract from the first lady’s generous gesture or the real needs she seeks to highlight to ask two bothersome journalistic questions about these news photos:
If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?
And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?
Unreal. I have a place to live, but I do not have a cell phone. By the way, where’s my stimulus? Where’s my Bailout? Oh, that’s right… I’m the wrong color. Because we all know those checks are going to non-white construction workers.
Update: Macsmind makes a very valid point:
I’ve had the pleasure of working with the poor here and there, soup kitchen details and even working with a non-profit for a bit. I can tell you that seeing a homeless person with a cell phone is nothing. I’ve witness so-called “poor” coming in during a toy drive to pick up donated toys wearing leather jackets, cell phones and sometimes driving pretty good cars – better than mine in fact.
The fact is that we have a really poor sense of the word “poor” in this country. Many of the poor would be wealthy in truly poor countries.
Same here. I’ve seen people show up at food distributions that I have volunteered in, when I was active in the Pentecostal circles; in brand-new looking Cadillac Cars and Lincoln Town Cars. So, that whole poor thing is a big misconception. I’ve met real poor people, and truth is, most so-called poor people are what other countries would call quite wealthy. Good point Jack, glad you brought it up. 😀
Others on this: Telegraph, Michelle Malkin, The Corner, Media Blog, Sweetness & Light, Connecting.the.Dots, The Swamp, PoliGazette and Don Surber
Unless you were present, you don’t know the circumstances do you? If I were living in a tent, I would scrape together enough if at all possible for a cellphone so that I could find a job or another home. You don’t know if someone else asked him to take the picture from that position, or that he is one of the staff. Just don’t know do you? The tone of this post is rather self righteous don’t you think. I was taught to be kind.
Socialism sucks, so do Liberals. Deal with it.
Now, when a homeless person is yakking with a cellphone next to his (or her) ear, you can’t tell if the bum is really talking on the phone or just talking to himself. In the pre-cellphone days, you knew that anyone having a conversation with the air was probably to be avoided. Today, who knows?
Ha! 😆 Ain’t that the truth, especially here in Detroit! 😀
There is a BIG difference between a basic $10.00 preepaid phone and a camera phone!!
Got that right. 😀