Ben Saufley

I should probably mention that I’ve moved my blog, in case anything is still sending people here. It’s over at my website, now. You should check it out. You might like it.

I’ve had several concerns in my head for a while that just found a way to connect themselves, and it all relates to quantum physics, or the little I know about it. See, the way I’ve heard it, in quantum physics, the outcome of an experiment can be altered simply by observing it. I’m probably way off there, but it’s something like that and the point applies here. See, I’m tired of hearing about self-help books. I’m tired of people telling me to “set a goal,” and how to “maximize” the efficiency of my personal or professional life. I’m tired of blogs giving me advice on just about anything. And it all comes back to this:

I feel that everyone’s doing so much talking about things that nothing is getting done.

That’s not to say that the folks over at Brazen aren’t getting anything done when they’re not blogging – I get the impression that they very much are. They seem driven and passionate, and that’s great. I just don’t see any use in blogs about how relationships are like businesses and partnerships are like marketing and people are like brands and brands are like business cards and business cards are like our hearts and whatever else. I think a lot of people see use in it but I think that instead of expanding their horizons, many will contract them by seeking out this advice.

It’s because by reading other people’s answers, we have a harder time finding our own. By measuring our problems, we define them and change ourselves.

I was overweight in middle school and into high school. At a certain point, I started growing up — a change in habits, a change in my biochemistry — and I lost a fair amount of weight, which simply left me a tall, lumpy stick figure. I couldn’t do a push-up to save my life. I honestly have no idea how I used to get out of bed. Anyway, this was back in the heyday of LiveJournal. Remember LiveJournal? I resolved to get in better shape, among other things. Presuming it was the mature thing to do, I set forth goals and announced them: I would go to the gym x times a week, practice guitar y times, read z books.

That plan failed miserably. But I kept doing the same thing. New goals, new failures. Over the years, small things changed, I slowly improved in many ways, but my resolutions not only crashed and burned, they set me back.

I came to the realization recently that what I needed was to grow, and to work toward becoming the person I want to be. I don’t write down goals – sure, I have an ideal body fat percentage in mind, but only for fun. I want to be better. Life, it turns out, isn’t a video game or a biography. I can’t set to work getting good at something, accomplish it, and move on. I need to change my mind.

I want to be better, and that won’t ever come from keeping a blogger’s advice in my head. So of course, I don’t mean this as advice. It is, however, something to consider. I think the more we focus on getting what we want and the less we focus on becoming who we want, the more society will suffer on the whole. Instead of focusing on branding yourself, why not focus on becoming the person you’d like to be?

It seems that focusing on the outcome instead of the source will always result in a temporary solution. Convincing a company to hire you based on anything but the person you actually are seems a doomed strategy. The same holds true with dating, and perhaps even more – all that matters is a legitimate connection. Forcing anything there seems even more foolhardy.

I don’t know, I don’t have answers. I don’t like answers; they’re rarely definitive. I feel like the only answer I can accept is improvement.

I want a tattoo.

No, hear me out. I want a tattoo. I’ve never seen a tattoo I liked, but I want a tattoo. I once knew a girl who had dead fish tattooed on her shoulder blades because they “looked cool.” They didn’t, but I still want a tattoo. I knew someone with paper cranes tattooed on her wrists. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s up with art chicks and paper cranes. But I still want a tattoo. I’m terrified of needles, and I’m often quick to pre-judge someone if he has a sleeve tattoo or a tribal across his biceps or she has a something flowery painted on her coccyx. I don’t even know what I would get, but I want a tattoo.

And it’s only because I’ve managed to separate these people from the root concept. It’s something I’ve noticed a lot of people refuse to do. We don’t have to like everything, and we don’t even have to accept everything. But it just strikes me that a lot of people don’t give most things a chance, and it causes a lot of problems, not the least of which is a loss of brain plasticity (something in which I put a lot of stock).

I just told my friend Carla that I want a tattoo, and her reaction, unsurprisingly, was “no you don’t.” I suspect many of my friends would respond similarly. I’m a pretty big nerd, so even if one did appreciate the “tatted guy” aesthetic, I would likely not fit the bill. The thing is, I’m not drawn to that aesthetic, or any other tattooed aesthetic that I’ve encountered. I’m drawn to tattoos by their nature: they are permanent and hopefully unique. Deliberate, artistic scars. In the age of user customization, what could be a more personal expression than modifying one’s own skin?

Now, like I said, I’ve never seen a tattoo I liked, and I don’t have to. That’s not the point. I don’t have to like what I’ve seen in order to accept their premise, or perhaps to accept a premise I’ve only inferred from their existence. What I do have to do is move past my initial, superficial train of thought — the one that is ready at a moment’s notice to inform me where my keys are, how warmly to dress, and what I’ve thought of the tattoos I’ve encountered — and begin to analyze. People’s tastes will differ, there’s no escaping that. But that doesn’t make their whole personality flawed, nor the things they do, nor the things in which they believe.

Here is a list of a few things I would have missed out on, had I not looked past my preconceptions and analyzed them for what they were to me:

• Harry Potter: I was forced to read this in high school after a while of acting too cool for children’s books. Turns out, I love children’s books. Good ones, anyway. The sense of fantasy and wonder, well-conceived, is unadulterated by pretense or supposedly “adult” concerns. You don’t have to like it, but I absolutely do, and this realization helped me to discover that maturity needn’t come at the expense of … for lack of a better phrase … one’s “inner child.” I will certainly never need to find mine, because he’s alive and well and always has been.
• Twitter: I’ll be honest, I’m still not sold on Twitter as it relates to me. I use it, and it’s interesting. I’m certain I’m not using it to its fullest extent. But everyone in the social-media, web-2.0 crowd will tell you how necessary it is to develop an online presence. And it’s interesting, and it’s introduced me to more new trends and interesting sites. Were it not for the urging of a certain friend and my curiosity to understand this strange phenomenon, I’d be entirely out of the loop on this one.
• The Democratic Party: This one may be a shock to people who know me, but I was vocally supportive of the war in Iraq when we went in, because I believed the words of our President, and I was really annoyed by whiners on the left — of whom I’ve encountered plenty. I only became interested in the Democratic Party and the left after a friend of mine started telling me a whole bunch of things about the Bush administration, none of which I believed until I took the time to look into matters. The more I looked into things, checked and double-checked my facts, the more I discovered a host of things I disagreed with. Once again, it was only because I weighed the facts instead of leaving it at gut reaction.
• The list goes on: the Arcade Fire, football, Wolf Parade, 24, the West Wing, Slavic Soul Party, Joanna Newsom, Ayn Rand…

In the interest of fairness, and to further illustrate what I mean when I say opening up to things doesn’t necessarily mean liking or accepting them, here are a few things I weighed on their own merits, overriding my own preconceptions, and discovered they were still things I didn’t like:

• Twilight: I picked this up because vampires are pretty cool, and every girl I know was raving about it. So yeah, I knew it would be girly, but I thought maybe, just maybe Twilight might be for girls in the same way that Harry Potter is for children. It is absolutely not. It is teen fiction written — and written poorly — for teenage girls. I’m told the second, third, and fourth installments add the character development that is sorely lacking from the first, but I have used up my patience with Stephanie Meyer’s writing. The DaVinci Code was trash, on a level with Tom Clancy, but Twilight really does belong in middle-school girls’ lockers.
• Panic! at the Disco: That stupid little exclamation point in the middle of their name just really annoyed me, so I didn’t want to like them. But I kept hearing good things, so I bought their debut album on sort of a whim. I found it poorly executed and not fun or interesting to listen to, and it was the first piece of music I ever deleted from my iTunes library — I have a collection compulsion.
• And again, the list goes on: Lost, the Corpse Bride, cardigans and girl jeans (oh, hipsterdom), Creative Nomad Jukebox…

So that’s my observation. I don’t expect people to agree with me about everything, and I certainly don’t expect to agree with everyone myself, about a great many things. But I think a lot of progress would be made, and often new common ground, if we tried to approach things without preconceptions. More understandings could be reached. I don’t agree with the Republican platform, but I know a few whom I respect because their ideas are valid and rational and they clearly believe their ideas are the best route. They might even be right, but of course I don’t think so.

I guess that’s it: we have to allow for the possibility that we’re wrong. But it doesn’t mean we always are, or that we can’t make an argument for our beliefs. Just allow for the possibility of a better argument.

Hey, I never claimed to be succinct.

We are different, right? I hear it everywhere: Generation Y is changing things. All this talk about social media, Web 2.0, and the “flattening” properties of the internet serves to tell the leaders of modern government and industry: “We are different. Some things are going to change around here.” And I love that. Progress! Innovation! I’m all for it. But may I make a suggestion? Can we move past the jargon-filled, pseudo-intellectual, bastardized English of our predecessors?

Please?

Do you have a parent who knows how to use GChat or AIM? Do they try to send you quick emails using words they obviously perceive to be web-savvy? Do you cringe every time you see a new internet user, who has clearly familiarized him- or herself with the internet by watching late 90′s movies about hacking and the ‘net, snding msgs 2 u liek ths?

This is how people think we type, everybody. Obviously not everybody feels this way, but what’s worse is that often, they’re right. This relates in two ways to the point I’m trying to make. The first is simple: seriously, have some self respect, everyone. Spell-check is not that hard to use; “your” is possessive, “you’re” means “you are;” the only time you don’t have an apostrophe in a possessive that ends in “s” is the words “its,” as in “the dog chased its tale.” But okay, okay, it’s more than that.

When entering a new social medium, be it a new job, a new social environment like a club, or something like the internet, we observe the behaviors of those we meet. We adopt many of their mannerisms and assumptions as a means of assimilating. This, I hope, is why people new to the internet are so bad at writing.

And it is why I hereby propose that we, the fresh new minds of Generation Y, stop using words invented or destroyed by 80′s businesspeople trying to sound business-savvy. Please! Just because day-glo and big hair are coming back in the hipster crowd, it doesn’t mean it’s okay to carry on with this nonsense. Here are a few rules that I propose we enact:

• Nouns as verbs: Many of these have become quite accepted now, but really? “I will decision that in the morning?” There’s already a verb for that, world. That verb is “decide.” Is it so much harder to “delegate a task” then to “task” someone? This is just lazy, no matter how much you “effort” it, and if there’s one thing we don’t want to be, it’s that.
• Impact: I’m fighting a losing battle here, I know, but the Common Usage argument isn’t enough for me. When did “affect” become not good enough? What did it do that people decided to abandon it for this word? Impact, as a verb, has meant a physical trauma, as in “impacted bowel.” When something impacts you, you need to go to the hospital. The connection was made, at some point, between impact as a noun, which can mean “effect” (not “affect”), and impact as a verb. It’s another case of verbal laziness, where “How has this had an impact on your life” becomes “how has this impacted your life,” and it’s sloppy and it sounds like something out of a business memo.
• Literally: The word “literally” has come to mean its exact opposite for so many. Even Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden uses the word constantly and incorrectly — no matter how much faith I have in Barack Obama, I am certain that he will never “literally change the direction of the world.” Literally is used specifically to clarify the expression being used is not figurative. If somebody says to me, “I literally wet myself laughing,” I expect the next step to be a change of pants. The oft-uttered phrase “like, literally” makes little sense. Enough has been said about overuse of the word “like,” but I accept its use in a social context as a word meaning “basically,” or “thereabouts.” It is, however, in direct conflict with the word “literally.” Something can be “like six hundred feet tall,” or “literally six hundred feet tall,” but it cannot be “like, literally six hundred feet tall.” If you are looking to emphasize your hyperbole, try something less exactly opposite, like “seriously” or “legitimately.”
• Which: This is a grammar rule, but I feel a need to mention it because it, like so many others, is often abused in an attempt to sound more technical. It’s really a pretty simple distinction between “which” and “that” — this link should explain it clearly enough, there’s no need for me to do so. All I’m saying is: when you misuse words like this in an attempt to sound smart, you’re taking a risk. If the person with whom you’re talking is smart, you will look dumber than if you hadn’t tried.

This column is full of a lot more issues, if you’re interested in writing well, but a lot of it gets into smaller stuff. All I’m asking is that we drop all this fake jargon and filler vocabulary and use words that mean something. I’m well aware that I write more like a robot than many, trying not to end a sentence in a preposition even in casual conversation (of course it still happens), but that’s not what I’m asking for. Please, kids. When we tell those currently running our corporations and governments who we are, let’s do it right. Let’s prove that we are smart and capable, and that we can and will run things around here.

I grew up in an America where love conquered all. What’s more all-American than Disney? Ariel and what’s-his-name from the Little Mermaid weren’t even the same species. So yes, she changed into a human, but that has entirely different implications. My point, today, is: with a fifty percent divorce rate in America, are we really going to start arguing which kind of love is okay to have? Obviously there are a whole lot of people who have illusions about all of this; who are they, who are we to decide what the real thing is?

I’m straight. I find women attractive, and men particularly un-attractive. That’s what happens in the chemicals in my body. I hear priests and pastors argue about this “immoral choice” among the gay community, and I’m confused. Now, I’m straight, and I haven’t experienced this, but these pastors presume, so maybe they have: do other straight men wake up with some insatiable urge to rub their stubble against another man’s? Do straight women feel a need for — boy, I don’t even know. Do these preachers face this need every day? Because I don’t. I absolutely don’t. And the impression I get is, gay men and women don’t face that choice either. I feel like, if I had the choice, I would choose to be straight, because, well, it’s got to be so much easier. This choice argument has never settled well in my head.

I went to Catholic school. Granted, it was a Jesuit school — oh, those crazy academics — but they taught me some pretty fascinating things. I read the Bible, one of the primary quoted sources for homophobia (and yes, I choose to use that term because I think that’s what it is), cover-to-cover, and analyzed it book-by-book and page-by-page, and I found little in it to condone the outright outrage in modern America toward gays. Yes, I’ve seen Leviticus, and Corinthians — they decry the immorality of prostitution and sport-sex. Perhaps it’s a symptom of other problems, I don’t know, but it’s disturbingly ignorant. The Jesus I read about taught love and compassion and explained that those who followed Him on Earth should do what they could to enrich their society and spread the Word, and that God would to sort out those who had been faithful. Jesus preached love; love is one of the most common words I have found in sermons and religious literature, and yet one of the least common concepts found in public American Christianity.

I have yet to attend a church where the sermon denounced the immorality of homosexuality — they focus instead on positive things like God’s love, mankind’s hope, and community — yet any national advertising campaign you see that mention’s Christ’s name is without fail discussing the “slippery slope” from gays to bestialists (or perhaps abortion, but that’s an argument with an entirely different set of parameters). This dismays me because I know several Christians who seem to me to be … just … much better Christians than the people for whom these ads speak.

I’m agnostic, maybe even atheist, but it’s not because of any disdain for religion — in fact, I’m somewhat jealous of the faithful. I just can’t work it into my head right. The way some people describe a hole that God filled when they found Him, I can’t find a hole to fill. All the same, I’m an American, and as such I believe in tolerance, equality, freedom, and a whole bunch of other fairly universal ideals. So it blows my mind how anyone who grew up in the same country I did could have such loathing and animosity for another human being. If God truly doesn’t see all loving couples equally, why should He not decide? Do you not disregard His call to “let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7), do you ignore the very fact that Jesus’s disciples and apostles were these very social outcasts?

What harm does it do anyone else to see such love between members of the same sex? If you feel like the gays down the street getting married are a threat to your lifestyle or — as many claim — your children’s lifestyle, doesn’t that say more about the way you live your life than the way they live theirs?

How is it anyone’s place to deny a fellow member of our famously free country equal protection under the law on the grounds of whom they choose to love? From what threat are we defending America with things like the Defense of Marriage Act? Whose marriage is being harmed by the affording of equal rights to all citizens? This was what made America great — the chance of opportunity for everyone, with no prerequisite allegiance to a specified God or monarch. Would you ruin that? Would you tread on the great foundation laid out by our forefathers?

Related [Note - this was written before Nov 4 but things got busy. Still there's plenty to do if you're up to the task]:

• CA, No on 8 - Passed, disputed
• AZ, No on Prop 102 - Passed
• Human Rights Campaign
• Gay Rights Watch

I may have recently worked out why I have experienced what seemed to be an alarming amount of right-wingedness among the youth I encounter. Not alarming because I disagree, though of course I do, but alarming because traditionally the youth are liberal and often grow conservative with time; what would it mean that these young men and women were already so staunchly Republican? I could not put my finger on the reason, though, until I was thinking about Carla’s blog, and all this talk about Generation Y — a concept that, despite being an internet junkie, I was only introduced to a few months ago. Then it dawned on me, an amalgamation of several trains of thought that have been winding through my head for a few years. Why was I meeting so many conservatives when anecdotal evidence still pointed to a primarily liberal youth demographic? The short answer might be: because of the circles I frequent.

I have always had an odd detachment from myself, and thus often find things I do, or think, amusing, as one often does with another person. In this way I have always been fascinated by the contrast between my relatively conservative personality and my very liberal political stance. I don’t do drugs, I value personal responsibility and integrity and am mortified to have to rely on others; a large portion of the Democratic platform has little affect on my life, as I am a straight, educated white male.

More than that, though, I would like to do well by my own merits. I therefore frequent circles wherein, conceivably, many of the more driven, sometimes smarter, youth of my generation collect. In this way, I have unintentionally created a filter that only allows certain people in. This is not to imply that smart people are Republicans (oh-hoh-hoh) — what occurs to me is that driven people, people determined to make something of themselves and excel, will find ways to differentiate themselves from their peers, especially when their peers’ behavior is noticeably bad.

This brings us back to Generation Y. Supposedly, Generation Y was brought up in America with too many people saying “Yes” to its members and not enough emphasis given to independence and personal reliability. Exhibit A: the trust-fund hipster trend. I was not raised in such a fashion. Nor was I beaten or neglected: my parents encouraged me to do well, but to do so by my own effort, and they reprimanded me for behaving irresponsibly.

Republican youth, I imagine, emerge from a crowd of these pampered Gen-Yers, apparently convinced that personal responsibility is on its way out and the only way to stop it is to pull the rug from under those who refuse to stand on their own. It is a disconnect, to be certain: a poll of specific youth is not an accurate representation of other youth, let alone of the population on the whole or of any trend for the future of society. Yet in fairness it can be difficult to see the behaviors of those that surround us and not draw universal conclusions.

I, too, see some of my peers blame their failures on others and expect full compensation for these grave injustices, and I am equally frustrated. I simply react differently to the situation. My political self-justification, however, is a topic for another blog, or in fact every other blog I write.

It is my hope that this is the cause for what appears to me to be a startling lack of compassion among some of my peers. If it is the case, I cannot say that it is entirely unjustified — to work hard among peers who seem not to do so can be a frustrating experience. This would also imply some hope for the future: it would not necessarily preclude compassion or charity; I know some Republicans who are certainly compassionate and charitable, but simply believe in a different model for government.

Clearly, there is some measure of parental influence as well: I had a friend try to explain to me that his family, with an income over $250,000 (that’s a quarter of a million dollars) per year, is not particularly well-off, which was startling.

But if there is more, if somehow, these people have already been seduced by the idea that the ideal way to live life is only for oneself, then I am concerned. I am concerned because it would not limit these trends to a skewed sample by social groups, and I am concerned because despite the Right’s constant outcries of a country on its way to socialism, even despite the recent election, modern politics have trended steadily rightward. If, in fact, these peers of mine are not swayed by the value of hard work but by some twisted scale of worth (I have heard the term “worthy” used on occasion by those on the Right, and it has sent a shiver down my spine) and arbitrary moral judgments, it would be a disturbing and unpredictable trend, and I would worry about the future of American politics.

One cannot escape the sounds of rejoicing here in Cambridge. I want to wrap myself in the sounds and elation as I sleep, and keep it as we move into a new time and as I move into the next stage of my life.

Follow-up this weekend.

This political season, both candidates are talking a lot about change. I won’t go into who was saying it first, but I was inspired a moment ago to look at one of the current controversies from a new perspective, the way they’ve both been saying they will look at American government.  So here is something old from a different angle, for the reader’s consideration.

The McCain campaign and indeed Senator McCain himself (whom I do not fault for many of his campaign’s failings) have pounced heavily on Senator Obama’s remark to “Joe the Plumber” that “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” This, in the Republican eye, is socialism.  First, people need to brush up on their knowledge of the ideologies backing up their ghoulish stereotypes. Beyond this, though, this was an oversimplification, a mis-characterization of Senator Obama’s approach to tax policy, a policy that simply allows the Bush tax cuts, widely criticized as irresponsible (even by John McCain himself), to lapse as they are scheduled to do and replaces them with more responsible cuts.  This argument has been made, though, and I’m not here to discuss it — you won’t listen to it anyway, not if you’re one of the ones who’s been throwing “Marxism” around like it’s a synonym for “terrorist” (it’s not).

What I want to ask is this: if John McCain so vehemently opposes “spreading the wealth around,” and so clearly supports Bush’s tax cuts, which benefit primarily the top 1% of Americans, would it be fair to say that he supports a consolidation of wealth?  Obviously the spread of wealth is to be opposed, so is this not the implication?  It’s certainly the direction the country has taken the past eight years, under the guidance of McCain-endorsed economic policies.  The wealth gap has drastically increased and as a result the middle class is under tremendous strain, a fact that both parties concede (though McCain less willingly).

For a party that has spent so long decrying elitism, the implication of a plutocracy seems disturbingly off-message, but judging by the GOP’s adamant rejection of Obama’s suggestion and its black-and-white (no pun intended) worldview, it seems a reasonable inference.  Perhaps moreso than the cries of socialism, looking at those who will profit most by Bush’s and McCain’s tax policy.

These accusations have been leveled at McCain and the GOP before, but never has there been so clear an endorsement in of the consolidation of wealth from so high up. Senator McCain says “I don’t want to spread your wealth” to a country largely populated by those without any wealth to spread or any chance to attain any wealth.  Who would his policies, and his attitudes, truly benefit?  And what will we have, if every American buys into the Republican fear tactic of “someone is trying to take your money?” As the economy falls apart and every effort to stimulate spending, lending, and investing seems to have no effect, is it a good idea for the Republican party to urge Americans to cling to their wallets like nothing else matters? If Americans are truly swayed by the emerging argument that hoarding is a fundamental American value, what will this new-found selfishness do not just to the wealth gap and the economy but to our minds?

So the McCain campaign and the GOP have gone McCarthy on America, whipping many into a frenzy of blind nationalism and fearful unreason.  Their battle cry: “You’re either with us or you’re against us,” though the first “us” refers to the GOP, and the second, to America as a whole.  Hopefully this is a last desperate swing at an election that is slipping out of their control, but it’s dangerous all the same.  If we aren’t spreading the wealth of this prosperous nation, if we opt instead for a consolidation of wealth among those who have been somehow deemed deserving, who have we become?  Is the beauty of America to fade to a land of inequality, an oligarchy over the impoverished majority?

After making several people whine like little babies after I called them … little babies … in the last post, I was planning to do a few more light-hearted posts. They are definitely in the works, but today is a special day. Blog Action Day is a day when a whole ton (metric, ~2,204lbs) of blogs worldwide post in one concerted effort to affect the global dialogue. This year, it’s one that I feel I’ve certainly discussed at least once, but only tangentially. I think that, even were a Republican to get lost and find his way over here today, he would find no objection with today’s assertion: poverty is a problem.

I’m not going to go into the causes, because they are many and varied, and this post isn’t for pointing fingers. It’s a call to action. Poverty is an indisputable problem. The international definition of extreme poverty is currently $1.25US per day. Just think about living on $1.25 a day. In 2005, at least 1.3 billion people were living below that line. Raise that number to just $100 per month, and you’ve got at least 2.9 billion people under that line, including 96% of East Asia, Southern Asia, and the Pacific. 1.

I just did some research on Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, for a marketing class. The median GDP per capita in Puerto Rico is $19,600. That means that half of Puerto Rico makes less than $19,600 per year. that’s under $200 a month, and Puerto Rico is a part of America, albeit not a state2.

This is crazy, everybody. I wish I had more time to talk about this because there’s a lot to talk about, but there are a few mitigating factors: first, Blog Action Day is almost over; second: a lot of the relevant numbers I’m finding are from partisan sources; third: the debate is on, and this is also important. I hope you’re watching it.

If you want to know what you can do about poverty, check out Blog Action Day’s website, and places like ONE.org, which focus on specific areas (One.org is focused on Africa, for example). Make a donation. See if there’s somewhere down your street where you can help out, like Rebuilding Together or Habitat for Humanity. I worked with Rebuilding Together when it was Christmas in April years and years ago, and it’s a great organization. I love putting things together. You know, with power tools. It’s fun. Maybe it’s not your thing – maybe you’d rather make phone calls. There’s always something to do.

Today is Blog Action Day, and today everyone is talking about poverty. Poverty is a problem, and you can help.

1.PovcalNet
2.CIA World Factbook — Puerto Rico