The lives of Carolina christmas tree harvesters is told in this article entitled Carrying the Crosses of Christmas

Another woman, whom I’ll call Carmen, lives in an old farmhouse with her partner and several of his male co-workers surrounded by evergreen fields. She says the house is very old, but has few complaints save for the airborne pesticides that sometimes make it hard to breathe inside. “I say my husband, ‘Maybe if I asleep you can bring me to the hospital,’” she says. “I felt really bad.” Because he provides the house for free, this farmer pays $6 an hour. Others pay $7 an hour for greenhorns and up to $12 for the most seasoned veterans who’ve worked in their fields a decade or more. A recent court decision exempts the growers from paying overtime, though workers typically put in 50 to 70 hours a week, enabling them to send money home to their families in Mexico.

Rich and Poor
The dicotomy and complexities we live with was brought home to me this morning when two headlines back to back caught my eye.
Oxfam released a report saying that rich countries have reneged on their pledge to provide aid to poor countries and that if the present trends continue 45 million children will needlessly die in the next 10 years.
The report breaks down the economics. Jim Wallis of Sojourners told a magazine writer that fearful people aren’t generous people.

September 11 changed everything. I don’t often agree with Trent Lott, but he’s right about that. America is now living in a kind of fear that we didn’t know before. We feel vulnerable now. The myth of American invulnerability was shattered. The idea of random, unexpected, catastrophic violence that takes your loved ones, is something that most of the world’s people already live with: Sarajevo, San Salvador, Cape Town. In fact, the kids in my neighborhood, urban children of color, had a very different response to 9/11. They thought it was terrible, but they weren’t shocked or traumatized. They’re used to this kind of insecurity and vulnerability. We don’t know how to deal in America with vulnerability. But we are vulnerable in this kind of world.

The juxtaposition of a superpower trying to reconfigure the Middle East and the world during the same period when a sniper held us all in absolute terror in this area was such a parable of how we can’t accept vulnerability. We want to erase it, wipe it away, to use our firepower to be rid of it. We can’t. Part of being human is being vulnerable and we can’t deal with it.

I agree. We don’t deal with our vulnerability well. And because we don’t, those who are even more vulnerable perish because we are afraid.

In 2003, the average aid budget of wealthy countries was just 0.25% of national income, and just 0.14% for the US.

Poorer countries face 100 million dollars per day in debt payments.

I don’t know how to break down numbers, nor do I understand finance.
The point that hit me between the eyes is a simple one…needless.

Canadian Business Magazine released it’s top 100 richest Canadians.
The rich are getting richer. What is it like to be seen as worth 22 billion dollars?
What burdens to the Ken Thompson’s carry? Many weathly people use their money wisely, many don’t. I suspect Thompson and his peers have fears most of us don’t.

Where do individual Canadians stand in regards to charitable giving?
We are as individuals more generous than our government.

Canada

Canada has over 75,000 registered charities. Of which more than 40% are places or worship such as churches and mosques. Other registered charities include institutions such as universities and libraries. About 23% of registered charities exist to help the disadvantaged. Annual giving in Canada is over $90 billion CDN, if one puts a dollar figure on volunteer time. The most charitable province is Newfoundland, which has the highest rate of individual donations per capita. Canadians give, on average, $239 dollars per year to charity. About one third of Canadians volunteer annually and 5% of corporations make donations. In Canada about two-thirds of the funding for charitable foundations comes from the government.

The level of government funding has recently caused controversy as cutbacks have led to problems with such programmes as food banks. Another controversy is the denial of charitable status to environmental and political groups. There have also been calls for greter regulation of the charitable sector. Recent years have seen a new breed of charities that pour most of their donations into marketing. These groups grow quickly and attract many donors but a far smaller fraction of each donation goes to help the needy.

In hard dollars Canadians give $40.36 per person per year and the country ranks 16th in the world.