Think of the Kittens

I think it’s time for another Homeless News You Can’t Use Roundup!

In this Eastertide season we have lots of Homeless News relating to Jesus and friends, and I must mention some of them.

In Albuquerque, Rev. Trey Hammond gave a couple of homeless men a camera to photograph scenes from their own lives that reminded them of stories from the last week of Christ’s life, because, you know, Jesus was homeless, too. I had to mention that because every time anyone says, “Jesus was homeless, too,” a kitten is born, and you all know we need more kittens all the time.

On Good Friday in Honolulu, a group of legislators marched barefoot dodging pebbles and broken glass along a 5-mile route as "a small way of acknowledging the suffering" of the poor on a day memorializing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They made 14 stops along the way, corresponding to the Stations of the Cross, to pray for and talk to homeless people, and made various donations.

Some of the marchers put duct tape on their feet. When it was suggested that this was cheating, because Jesus and his Apostles had no duct tape, State Rep. Michael Kahikina said, "But Jesus gave us wisdom!"

So in two thousand years Jesus gave us the wisdom to invent duct tape so we can march for the poor and homeless in an approximately barefoot state. There is no limit to what Jesus may give us the wisdom to do in another two thousand years. I want a levitator I can have surgically embedded under my corns, so I can walk on water in an approximately barefoot state. For the poor and homeless. That would be wise.

In a press release circulated for pay on Press Release Network by 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, we learn that 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, has sung hymns for 40 hours 17 minutes FOR THE HOMELESS, in order to “get into either the Guinness Book of World Records or The Book of Alternative Records.”

Depending on how you read the press release by 55-year old Terry Coleman of Denver, CO, the event of his singing of the hymns was held at Tabitha’s Restaurant either on Feb. 12 or next July. In any case Terry was 54 at the time, and he hoped to raise a lot of money for the homeless, including his homeless brother, but he didn’t. Also, the Guiness Book of World Records doesn’t choose to have an entry for longest hymn singing.

I am just thrilled to learn that I can inundate the world’s news outlets with my own press release for only a couple hundred dollars or so in the hopes of raising funds for the poor and the homeless. I’m thinking of announcing my learning of this fact. My press release will say: Dr. Wes Browning of Seattle, WA, has learned how to flood the world with press releases at a cost of only a couple hundred dollars or so FOR THE HOMELESS. Please make your checks out to Dr. Wes Browning, and put “FOR THE HOMELESS” on the comment line, so he knows how to spend your generous donation of any amount large or small.

Finally, in the non-religious Homeless News You Can’t Use category a 2-1 vote of a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Los Angeles’ no-sitting ordinance because it violates the 8th Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

You can’t use that news because the court explicitly cited Seattle’s No-Sitting ordinance as one of many such laws around the country that they consider acceptable because the Seattle law is limited to certain hours of the day, and only applies in restricted zones.

Still, it’s nice to know that 2 out of 3 Ninth Circuit justices think homeless people should be able to sleep somewhere, sometime, without being arrested for it.

Maybe they were really thinking of the kittens.