>To change the subject, the media just discovered recently that there are poor people in the southern United States. The media of today has not brought our nation to the reality that we have social problems which have not been addressed. More important is the big stories that advertisers are willing to pay for.

How can you say "not being addressed"??? Since LBJ's War on Poverty, "we" have spent trillions of tax dollars to "fight" poverty. The issue here is not throwing more money at this very real problem. We need to do some real soul searching as to why this has been such a colossal gov't failure. (key word here is "gov't").

>Additionally, we are so caught up in trying to pay our bills and survive we prefer to be entertained rather than be socially aware. Social awareness is the first step in improving our society. We can help other people but we cannot help ourselves.

Why should we worry about poverty in our own country when we see hundreds of billions of our tax dollars going to D.C. to address this issue. Haven't we all been assimilated and brainwashed into thinking more gov't is the solution to all our ills? All sarcasm aside, poverty will only be alleviated when voters wake up and start asking hard questions of these so-called leaders (some of us call them poverty pimps). The media does us no favors either since most of them have political axes to grind instead. About the only exceptions I have seen are Stone Phillips and John Stocel (sp?).