a brain dump

[eub]

I don't usually give money to beggars on the street. (Mostly because although begging on the street is better than some ways to spend one's life, I don't feel like it helps most people in the long run to keep them doing it. Paternalistic this is, yes. Consequently I ought to give to charities I do find helpful, which has always languished along with retirement planning and proper investment as something that has a lot more financial weight after I get a real job (though I admit the value of good habits), so my giving is right now just to various activist-for-my-selfish-interests groups.) Anyway. So the guy who often sits up on Craig near the Geagle, for example, I regularly go by him coming and going, and each time he hits me up for change. Perversely, I kind of resent this -- doesn't he know me by now? -- and might be more likely to give him money if he stopped asking. It's like he's not doing his job.