Crunchy Con

TV Lady: A Lifetime of Mooching

Sunday December 23, 2007

Turns out that Shiftless Sharon Jasper, the New Orleans woman -- TV Lady, we've called her here -- who complains about the (pretty nice) publicly subsidized apartment in which she lives, which doubles as a hangar for her massive flat-screen television, has been sucking at the public teat for all her life. She's 58.

Shiftless Sharon the TV Lady is one reason why New Orleans is the mess that it is, and was before Katrina. There are deserving poor people, and undeserving poor people. She's the latter. One Louisiana blogger comments on Shiftless Sharon's story:

This perfectly illustrates one of my biggest complaints about taxpayer funded charity. Nearly twenty years ago when I was in need I applied for, and got, welfare. I got off of welfare at my earliest opportunity, but the hours I spent waiting in line with other beneficiaries were as educational as the secretarial course the welfare system paid to put me through. Those women felt entitled: “my check,” “my benefits,” “my food stamps,” “my money.” One woman’s youngest child was going to turn 18, and she had been on welfare his entire life. What to do? She and another woman came up with a strategy - take some job, any job, and “hurt” her back. Then social security would “kick in” and she’d be set for life. Entirely too many people think there should be a way to get through life without having to work. That’s not reality - or it shouldn’t be. We are fools to allow it.

The very fact that Ms. Jasper is outraged, outrages me. Her feeling of entitlement is completely misplaced, and it’s offensive. These projects were never supposed to be homes. They were supposed to be places to live temporarily, while you get on your feet and become independent again. We don’t need to provide Ms. Jasper with new housing in any location - we need to teach her whatever she needs to know in order to pay her own way.

The blogger also finds US Census data showing that more than 25 percent of poor households contain a big-screen television. More than half have two or more TVs.

[H/T: Michelle Malkin]

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Comments
Max Schadenfreude
December 27, 2007 1:38 PM

Will...

Max Schadenfreude
December 27, 2007 1:39 PM

You.

Max Schadenfreude
December 27, 2007 1:39 PM

Got.

Max Schadenfreude
December 27, 2007 1:40 PM

Bupkis.

Max Gladenfreude
January 2, 2008 4:32 PM

I understand the desire to rejoice in the suffering of others, but to be the cause of that suffering??? That I don't get.

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About Crunchy Con

Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.

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